Monthly Archives: June 2022

Meet Recap

National Team Update — Europe & Africa

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Europe

Italy
In the absence of the banned Russian team, the Italians continue to be the class of European gymnastics, dominating this week’s Mediterranean Games with gold in every discipline along with silver in the AA and on bars, beam, and floor. Martina Maggio and Asia D’Amato have been the team’s clear scoring leaders in 2022, both leaving the Mediterranean Games with 3 golds and 2 silvers. Giorgia Villa—who has competed only bars and beam so far this year—added a bars gold to Italy’s haul, and first-year senior Angela Andreoli, who already seems to have carved out a regular spot for herself in the D’Amato-Villa-Maggio government, took vault bronze.

All of which amounts to the Italians heading into August’s European Championship as the lightly-set favorite for team gold with the highest scoring potential among the attending squads. Even when using only scores from multi-nation competitions and eliminating some obviously inflated numbers from Serie A, the Italians still have the highest-scoring team in Europe, though not by a large margin over the British. The budding Italian/British rivalry that was born of Great Britain’s 4-tenth victory in the race for Olympic bronze should be reignited in Munich.  

Great Britain
Current news from the world of British gymnastics primarily concerns absences. The team-leading Gadirovas were not named to the English squad for the Commonwealth Games after pulling themselves out of consideration, electing instead to prepare for meets like the European Championship. Their absences will allow for a newly competing again Claudia Fragapane—as well as fellow veteran Kelly Simm—to see if they can use the CWG to make a case for their returns to major British teams.

Becky Downie’s Achilles tear, which will keep her out of this year’s major competitions, is a blow, and with Amelie Morgan at Utah, the current British group is in the deeply unusual position of needing to bolster its bars scores. Beam is scoring better than bars right now. The world is shaken. That probably means a significant place on teams this year for the oft-overlooked Georgia-Mae Fenton (who is now the top-scoring, actually healthy British bars worker), but it could also mean an opening for Simm, who has always counted bars as her best event.

France
The French team—absent Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos and this year’s scoring leader Aline Friess—nonetheless took a solid second to the Italians at the Mediterranean Games and survived a potentially devastating injury scare to Lorette Charpy, who will have to miss next weekend’s national championship but is not supposed to be out for an extended period.

Also absent from the start list for nationals is De Jesus Dos Santos, who was last seen having perfect form at WCC. When DJDS is back, the French team will have a very competitive case to challenge Italy and Great Britain, at least as long as the federation doesn’t self-sabotage itself too hard. With De Jesus Dos Santos, Friess, Heduit, Charpy, and perhaps Devillard vaulting or Boyer beaming (or veteran Morgane Osyssek, who was part of the Mediterranean team and is having her most competitive season), the scores are there on all four events.

Germany
Last weekend’s German Championship provided an opportunity to get the classic gang back together—while showing that they’re still the best in the country and should be named to all the teams with little anxiety wasted over the decision. Sarah Voss took the all-around championship and vault title, Kim Bui won the bars and floor titles and placed second in the all-around, Pauline Schaefer won beam, and Elisabeth Seitz took second on bars with a majorly downgraded routine in her two-event performance. All four continue to be leagues ahead of the rest of the German elites, even when not fully back or competing all the events. The lack of challenge they face from the newer athletes will be a problem when they retire, but as long as they never do, everything is roses.

Among the next generation, I’d consider Emma Malewski the current frontrunner. She took third in the all-around at nationals sporting a very compelling 13.350 on beam that day. Germany is always looking for someone to provide a useful third beam score to go with Schaefer and Voss, and right now that person looks like Malewski.

Netherlands
The current [eyes emoji][squiggle mouth emoji] personal situation at the national team notwithstanding, last weekend’s Dutch Championship did produce some encouraging performances for the Netherlands in the hope that the squad can keep up its current status as a regular team-final challenger. Naomi Visser put in a dominant showing to win nearly every title available, and Shadé van Oorschot proved with her all-around bronze that she could be a legitimate new contender for major teams in the absence of the Weverseseses and with Thorsdottir slowly returning. 

Thorsdottir came back to show work-in-progress beam and floor routines at nationals, falling a few times on beam and performing a floor routine that was mostly about emoting and not so much about the D score. When Thorsdottir is in full form, there will remain a spot for her on Dutch teams because she does gymnastics correctly, but as of nationals she’s not currently showing the routines that would put her on a team.

