With podium training beginning in 10 days and the competition in 12 days, the FIG has released an updated nominative roster for the world championship. So here’s what we learned:

• Kasahara Arisa is gone from the Japanese women’s team. Kasahara won the All-Japan Championship early this year and was 2nd overall at the end of NHK, securing herself one of the automatic spots on the team as part of the process that had originally excluded world beam champion Ashikawa Urara. Now, alternate Watanabe Hazuki (4th place AA after NHK) moves up a spot, and Ashikawa moves onto the traveling team of six by virtue of being the next gymnast who adds the most to a team score. Bringing Ashikawa’s beam into the actual team would indeed add more to the team score than Watanabe’s, but Watanabe also brings a bars routine in case you’re too scared of having to count Miyata—who can score well but is 1-for-4 on bars this year—which mitigates how much Ashikawa is adding.

• A Canadian women’s roster shakeup has seen Commonwealth bronze medalist Emma Spence move onto the team in place of national champion Rose Woo. So now that’s the US champion, the European champion, the All-Japan champion, and the Canadian champion out of worlds. Spence is probably the better like-for-like replacement for Woo than the listed alternate Laurie Denommée (Spence adds a few more tenths to the team score than Denommée), so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Spence move all the way onto the team.

• The German women have made their team official with Elisabeth Seitz, Pauline Schäfer, and Emma Malewski joined by Anna-Lena König and Karina Schönmaier in the wake of Kim Bui’s retirement and Sarah Voss’s injury (and Seitz having only competed vault and bars so far this year). Schönmaier’s Yfull got the highest vault score at Germany’s worlds trial, and König’s 12.733 was the highest floor score, which are largely the results that got them onto the team, but we’ll probably see quite a bit of both of them at worlds given the event limitations of everyone else.

• The Belgian women have also made their team official with Nina Derwael, Maellyse Brassart, Noemie Louon, Lisa Vaelen, and Jutta Verkest as the five and Ylea Tollet as the alternate. We have not seen Derwael compete since the Olympics (she was a late scratch in Paris), so podium training should be interesting.

• The British have now placed Poppy-Grace Stickler in the alternate position rather than Ellie Downie, who was listed as the alternate on the first roster.

• Italy has added Caterina Cereghetti as the 6th member of the team, replacing the injured Angela Andreoli, though an official team announcement has not yet been made following this weekend’s national championship. There’s not really anyone left who would contribute counting scores to the D’Amato/Maggio/Villa/Esposito/Mandriota team even if one of them goes down, so the alternate positions is sort of…who wants a tripppp?

• Paulina Vargas has been replaced on Mexico’s team of six by Valentina Melendez. Switching out Vargas with original alternate Cinthia Ruiz only costs the team a couple tenths (and Ruiz can increase the vault score a little), so this shouldn’t change overall expectations much.

• Nicole Diaz of Puerto Rico will take the all-around qualifier spot vacated by Tyesha Mattis.

• Malva Wingren replaces Maya Staahl on Sweden’s team of five. I was a bit surprised to see Staahl on the original team because the addition of Wingren adds more than a point to the potential team score. We’re all surprised and glad Sweden is actually sending a full-size team.

• Rings specialist Ali Zahran has appeared on Egypt’s updated team in place of this year’s African pommel horse silver medalist Abdelrahman Abdelhaleem.

• The Chinese men have moved Asian champion and 2021 PBars bronze medalist Shi Cong onto the squad in the 6th position, replacing national floor silver medalist Su Weide. Both are still part of the traveling training squad with a final decision yet to be made. The Chinese women’s team remains unchanged with Tang Xijing, Wei Xiaoyuan, Zhang Jin, Ou Yushan, and Luo Rui as the five and He Licheng as the alternate, but all six and Sun Xinyi still remain in the mix.

• Yunus Gündogdu has been added to Turkey’s team in place of Kerem Sener. Gundogdu’s best asset is that he could provide a rings score in the absence of the injured Ibrahim Colak, though Turkey’s team plan will basically be to get everything they can out of Önder, Asil, and Arican.

• Iran’s Mahdi Ahmad Kohani is out of the men’s all around, replaced by Lais Najjar of Syria who was the next in line from the Asian Championships.

