The first day of podium training at worlds is in the books, and here’s what we’ve learned:

• No AA for Murakami. Murakami Mai trained only beam and floor on day 1, sitting out vault and bars (which also takes her out of medal-favorite status on vault). She said expects this to be her final competition. Do not recognize, do not accept.

• While Rebeca Andrade has not done her podium training session yet, she has confirmed that she will not compete floor at worlds, which takes two of the three pre-meet medal favorites out of the all-around. Now, Melnikova looks like the one to watch for the world title, with Kayla DiCello moving up the ladder as her most compelling challenger, and the medal outlook improving for Wei Xiaoyuan and, dare I say it, Leanne Wong if she can hit four events on the same day.

• The United States didn’t officially give anything away regarding its lineups by having all four gymnasts train all four events in their podium session. But, with McClain leading off the group on bars and floor and Frazier leading off on beam, it did seem that the first athlete up in PT would be the one to sit on that event in actual competition. Which would mean that DiCello and Wong would compete the all-around—an actual…sensible and logical team decision from the US? I don’t know where I am.

• China had only two athletes—Wei Xiaoyuan and Qi Qi—perform floor in podium training, which would indicate that Wei will be China’s only all-arounder here. They’ll then have Qi aiming for vault and floor medals and Li Shijia and Luo Rui aiming for bars and beam medals. At this point I pretty much expect to see every member of China’s team make at least one final as long as bars and beam aren’t splatfests, which I wouldn’t say about any of the other countries (at least those that brought full squads).

• Here’s an updated look at the pre-worlds AA rankings, now removing the athletes whom we believe won’t compete the all-around:

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• Chances having improved dramatically for people like D’Amato (actually both), Hatakeda, and Heduit, with very realistic spots in the lead group in the AA final up for grabs, and potentially even medals depending on how things go in the falls department.

• In other news, Elze Geurts did in fact perform two vaults. Given the depleted vault field, she seems a solid choice for the final, where Andrade, Melnikova, Devillard, and Qi will be the front runners and any manner of things could happen after that.

• In conclusion, Becky Downie trained a 6.6 D score on bars

• Video playlist

As with the all-around rankings, these pre-worlds event rankings take each gymnast’s 2021 peak score (or peak 2-vault average in the case of vault) in order to compare them to the rest of the field and see what the current hierarchy is. And in case you’re keeping track, yes we are slightly over one day away from the start of podium training. Is…is she ready?

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Vault is absolutely my favorite event for worlds this year. Because the field is expected to be so light, we should see some gymnasts who would never imagine they could make a world vault final placing…maybe even in the top 5. Andrade is Andrade, and her biggest obstacle here will be…whether she decides to go for the vault final or not. If she does, she’s the massive favorite. Meanwhile, Melnikova will also be in the mix (and may not even need the Cheng to get a medal), and Murakami should be able to overcome the disappointment of missing the vault final in Tokyo as long as she competes two vaults here.

Devillard is the most likely spoiler for that trio. Her best vault average this year is a tier lower than the top 3 have scored, but that’s also with a Yurchenko full instead of the DTY she can perform. With an upgrade, or any of the previous three deciding not to do two vaults or to downgrade, she’ll be right there. Similarly, Qi Qi could put herself close to the medal mix by upgrading back to her previous difficulty.

Beyond those top contenders, there should be ample opportunity for some of the typical Challenge Cuppers, like Bacskay and Kysselef, to make a final. Their better performances this year, like when Bacskay won Mersin or when Kysselef won Koper, would put them right into the top echelon of vault scores in this field. 

There are a few other athletes to keep in mind who haven’t shown a second vault score this year but who may/will compete two vaults here, like Elze Geurts who is going specifically as a vault/floor specialist, or perhaps one of the Italians if the mood strikes. Basically, anyone who has even a sliver of a second vault should go for it because at this point a Yurchenko full can make the world final.

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*Domestic bonus used. (Officially. As opposed to literally all the other scores, where an unofficial domestic bonus is used.)