In terms of those who are currently contributing scores along with Visser and van Oorschot, Sanna Veerman didn’t have an awesome national championship on bars, her best event, but she has scored 14 a couple times so far this year, which the Netherlands needs. Tisha Volleman continues to be a stalwart presence as well, so with them, the Netherlands should still consider itself a continental contender with scores this year that are on par with the German team in that tier right below Italy, GB, and France.

Worlds watch
At the Mediterranean Games, the Turkish women put up a solid fight to finish fourth, not too far behind the bronze medalists Spain, which bodes well for their chances to qualify a full team to worlds this year in the crucible of insanity that will be the race for the final few team places from Europe.

There are 13 team spots available at worlds for countries from Europe, and nine obvious frontrunners for those spots: Italy, Great Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, Spain, and Romania.

Yes, Belgium’s scores have been a bit lower this year without Derwael, the same goes for Spain without Ana Perez or Roxana Popa or Cintia Rodriguez, and Romania is *gestures at 2015-2021* and all, but these nine countries should have the depth and quality of believable routines to make a 24-team worlds without an excess of drama.

That would leave four remaining team spots up in the air. If not for the everything, I’d consider Ukraine as one of the frontrunners as well, but much will depend on whether they go and the athlete availability and training situation.

Then there’s a nation like Switzerland, which is always part of the in-crowd but has more or less not competed this year. Finland has seen Maisa Kuusikko put up some gigantic scores and actually has a peak team total that would challenge the likes of Spain (probably unrealistic, but top 13 is viable), while Norway has been recording some of its best-ever results as world cups lately. Then you have Sweden, which should be in the conversation on talent, though Sweden always seems to be like, “We’ll send zero-point-three gymnasts to this meet instead of five because we hate them.”

But given the scores we’ve seen from Turkey both at world cups and the Mediterranean Games, this team should be at least amid that group of challengers, if not above. A big factor in Turkey’s favor is…actually having the requisite number of athletes to provide scores on each event, which is not an inconsequential consideration this year. There are a number of countries like Slovenia that would actually have the scores to contend, as long as they have three bars and floor routines.

Africa

Worlds watch
The Mediterranean Games also provided a look at the current state of Team Egypt as we head into next week’s African Championship, where one team spot for worlds will be available. Right now, Egypt and South Africa look pretty neck-and-neck for it given their results this year. 

Egypt took 6th place at the Mediterranean Games with a full team (which did not include Nancy Taman, whose vault you’d consider a necessity if she’s healthy), recording scores that would be about 1.5 behind the composite of what we’ve seen from the best South African athletes at various world cups so far this year. Which is basically just a single beam disaster.

South Africa has sent 11 different athletes to world cup events this year, which is an encouraging level of depth that presents a number of different, equivalently scoring options for a team. Olympians Caitlin Rooskrantz and Naveen Daries remain the top two athletes for South Africa, and you’d probably want to add the vault and floor scores put up by newer senior Garcelle Napier in Varna. We’ve also seen a countable bars score from Tamsyn Bessit in Koper and a useful beam score from Shante Koti and bars score from Caelin Mayers in Osijek, all providing realistic options. But you’ve got to pick five.

Last time around for Olympic qualification, there was a live stream of the African Championship, but we shall see this time. The precedent for continental championships in 2022 has not been encouraging.

 

World Championships

Why Didn’t Ashikawa Urara Make Japan’s Worlds Team?

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This week’s big news in the Actual Sport of Gymnastics department: Defending world beam champion and Olympic beam finalist Ashikawa Urara has been left off Japan’s team slated to compete in Liverpool this October. Instead, the team will be made up of five newcomers to world competition in Miyata Shoko, Kasahara Arisa, Yamada Chiharu, Sakaguchi Ayaka, and Fukusawa Kokoro. 

This led the esteemed members of the Conclave of the Blue Bird to proffer the following query:

whydont

So here’s the why: Japan uses a deeply specific system in which selection is taken out of the hands of selectors and is based exclusively on all-around ranking and scores at domestic competitions over a series of months.