• Ireland’s Ewan McAteer is now in the all-around, replacing teammate Daniel Fox who had originally qualified. McAteer was one-per-country-ed out of the worlds spots at Euros.

A. US selection camp

Today, USAG released the roster for the women’s world championship selection camp, at which 11 athletes will contend for the five team spots and one traveling alternate position on the worlds team.

In addition to Konnor McClain’s withdrawal announced last week, this roster also confirms the absences of Zoe Miller (back) and Kayla DiCello (Florida), both of whom would also have been in serious contention for the worlds team if available.

Also missing are national team members Levi Jung-Ruivivar and Elle Mueller, and we can assume they must have declined positions at this camp because…they’re on the national team, and camp is what the national team does. It’s surprising not to see Jung-Ruivivar here after she just competed in Szombathely 30 seconds ago.

So it’s a pretty sparse group, but unlike the US men’s selection which intentionally limited the size of the size of the roster and didn’t invite some theoretical options, the women’s roster seems to be…just the ones who are left standing.

The selection competitions are held October 21 (7:00pm ET) and October 22 (5:50pm ET) and streamed on FlipWallet. We’re probably entering the fray with a default team in mind of Jones, Chiles, Carey, Wong, and Blakely, with the traveling alternate position totally up for grabs—or even a fifth team spot if someone in the five botches the competition.

B. Italian Championships

The injuries keep piling up for the Italian team. Following the European Championship injury to Asia D’Amato, now Angela Andreoli has withdrawn from this week’s national championship with an injury, putting additional strain on the Italian worlds team that for most of the year looked like a major medal favorite.

In better news, Giorgia Villa returned to the all-around on day 1 of nationals, and Alice D’Amato added back beam, which she had not competed yet in 2022, a critical development for an increasingly depleted team.

It now seems obvious that nominative roster members Manila Esposito and Veronica Mandriota will round out the team of five for Italy since there’s no one else very close to them. Alice D’Amato, Maggio, and Villa will have to do almost all the work in every phase of the competition at worlds, but there’s also still a need for someone to step in on vault and floor. Even though Villa is now back on those events, it’s not for the highest difficulty—and probably an unnecessary strain to have her do a bunch of vault and floor numbers at worlds so soon after bringing those events back. Esposito’s scores on day 1 of nationals were encouraging in that regard.

Overall, the absence of both Asia D’Amato and Angela Andreoli drops Italy from 2nd to 4th in terms of average scores in 2022, now behind the US, China, and Brazil. Still, the margin behind China and Brazil is not large, and neither of those these teams are exactly known for their amazing hit meets in critical team situations lately, so Italy will continue to entertain the possibility of a team medal this year despite the injuries, even though it’s going to be harder now. At the same time, this also brings the remarkably intact British team and a Melanie-d France closer to the medal pack as both teams now have a clearer pathway to pounce for a top-3 finish.

Broadcast notes for tomorrow’s women’s AA final (turns out no VPN required):

C. Worlds Teams

The second team registration window closes on Friday at midnight, so hopefully on Monday we’ll get a big update on worlds teams (because some of those currently registered teams are definitely not happening).

Still, we do have a confirmed team from Brazil, which is the expected five of Andrade, Saraiva, Soares, Oliveira, and Pedro. Christal Bezerra is the alternate, and it’s sort of either-or between her and Pedro, a spot that will probably only be asked to contribute a team final vault, where they have very similar scores for Yurchenko fulls. In her corner, Pedro did have a much better South American Games this week and is the more reliable option if you need her to, say, go instead of Flavia on bars. Of note, the men’s team does not include ringifier Arthur Zanetti, while the confirmed Swiss men’s team does not include Christian Baumann, both of whom were on the original nominative lists.

Until the next roster update!

Several hours after the conclusion of yesterday’s trials—and exactly the millisecond I decided to stop waiting around for it—the US men announced their worlds team as Brody Malone, Donnell Whittenburg, Asher Hong, Colt Walker, and Stephen Nedoroscik, with Yul Moldauer as traveling alternate.

This is exactly what I would have done, and therefore it is smart and correct.