While the vault field looks wispy, the bars field should be pretty deep, with a nice Russia v. China battle brewing. Even though bars did not turn out to be the biggest problem for China at the Olympics, their 7th-place bars finish among 8 countries in the team final was deeply un-China. A couple members of this worlds squad (and by a couple, I mean Wei Xiaoyuan and Wei Xiaoyuan) might be looking to use this competition to say, “Welllllll, perhaps if you had taken me, things would have been different.” Meanwhile, Melnikova is the only Olympic bars finalist returning to worlds, and she and Urazova went 4th and 5th in qualification in Tokyo, setting themselves up as big medal favorites here.

Under typical circumstances, Andrade is probably going to score a touch behind this lead group on bars, but she certainly can make the final along with a number of the other athletes who finished alongside her in the 14-19 zone at the Olympics, including Zsofia Kovacs, Filipa Martins, Lee Yunseo, and Alice D’Amato. Good picks for the final, all of them, and I’d include non-Olympians Kayla DiCello and Elisa Iorio in the same tier of athletes who will be fighting among themselves for any remaining places.

And then there’s Becky Downie. She ranks only 13th here (11th if you do 2-per-country) using her score from that extra trial in that leaky broom cupboard, but we know she is medal-capable and has the necessary difficulty to beat pretty much everyone here. Then again, she struggled at the worlds trial and will have to adjust to the Taishan bars, so she’s a bit of a wildcard at this one.

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China looks very capable of repeating the gold-silver placement from the Olympics, with all three of the presumed beam competitors (Li, Luo, Wei) ranking among the top 3 beamers in this field. 

Russia, meanwhile, will have an interesting decision to make. With Melnikova and Minaeva announced as the all-arounders, only one of Urazova (tied for 3rd) and Vorona (6th) can do beam in qualification. I assume it will be Vorona because otherwise…why is she here? But, based on the format of the competition and what we’ve heard from the team so far, Russia would have to bench one of its major contenders.

The US brings its heartiest crop of finals contenders on beam and should get at least one person into the final, if not two, looking in particular to place McClain in there since she has the highest scoring potential of the bunch and would be the most likely to win an actual medal.

Ashikawa got into the Olympic event final at the last second when Iordache had to withdraw, but with a similar qualification performance at worlds, she shouldn’t have much trouble getting into the 8 here.

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Floor appears to be closer to vault in terms of the depth of the field and clarity of the top contenders. Also in terms of who those contenders are, with Melnikova, Murakami, and Andrade looking a likely podium again here. But these scores should also serve as a reminder that we did see Andrade suffer out-of-bounds problems enough at the Olympics that the biggest total isn’t a given for her.

I’d expect DiCello to make the final if she performs normally, and Wong is certainly capable of it as well with one of her good floor days. As the third-highest-scoring floor worker in the group this year thanks to that 14.233 from the second day of Olympic Trials, Wong must be considered a true contender—and also has one of the more concise US floor routines without those extra elements that proved costly for members of the Olympic team. (Now, if we could just replace that switch ring with a different C element…) 

Expect to see some surprises in this final because outside of that top 5 or so, things get very ambiguous. If Qi Qi shows up with a hit, I’m on board. And then we’ve got Visser? Hatakeda, Heduit, and Van Pol? There’s a huge traffic jam in the mid-low 13s that would seem to point to many many gymnasts feeling like they’ve got a shot at this one.

I put together some pre-worlds all-around rankings to get a sense of who is truly in contention for medals this year. This uses the peak score earned on each apparatus during 2021, so these totals should in no way be treated as predictive. What with domestic scoring and getting to ignore all the bad ones, these scores are way higher than what we’ll actually see at worlds. But hopefully what the list does is provide a sense of the hierarchy and likely contenders heading into competition, which starts in less than a week. I know.

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**Athletes either have been announced as not competing the all-around or did not compete all four events at the final trial/most recent meet.

As the Olympic silver and bronze medalists, Andrade and Melnikova are bestowed with obvious pre-meet favorite status, status that is solidified by Russia’s announcement that Urazova will do only select events at worlds and Minaeva will instead compete the all-around (but also it’s Valentina, so who knows what will really happen).