First, the top 3 gymnasts in the all-around following three days of competition—two days of All-Japan Championships in April and one day of NHK Trophy in May—automatically earn their spots on the worlds team. Those gymnasts were Miyata Shoko, Kasahara Arisa, and Yamada Chiharu. 

The athletes who finished behind those three, in spots 4 through 10 in the rankings, were the only ones eligible for the 4th spot on the team, with selection based not on all-around ranking but on whoever added the most to a 3-count team score when joining Miyata, Kasahara, and Yamada. For this spot, selection waited until after last weekend’s All-Japan Event Championships so that these prospective specialists had another chance to improve their averages (only their best 2 scores on each apparatus from across the selection competitions counted).

Ultimately, that 4th spot on the team went to Sakaguchi Ayaka, whose vault, beam, and floor scores all improved the team score for a total gain of 1.6835 points, about three tenths more than what would have been contributed by the closest age-eligible contender.   

Kasahara Arisa13.516513.71613.616512.8495
Miyata Shoko14.28313.049513.366513.283
Yamada Chiharu14.016513.76612.73313.0995
Sakaguchi Ayaka14.18312.649513.316513.283
42.482540.531540.299539.6655162.979

For the 5th and final spot on the team, the same two-score average system was used to see who added the most to the team score, but in this case there were no limits on all-around finish or meet participation.

Because Ashikawa Urara finished 14th in the all-around after the NHK Trophy—thanks largely to a bars miss but also a 12 on vault—she was not eligible for the 4th spot and had to rely on the 5th spot as her lone chance to get on the worlds team. But she was not the only one.

Ashikawa performed well on beam back at April’s All-Japan Championship with a 14.200 and 14.133 on beam—so she already had two strong scores to lean on—but she struggled more recently. She scored in the low 13s at NHK and continued that at the event championship, going 13.033 in qualification and 13.233 in the final. That meant she was not able to improve her contribution to the team score.

Kasahara Arisa13.516513.71613.616512.8495
Miyata Shoko14.28313.049513.366513.283
Yamada Chiharu14.016513.76612.73313.0995
Sakaguchi Ayaka14.18312.649513.316513.283
Ashikawa Urara12.699512.18314.166512.800
42.482540.531541.149539.6655163.829

Meanwhile, Fukusawa Kokoro, who had finished 7th all-around after the AA competitions, busted out on bars at the event championships, going 14.033 in qualification and 14.233 in the final, both improving on her previous season high of 14.000.

Because the four already selected team members were a little weaker on bars than on beam in their counting performances, Fukusawa’s new scores helped her contribute a few tenths more to the team total than Ashikawa, which earned her the spot.

Kasahara Arisa13.516513.71613.616512.8495
Miyata Shoko14.28313.049513.366513.283
Yamada Chiharu14.016513.76612.73313.0995
Sakaguchi Ayaka14.18312.649513.316513.283
Fukusawa Kokoro13.616514.116512.26612.65
42.482541.598540.299539.6655164.046

So, long story long, that’s the process behind the controversy as to why Ashikawa was left off the worlds team. They had a system and they went with it. 

But…is it a good one? And does it make sense?

There are several laudable aspects of Japan’s current selection process: They have adjusted from the much-maligned 2019 selection process that left Murakami off the worlds team and are now at least *slightly* less bound by the all-around standings in selection with regard to that 5th spot. If this year’s system had been in place in 2019, there would have an avenue to put Murakami on the worlds team.

The system is also based entirely around scores from public meets, which (at least allegedly, with asterisks) is the more objective approach to team selection and is designed to reward those who show up right now at the critical meet, rather than those with prior accomplishments or favored status. After all, it was Fukusawa who delivered the scores in the big moment over the weekend with her two 14s on bars.

That’s why I don’t put this in the same category of outrage as the 2019 Murakami snub. In that case, Murakami was obviously the best gymnast whose scores would have easily put her on the team, but she was excluded because she wasn’t healthy enough to compete at one early-year selection meet, despite being healthy enough to compete at other meets both before and after. It was just a dumb technicality. In this case, there’s a fair scores-based argument for why you wouldn’t have put Ashikawa on the team.

But, fear not, there’s also much that can be picked apart here. Namely…hi, it’s June. If the entire process is based around maximizing the team score at worlds in October, wouldn’t you want to wait a little bit until it’s closer to October to see who might actually maximize that team score? What if Ashikawa shows up in August and September busting out the beam 14s?

