Here’s a rundown on who qualified to each final in Melbourne and a quick note on how things are shaping up on each event. Finals begin at 6:00pm Saturday local time, which is 2:00am ET/11:00pm PT in US time, and are indeed streaming at the Olympic Channel.
Men’s Floor
- Kirill Prokopev – 15.000
- Ryu Sunghyun – 14.500
- Milad Karimi – 14.433
- Rayderley Zapata – 14.066
- Ethan Dick – 13.966
- Jorge Vega Lopez – 13.933
- Yahor Sharamkou – 13.900
- Bram Verhofstad – 13.633
Rayderley Zapata achieved his first goal, which was making the final. Qualifying in 4th may be a bit of a concern for him, though he is currently in a position of control and can therefore afford not to win this event and still be the frontrunner to get the Olympic spot. For now. The door remains open for someone like Prokopev, and if Prokopev were to win the title here, he’s in this race. Still, he has left it quite late and would need to be very good at everything remaining.
(Prokopev’s quest to challenge Zapata would also be helped if the FIG does not end up redistributing points from those who qualified to the Olympics as individuals. The original rules discuss redistributing points from those who qualified as part of teams, but makes no mention of individuals. Which is insane, but also…FIG. Part of Zapata’s frontrunner status is based on his gaining points redistributed from Yulo, Dolgopyat, and Shatilov.)
Tomas Gonzalez did not advance to the final, and I don’t want to talk about it.
Women’s Vault
- Jade Carey – 15.049
- Shoko Miyata – 14.166
- Coline Devillard – 14.050
- Ahtziri Sandoval – 13.916
- Maria Paseka – 13.883
- Angelina Radivilova – 13.883
- Teja Belak – 13.849
- Tkasa Kysselef – 13.733
Carey did what she had to do in qualification, scoring nearly a point better than anyone else and moving ever closer to the almost-basically-assured-but-not-quite-mathematically-guaranteed Olympic spot status she can reach with a victory here. Maria Paseka did not go for anything near full difficulty in qualification, but I’m sure we can count on her to chuck some insanity in the final. It also looks like Devillard fell on her DTY, but she would be the other closest challenger to Carey if she hits in the final.
Pommel Horse
- Stephen Nedoroscik – 14.600
- Saeedreza Keikha – 14.400
- Vladislav Poliashov – 14.300
- Kohei Kameyama – 14.300
- Joshua Natha – 14.233
- Tan Fu Jie – 14.200
- Robert Seligman – 14.133
- Thierry Pellerin – 14.100
Stephen Nedoroscik is the somewhat surprising leader of the pack after qualification with a 14.600—also doing his campaign to petition onto the national team some real good. The favorite for the title with the highest D remains Kohei Kameyama, but everyone else wants him to miss in the final so that their hopes of the Olympic spot remain alive. If Kameyama wins, there’s basically no remaining opening for the other, non-Weng-Hao, athletes in this race.
Uneven Bars
- Anastasia Iliankova – 14.800
- Daria Spiridonova – 14.266
- Diana Varinska – 14.100
- Anastasia Bachynska – 13.466
- Aoka Mori – 13.333
- Georgia-Rose Brown – 13.266
- Georgia Godwin – 13.066
- Kokoro Fukusawa – 12.933
Iliankova was the clear class of the field in qualification, with the highest difficulty and highest E score by quite a margin. She’ll need to do the same in the final to keep any shred of hope alive to catch Fan Yilin. Iliankova doesn’t have any wins to this point, which drastically hampers her ability to contend, so she needs the win here.
Still Rings
- Eleftherios Petrounias – 15.058
- Courtney Tulloch – 14.700
- Mahdi Kohani – 14.633
- Ali Zahran – 14.500
- Ng Kiu Chung – 14.333
- Hamza Yilmaz – 13.200
- Devy Dyson – 13.033
- Rick Jacobs – 12.766
The competition on rings is all about Petrounias trying to stay alive in his last-ditch attempt to make the Olympics—which requires victories at all three remaining events to have even a slight shot. So, with this qualification result, he’s setting himself up to keep it going. Tulloch basically looks like the only other person with a shot to challenge Liu Yang, and he at least stayed close (but clearly behind) Petrounias on the first day.
Men’s Vault
- Jorge Vega Lopez – 14.666
- James Bacueti – 14.616
- Yahor Sharamkou – 14.616
- Joshua Valle – 14.566
- Andrey Medvedev – 14.553
- Shin Jaehwan – 14.549
- Audrys Nin Reyes – 14.526
- Milad Karimi – 14.433
The men’s vault field is increedddddibly tight, with just a little over two tenths separating the top qualifier Vega Lopez from the 9th-place athlete who didn’t advance, Hidenobu Yonekura. That is quite significant because if anyone looked in the best position to take the vault spot in this wide-open Olympic fight, it was Yonekura. (Also missing the final was contender Tseng Wei-Sheng.) They’ll both now leave Melbourne with unusable point totals, allowing…well nearly everyone else here at least the hope of getting into a competitive point-total position.