After pulling out of Olympic selection with injury, Li Shijia is back for worlds, though she competed only bars and beam at National Games, which may indicate limited contribution here. We’ll see. At her best, Li is the highest AA scorer on this Chinese squad, but I also don’t imagine she’d have full difficulty back on vault, even if she does compete all four apparatuses. National Games champion Wei Xiaoyuan is likely situated at the best AA bet for China, though with Wei, Li, and Luo all having very similar scoring strengths, it could go any which way depending on the day. Qi Qi’s peak is also close to the other three, but I assume she’ll be competing just VT/FX here, and then it would be between Li and Luo as to who gets to do the all-around with Wei, versus who is just UB/BB.

The US should have at least one medal contender in the all-around in DiCello, and whether they have two will depend on Leanne Wong’s competition status. If she does the all-around, which of course she should, she would be right there with DiCello—assuming a hit meet (….) that is. But, we’ll have to see what the US team does with the lineup spots considering that Frazier finished second AA at the trial, ahead of Wong.

For now, these rankings tell us that the six favorites to qualify in the lead group for the all-around final would be Andrade, Melnikova, Wong, DiCello, Murakami, and Wei, and I think that’s a pretty solid reflection of who the top competitors are here. And while Andrade and Melnikova would be medal favorites, with Andrade a pretty comfortable gold medal pick at this point and Melnikova a tentative second place, the race for bronze would be verrrry open, with a nice opportunity presenting itself for Murakami in particular at a home world championship.

Rank order.

The US women’s program has named the world championships team: Kayla DiCello, eMjae Frazier, Leanne Wong, and Konnor McClain, with Olivia Greaves and Ciena Alipio missing out. Those four team members also happened to be the top four in the all-around standings at yesterday’s competition. Would you look at that. We don’t yet know what happened with today’s routines or whether they were used in any way to make a decision, but you know, the Forster Era and all-around standings.

So, as is very much the theme, the team you’d pick based on the actual scores from selection (at least the ones we have from yesterday) was not chosen. Since there’s no team competition this year, we can’t play “who makes up the highest-scoring team,” but McClain is the only athlete yesterday who did not finish in the top 3 on anything—except vault, which doesn’t matter because no one competed two vaults. Since only 3 people can compete each event at worlds, Friday’s competition did not present any scores-based or routines-based argument for McClain, so selecting her does not adhere to the “athletes select themselves” mantra or “the trial decides the team” approach that Tom Forster thinks he espouses. That’s why Olivia Greaves has a very legitimate Greave-ance (I love me) for not being named to the squad.

Now with that out of the way…I absolutely would have selected McClain for this team too if given the latitude to do so. As I said yesterday at the end of the live blog, Konnor McClain is the most talented gymnast in this field of six, and I’d look for any possible way to get her on this team. When she actually stays on, her beam is the single most believable event-medal prospect among any of these athletes. That is a world class routine and McClain should be a significant athlete for the US this quad, so it’s fully worth it to give her a try at worlds. You always gain more from bringing a nail-biter that could medal than from bringing a hit for 11th place.

But I don’t think that’s actually why McClain was selected, as much sense as it might make. This regime has never selected teams based on concepts like potential or talent. I think McClain was selected because she finished 4th in the all-around yesterday, which has no bearing whatsoever on anything. So…a choice I like but for reasons I don’t? That’s what I’m assuming based on precedent and also everything.

The big surprise to me—or at least it would have been a surprise before watching yesterday’s competition—is the inclusion of eMjae Frazier on the team. I’m not sold on her finals-making prospects because floor is the event where she made a case yesterday, and floor scores were quite elevated and unrealistic compared to the scoring we saw at the Olympics. Still, she was one of only two athletes to hit her routines, and I don’t think anyone who missed the team earned it more than Frazier did. Greaves did hit bars, her specialty event, but for a score that was still just in the 13s. Frazier had to score an upset at camp, and she did exactly that.

Plus, there was no way the Tomtoms were ever going to leave off someone who finished 2nd AA.

As for DiCello and Wong, no surprises there. DiCello got an automatic spot with her win yesterday, while Wong was the only other athlete to win an event (floor) and has top-2 all-around scoring potential in this group when she hits. Wong needs to be at worlds and earned it (close enough, it wasn’t great, but close enough) at Friday’s competition.

Next step…who does the all-around at worlds? Who does each event? Does Frazier’s 2nd-place finish at camp get her an all-around spot over Wong?