Selection is also still quite all-around heavy in terms of the first four spots on the team and, for an approach that’s supposed to be deeply score-based, does not use all the most recent data available, with April’s national championship having weight in selection but last week’s Asian Championship not included at all.

Then there’s the age-old question of what the overarching priority should be in selecting a five-member squad: team score or overall medals? Last year, Japan was less than a point away from an Olympic team medal, and with Russia out this year, there’s every justification for Japan to push hard for a team medal by maximizing the 3-count score. Then again, that was a completely different group of gymnasts.

For a new squad that just got smashed by China by 10 points at the continental championship and finished behind South Korea, is maximizing the team score the best approach right now? Or would Japan have been better served by an event-medal focused selection process that favored both Fukusawa and Ashikawa instead of some of the all-arounders? But, are Ashikawa’s most recent beam results even indicative of someone who is going to win a beam medal this year? 

My conclusion is that Japan is a good enough team in general for the selection procedures to be written with maximizing the team score in mind. Team medals should not be treated as out of the question for Japan, even if they’re in rebuilding mode this year. But if the Japanese team leaves worlds this year with no medals—honestly, a probable outcome—we’re going to be looking back and saying, you didn’t even bring the defending beam champion, what did you think was going to happen?

World Championships

World Championships Qualification Update

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With the completion of the team and all-around events at the woefully unbroadcast Asian Championships—a competition that may have happened or may have just been a fevered vision of 1974 bleeding into this reality (we’ll never know)—we can now add a bunch of countries and people to the world championships qualification charts.

WOMENTeamsAll-Arounders
Europe
August 11-14		1323
Pan-America
July 15-17		511
AsiaChina
South Korea
Japan
Taiwan		Aida Bauyrzhanova (KAZ)
Rifda Irfanaluthfi (INA)
Milka Gehani (SRI)
Dildora Aripova (UZB)
Nadine Joy Nathan (SGP)
Ominakhon Khalilova (UZB)
Korkem Yerbossynkyzy (KAZ)
Sasiwimon Mueangphuan (THA)
Africa
July 8-11		14
OceaniaAustraliaKeira Rolston-Larking (NZL)
Reece Cobb (NZL)

Ultimately, China romped to the team title with little drama. The squad elected to ignore my advice and go with Luo Rui in the alternate spot as an act of aggression against me personally, though it ultimately made no difference in the final results with China taking gold by 10 points over South Korea in second.

This South Korea team outpacing the new-look Japanese squad for silver proved the one surprise of the women’s team competition—and may provoke some real concern for Japan this year. Korea’s big three of Lee Yunseo (who took AA bronze behind Zhang and Tang), Yeo Seojeong, and Shin Solyi all came through well and proved comfortably stronger than Japan’s three automatic qualifiers to the worlds team: Miyata Shoko, Yamada Chiharu, and Kasahara Arisa. That provokes the question, would we expect worlds to be any different, presumably with most of the same athletes? And does this mean South Korea is moving out of its typical place in the teens to become a team final contender, or is Japan falling down the ladder? Or both?

For Japan, this was not necessarily the best possible team, and eyes will be on this weekend’s event championships to see who might best be able to supplement this automatically qualified group—like for instance, perhaps, picking a name at random, world beam champion Ashikawa Urara. Also keep in mind Sakaguchi Ayaka’s vault scores, which I’d be keenly interested in given the vault downgrades and floor misses we saw from the Japanese team here. That’s not exactly a new development when Japanese gymnasts leave domestic competitions and have to go compete on boulders from other equipment brands, but also worlds this year is on Gymnova and the 2017 flashbacks are still raw, so…

As expected, Taiwan took the final available team spot, only about six points behind Japan, which should be gratifying for a team that finished 21 points behind Japan at 2018 worlds. Taiwan ended up eight points clear of Kazakhstan, so there was no real drama over team qualification in the end. 