With Malone and Whittenburg already locked into the team based on their nationals results, this squad of five produced the highest 3-count team score based on average scores from nationals and selection camp. (The men’s selection procedures dictate that each of the four days is weighted at 25%, while the women’s selection procedures weigh 25% vibes, 25% shrug emoji, 35% the all-around standings I’m looking at right now, and 15% hair.)

This is a team with bigger D scores, the best available event final prospects in the group, and a very high ceiling, establishing a framework of routines and difficulty that can give the US a legitimate path toward contending for Olympic team medals in the future instead of just hoping for 4th at best.

But this is also a ri-i-isky team. There’s nothing “clean safe routines, guaranteed to stick” about this. Among the reasons this is the best-scoring team for the US is the upgrade on vault, with 6.0 D scores from Hong and Whittenburg and a 5.6 D from Walker—a drastic departure from the lineup of all 5.2s that the US was putting up last quad. But with Hong going 1-for-2 at selection camp and Whittenburg missing on vault in Paris, the idea of this lineup actually going to worlds and hitting to its capability is…up for interpretation.

There is every possibility that this US team goes to Liverpool and totally bombs, spoiling the best chance at a team medal that the US has had in a while (will have for a while?) given the absence of the Russian team. The blame and recriminations would be scorching, and the “Yul Moldauer should have been on the team!” of it all would be heavy.

There is a very solid argument for Yul Moldauer as part of this five instead. He was part of the highest-scoring team using only scores from selection camp (which is somewhat surprising because he didn’t have a great camp, but also…no one really did), and putting him in place of the locked Donnell Whittenburg on the overall average-score team would increase the total by about a half tenth. Of note, with no athletes locked, the highest-scoring team average would have come from Malone, Hong, Walker, Nedoroscik, and Juda. Talk about a risky game.

Yet, the named worlds team was not only the team that earned it with their scores based on the selection criteria laid down in advance, but it would also have been fairly hypocritical for the US men’s program to go with any other team. They’ve spent all year indicating that they want the difficulty scores to be pushed, and they imposed a comically massive bonus system in order to reward those who were pushing the difficulty, ensuring that they were still able to outscore those with normal difficulty even if they fell. The bonus system said, “We’d so much rather you fall while trying a 6.0 vault than hit a clean 5.2 vault.” The US couldn’t then turn around and say, “Actually, you fell on a 6.0 vault, so we’re going to take a clean 5.2 vault instead.”

Which leaves us with this very high-risk, high-reward team in which the US program got exactly what it was looking for. And now we’ll see how it goes.

As we waited for the US men’s team to be announced, Konnor McClain said, “You seem bored. Chew on this news” and officially announced her injury withdrawal from the worlds selection camp.

This certainly throws a wrench in the works and undermines the US women’s scoring potential at worlds, but it also clarifies some things in terms of the upcoming team selection.

With McClain out, the US is down to three athletes that seem like sure-thing choices for the worlds team in Shilese Jones, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey. You look at that three and say, “Well, first of all, vault and floor are done.” Really, there are only four other athletes who’ve shown the routines this year that could improve on that trio’s team total in an actual, meaningful way: Zoe Miller, Leanne Wong, Kayla DiCello, and Skye Blakely.

In a perfect world, Miller’s bars would be the absolute first choice to add to this team, but if she remains unable to do bars with the back injury that caused her to miss nationals, and Kayla DiCello indeed elects to opt out of worlds selection, then you’re left with two people for two spots in Wong and Blakely and you have the easiest worlds team decision there’s ever been (which is boring, so let’s hope it doesn’t happen). Wong, if healthy and present on at least two events, is the perfect supplement to the main three because she has bars and beam you’d put up in a team final, while Blakely at her best would be the natural next-in-line replacement to McClain’s beam. And if not at her best, well then she gets McCooled for TF.

Even though the performances from Jones and Carey in Paris allayed the beam fears on this team to some extent, it’s still not an extraordinary beam group without McClain, so if Blakely isn’t hitting for high beam scores at the selection camp or there are further injuries and absences, you’d still want to consider a Lexi Zeiss or an Elle Mueller—at minimum as traveling alternate—as they seem the most likely to put up a 13 there.

What I’m saying is, we’re going to need someone to yell “SURPRISE” and bring the drama to this camp.