Karimi has already qualified to the Olympics and Valle and Bacueti are far enough back that it would take more than just this one result to break into the top group, but the rest of them will feel pretty confident in their positions moving forward if they can get a win here. Actually, because this one is so open, even 2nd- and 3rd-place finishes can be helpful.
Balance Beam
- Urara Ashikawa – 13.766
- Anastasia Bachynska – 13.666
- Emma Nedov – 13.100
- Ayaka Sakaguchi – 13.066
- Ondine Achampong – 12.991
- Georgia Godwin – 12.966
- Diana Varinska – 12.666
- Emma Spence – 12.533
Lots still to be decided on beam, and because the major players all made the final, we don’t know anything more than we did beforehand. The frontrunners in the field heading in were Nedov and Ashikawa, both with one win so far. If either were to take the title here, she would suddenly look like an actual favorite in this beam race that has been short on favorites so far. (If Ashikawa wins, Nedov would remain ahead in the standings, but Ashikawa would have more room to grow her point total at the remaining two events and would be poised to move ahead.) Yet because we have no real favorite yet, Anastasia Bachynska can still get herself into the race with a title in Melbourne.
Parallel Bars
- Yusuke Tanaka – 15.166
- Vladislav Poliashov – 15.100
- Dinh Phuong Thanh – 14.800
- Shoichi Yamamoto – 14.700
- Milad Karimi – 13.833
- Sercan Demir – 13.800
- Frank Rijken – 13.633
- Mitchell Morgans – 13.600
Vladislav Poliashov’s Olympic qualification position is the best of the competitors here, though in order to truly take advantage of this event and get himself into a more solid position in the race against You Hao, he’s looking for a victory here and nothing else. Tanaka could complicate things. The other viable contender for the PBars spot in the field here, Mitchell Morgans, jussst got himself into the final, but he’ll have to improve on that finish quite a bit on the last day to stay in the race.
Women’s Floor
- Jade Carey – 14.366
- Vanessa Ferrari – 13.733
- Lara Mori – 13.541
- Georgia Godwin – 13.433
- Ondine Achampong – 12.833
- Isabela Onyshko – 12.766
- Breanna Scott – 12.733
- Emma Spence – 12.700
It’s no surprise that Jade Carey is leading here after qualifications, but we did have some surprises among the rest of this floor field with both Claudia Fragapane and Anastasia Bachynska missing out on the final. That is lovely news for the Italians because, if everything goes to plan and Carey gets the vault spot, it removes two of the more compelling challengers for the Italian stranglehold on the floor spot. This event is now all about whether Ferrari or Mori does better.
Actually finishing 2nd—not just better than the other one—is quite significant because a 3rd-place result doesn’t help the ranking-point picture for either. Godwin could therefore spoil things by taking silver in the final and being like, “I’m already going to the Olympics and no one else gets any points suckkkaaaaas.”
Ferrari in particular is looking for that 2nd-place result because even though she has a win so far, she also has a couple 3rd-place finishes. She could erase one of those with a 2nd-place result here and get herself into a better position with respect to Mori, while Mori is basically just trying to keep Ferrari from doing exactly that.
High Bar
- Epke Zonderland – 14.266
- Mitchell Morgans – 14.166
- Milad Karimi – 14.166
- Hidetaka Miyachi – 14.133
- Tyson Bull – 14.066
- Umit Samiloglu – 13.466
- Alexander Myakinin – 13.200
- Mikahil Koudinov – 13.066
Initial mission accomplished with neither Zonderland and Miyachi imploding in qualification. Both advanced to the final, which means we just now wait and see what happens. Little can be read into the qualification placements in this case because Miyachi competed his small-baby-boy routine to safely get to the final and has much, much more difficulty he could (will) add. Zonderland competed more difficulty than Miyachi but also did not throw everything he could throw. The final is going to be very different than qualification.
Not likely to happen as of now, but what happens if two athletes from the same country win two different events? Say Paseka won the vault series and Iliankova bars, who gets the spot?
IIRC, there’s an intra-country tiebreak, where the spot goes to the athlete with the higher average ranking points earned from all apparatus WC events participated in on that particular apparatus. So in the case of Weng Hao and Liu Yang – two chinese MAG gymnasts who are currently #1 in their apparatus spots (PH and rings), Liu Yang would win a theoretical tiebreak AS OF NOW, because he’s only gotten first place points, and Weng Hao has a couple 2nd and 3rd place points.
Interesting. So if both had perfect 90s, and one athlete had attended more events than the other, wouldn’t they likely be at a disadvantage?
Yes, in theory! I think Liu has gone to fewer events than Weng (he’s gone to exactly three), so that disadvantages Weng, since he’s had more opportunities to Not Win.
At the same time, it’s important for athletes to keep showing up to events even after they get a perfect 90, because they want to prevent other athletes from other countries from getting that perfect 90. So in Liu Yang’s case, another gymnast (say, Petrounias) could theoretically win the next three rings events, get a perfect 90, and thus trigger a tiebreak with Liu. Liu would probably prefer to attend the world cups to stop that from happening – but because of the coronavirus situation, that choice is out of his hands RN.
The tiebreaker at that point (between athletes of two different countries) would involve adding up the three highest world cup scores (gymnast with highest score prevails).
No blog with a discussion of the results?