For the all-around spots at worlds, we saw a mix of the expected and the surprising. Bauyrzhanova (KAZ) and Aripova (UZB) have shown through their apparatus world cup scores that they had this in them, and Irfanaluthfi (INA) and Nathan (SGP) proved with their performances at the SEA Games that should be able to qualify here, especially with countries like Vietnam and the Philippines not sending any WAG athletes. Milka Gehani of Sri Lanka followed her Olympic appearance with a strong number here that improved on her results from both the Olympics and 2019 worlds, while it was Mueangphuan of Thailand who surprised for the final spot with bigger vault and floor scores that put her just one tenth ahead of Hariadi of Indonesia, who just missed out. (Mueangphuan also tied with Jumabekova of Uzbekistan, but Jumabekova would have been 2-per-country-ed out anyway.)

Also missing out on an all-around spot was Hiu Ying Angel Wong of Hong Kong, but she should get to worlds to do beam through her world cup results once all the dust settles. Illinois gymnast Ruthuja Nataraj was the top all-around performer for India, but also just missed out on a worlds spot. 

Up next is the African Championship in early July, where South Africa and Egypt look to go head-to-head for the one team spot and a couple of those all-around spots should be up for grabs.

MENTeamsAll-Arounders
Europe
August 18-21		1323
Pan-America
July 15-17		46
AsiaChina
Japan
Taiwan
South Korea
Kazakhstan		Carlos Yulo (PHI)
Mahdi Ahmad Kohani (IRI)
Abdulla Azimov (UZB)
Khabibullo Ergashev (UZB)
Yogeshewar Singh (IND)
Gaurav Kumar (IND)
Africa
July 8-11		12
OceaniaAustraliaMikhail Koudinov (NZL)
William Fu-Allen (NZL)

The men had five team spots available from Asia compared to the women’s four, and the favorites all came through to get the spots they were expected to get. China again won the team title comfortably over a less-proven Japanese side, which just barely poked ahead of Taiwan and Korea for 2nd place. Kazakhstan finished farther back in 5th but still comfortably in the worlds spots ahead of Uzbekistan thanks largely to Milad Karimi Power.  

While more team spots were available for the men, fewer all-around spots were, with just six available. (There are fewer all-around spots overall for the men because they have more apparatus spots through the apparatus world cups, because of more events.) Carlos Yulo’s all-around silver medal, finishing less than a tenth behind China’s Shi Cong, of course earned him a spot at worlds, and India did get some all-around representation in the men’s competition with two qualifiers.

Hong Kong did not pursue an all-around spot here but with have Shek Wai Hung at worlds to do vault, and while Vietnam will have to bear not knowing this was the worlds qualifier [facepalm], Nguyen Van Khanh Phong should end up getting to worlds for rings.   

Meet Preview

Asian Championship Women’s Preview

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The Asian Championships—the next step in the world championship qualification pathway—begin this week in Doha. On offer for the women will be 4 team spots at worlds, as well as an additional 8 all-around spots for those who are not part of a qualifying country (the men have 5 team spots and 6 AA spots).

The team/AA competition will span two days for some reason, with vault and bars on June 15th followed by beam and floor on June 16th. That two-day competition will determine all the qualifiers for worlds, with event finals on the 17th and 18th to crown continental champions.

In the team department, China and Japan are the major favorites and should have no problem at all getting two of the four team spots available (though based on scores so far this year we could have a tightly matched race between the two).

While the Chinese women have not featured in an official competition so far this year (the national championship was canceled), they did hold an internal trial for the Asian Championship team, and subsequently named a traveling squad of Zhang Jin, Tang Xijing, Wu Ran, Wei Xiaoyuan, Luo Rui, and Sun Xinyi, with the alternate among that group of 6 still TBD. Since Tang, Wei, and Luo are necessary for bars, Zhang is looking very necessary for vault and floor, and Wu got 13.866 on floor at the trial, I’d venture to assume that the alternate will be Sun Xinyi, who is a phenomenal beamer on an already deep beam team, but we shall see.

Not making China’s team were Ou Yushan, who did not compete floor at the trial and did only a Yfull on vault, and Qi Qi, who may have been able to add some vaultishness to the group but didn’t show another competitive apparatus.

With several veterans in the selected team, China is bringing a much more experienced squad than Japan, which is in rebirth mode following the post-Olympic international retirements of Murakami, Teramoto, Hatakeda, and Sugihara (who is still planning to compete at the national event championships). Rather, Japan’s Asian Championship team is the brand new quintet of Kasahara Arisa, Miyata Shoko, Yamada Chiharu, Watanabe Hazuki, and Matsuda Touwa, who despite their lack of footprint on the global gymnastic scene, have recorded scores at nationals and NHK that should at least keep China on its toes.

The complication here for Japan is the national event championships also taking place on the 18th and 19th—precluding gymnasts from competing at both meets—which are a critical part of Japan’s world championship selection process. Based on the results of nationals and NHK, Kasahara, Miyata, and Yamada have already clinched their spots on this year’s worlds team with their top-3 AA finishes. The 4th and 5th spots on the worlds team, meanwhile, will be determined by whose best-two-scores averages on each event add the most to a potential team score following the event championships, with the 4th spot limited to those who finished 4th-10th at NHK and the 5th spot without AA placement or meet participation limitations (which is a big step for Japan’s selection process and I’m so proud of you).

The 5th spot having no ties to AA finishes is critical for world beam champion Urara Ashikawa’s hopes of making it back to worlds since she has not recorded the necessary all-around results so far this year. She’s going to need to get that 5th spot with her beam scores, and given how close the race for the final worlds spots looks right now, results at the event championship will influence the picture tremendously. For those still aiming at a spot on the worlds team, the event championships are a far more important competition than the Asian championship, which means that Japan isn’t sending its top-scoring team or all its available top-placing gymnasts to Doha this week.

The pre-competition team bronze favorite will be South Korea. South Korea is not quite as spoiled for top routines as China, or as spoiled for depth as Japan, but given the Olympic performances from Lee Yunseo and Yeo Seojeong and that surprise 11th-place worlds finish from Shin Solyi, South Korea should have the routines on this year’s Asian Champs team to excel. At April’s national championship, Yeo Seojeong won the general division and Shin Solyi won the high school division (Lee Yunseo did not compete then but is back now) with scores that should put South Korea behind China and Japan but with a realistic buffer over everyone else.

Typically, we see Taiwan rank 4th in the continent among the teams present, so consider the Taiwanese team the most likely to snatch the final team spot given what we know so far. This team doesn’t always have the full contingent of scores, but the results from the internal Asian Championships selection competition at the beginning of May were encouraging, with Ting Hua-Tien dominating the all-around on the first day of competition, supported by individual standout results like Huang Tzu-Hsing’s 13.300 on beam on day 2.

Those scores, depending on realism as always, would outpace what we saw most recently from the next group of contending squads at the Southeast Asian Games, where a Philippines team with Aleah Finnegan defeated Vietnam and Singapore but with quite a bit of parity among those teams overall. At the most recent Asian Championship in 2019, it was Malaysia that finished 5th as a team—not far behind Taiwan—but Farah Ann Abdul Hadi has since retired and Malaysia sent just two athletes to the SEA Games.

As for the individuals, the apparatus world cup qualifiers early in the year were a boon for many of the other gymnasts in Asia hoping to qualify themselves. Because those events were so poorly attended, we’ll end up going pretty far down the women’s ranking lists to find enough qualifiers for worlds, and most people who got any points at some juncture (especially on bars, beam, and floor) will be in contention for an apparatus spot at worlds.

On the Oksana Chusovitina front, she has already qualified to worlds to compete vault alone via those apparatus world cups, but she would need to compete the AA at the Asian Championship if she wants to qualify to compete all four events at worlds.

Also on vault, Protistha Samanta of India has already secured herself a worlds spot, and her Indian teammate Pranati Nayak is highly likely to get a vault spot for herself once the dust settles. Angel Wong of Hong Kong will also get a beam spot, and Korkem Yerbossynkyzy of Kazakhstan should end up with spots on a couple events.

On floor, Dildora Aripova of Uzbekistan and Aida Bauyrzhanova of Kazakhstan have clinched event spots, but I imagine both will be aiming for the all-around here and do seem like realistic candidates for the 8 available positions (max 2 per country), along with many of the others who figured at the SEA Games, like all-around champion Rifda Irfanaluthfi of Indonesia, and Rachel Yeoh Li Wen of Malaysia and Nadine Joy Nathan of Singapore who both finished well.

As for anything helpful like entry lists, or start lists, or scores, or streaming, well…TBD? Gymnastics gonna gymnastics.