A World Challenge Cup happened! I turned on the competition to immediately hear Edith Piaf and see a woman doing ballet, and then a dancing mime, and then a group of people in blue-and-white striped shirts. So it was impossible to tell what country we were in. I had to look it up.

Anyway, medals have been won. Hardware has been placed around necks, colored in different shades to represent your value as a human being. Hooray sports! Let’s break it down.

VAULT

GOLD Abigail Martin – GBR

SILVER Karina Schoenmaier – GER

BRONZE Karla Navas – PAN

The story of the women’s vault final was the 0.2 bonus. The B-storyline was difficulty credit. Execution was largely incidental. Fine fine.

Bulgaria’s Valentina Georgieva was once again personally victimized by the new 0.2 bonus given for performing vaults with different post-flight directions. At the European Championships a few months ago, Georgieva had the actual highest vault average but lost the gold to Karina Schoemaier because Schoenmaier got the 0.2 bonus and Georgieva didn’t. Here, the effect was even more stark.

Georgieva would have been gold medalist in any past year, but this year she finished 4th since the top three all got the 0.2 bonus to move ahead of her. Because the 0.2 is added to the average of the two vaults at the end, it is effectively like gaining 0.4 from a single vault—which is also the D-score difference between a DTY and an Amanar. Everyone gets a complimentary Amanar except Valentina.

GB’s Abi Martin ended up taking the gold medal, much to her own surprise, and thanks in large part to her ability to show a clear, open layout position. Martin’s first-vault DTY ranked just 4th among the DTYs in the final, but her round-off 1/2 on, layout 1/2 (Lopez) was the highest-scoring second vault, and at exactly zero risk of a downgrade to pike position.

Downgrading the Lopez to piked (Podkopayeva) has been a determining factor in several major vault events this year, and it got to Redacted’s Angelina Melnikova this time. Melnikova’s DTY outscored Martin’s, but her piked shape throughout her second vault got her intended Lopez bumped down from 4.8 to 4.2, a 6-tenth shift that is hugely significant when all hit vaults are in the same ~0.3 range in execution.

Germany’s Karina Schoenmaier won silver here, just the slightest bit behind Martin, with the two performing the same pair of vaults. Schoenmaier was the much more comfortable of the two on the DTY landing, but Martin was superior in layout position, direction, and landing control on the Lopez.

Karla Navas of Panama saved us from monotony with her round off 1/2 on, layout full first vault, the most difficult vault of the final, but her lunge to the side and out of the area took her down the standings a bit. Still, it was not enough to cost a medal as she hung on for bronze.

BARS

GOLD Kaylia Nemour – ALG

SILVER Celia Serber – FRA

BRONZE Lorette Charpy – FRA

So, there’s Kaylia Nemour, and then an ocean, and then a valley, and then another ocean, and then everybody else.

Nemour had only a couple corrections in the final here, breaking one combination to add a cast handstand on the low bar (vulgar) and slightly arching her toe-on full before pulling it back for the dismount. That meant she scored only 15.033 instead of the 15.366 from qualification, and won gold by only 1.600. Was that a try? With Yang Fanyuwei also going 15.033 at Chinese Trials this week, the showdown is set and I am ready. Dispense with the rest.

For me, the best part of Nemour’s routine is that she’s doing the highest-quality Pak salto in the world and is doing it in combination out of her eponymous inbar layout Tkatchev. She’s looking at everyone else like, “Pull it together, Marisa.”

We were treated to an all-French bars podium in Paris (that means you have to put on a single pointe shoe and scream “Edith Piaf!!” from the roof, I don’t make the rules), with Celia Serber and Lorette Charpy both scoring 13.433 and Serber taking silver on the execution tiebreak.

The #2 qualifier Caitlin Rooskrantz had easily the second-highest difficulty of the final but nearly kneed-down her dismount to drop to 4th, and #3 qualifier Nathalie Westlund lost a melee round against a toe-on piked Tkatchev (Church) before throwing in the towel on that and just doing the most glorious DLO dismount.

Jessica Gadirova made her return to international competition at this event, doing bars and beam and reaching the bars final. She put up a compelling hit here for 13.200, just a few tenths out of the medals on execution.

BEAM

GOLD Angelina Melnikova – AIN

SILVER Lena Bickel – SUI

BRONZE Morgane Osyssek-Reimer – FRA

Staying on is good, but also you don’t have to.

The roster for the final in Paris ended up looking…quite a bit different than one might have expected thanks to beam being a twerpy little twerp in qualification. On day one, Sabrina Voinea and Ruby Evans got 10s, and Kaylia Nemour and Jessica Gadirova got 11s, while beloveds like Breanna Scott and Isabella Ajalla ended up as alternates for a final that decided to say, “I only love us and the Irish.” France and Ireland were the only nations to put two gymnasts into the Sunday 8.

Although when forced to choose between us and the Irish, the French beam clearly chose “us,” as Morgane Osyssek took bronze with a fall on her layout full, one tenth ahead of a hit routine from Emma Slevin.

Shrug Emoji’s Angelina Melnikova took the gold medal after also qualifying in first, winning with a more hesitant routine than the set that scored 13.966 on day one. In the final, she had some tentative moments, breaking the connection out of her front aerial and bailing out of her wolf turn after 1.5, but her intrinsic execution quality and overall difficulty allowed her to hang on for the gold medal over Switzerland’s Lena Bickel.

Bickel did exceptionally well to take silver here without breaking the bank in terms of D-score. As a bunch of gymnasts with the most difficulty bowed out in qualification, and then 5 of the 8 competitors in the final missed, Bickel exemplified the beam motto of “just don’t lose your mind,” to earn the only E score over 8 and a silver medal.

Also the stream cut out after Laura Casabuena had done half of a glorious routine, and then she ended up with 11.533. So that’s why.

FLOOR

GOLD Sabrina Maneca-Voinea – ROU

SILVER Angelina Melnikova – AIN

BRONZE Kaia Tanskanen – FIN

The winner of the floor final was Sabrina Voinea’s whip to double layout to punch front, floating to the sky on the front tuck and shoving that combination bonus into her purse like the buffet had unlimited shrimp.

Voinea did not have altogether her best routine, landing short on her double double tuck and falling out of a triple turn, which placed her only 4th among execution scores. Still, her extreme difficulty advantage brought her the win as she ended up on a 5.9 D and 7.9 E, exactly the same as the Olympic final just without that 0.1 OOB, he trailed off…

If Voinea proved the power of difficulty, TBD’s Angelina Melnikova proved the power of execution as she took the silver medal despite one of her three passes being a front lay full, and despite counting a B switch leap among her 8 elements. It was largely the beautiful precision and clear completion of her three D-value turns that elevated Melnikova to 2nd.

Finssouri’s Kaia Tanskanen took home a huge bronze medal in the floor final, bringing out a double double tuck opening pass to score a career-high 13.366. Her only previous medals outside of domestic competitions came at the 2022 Northern European Championships, so this is a big ol’ deal.

Commiserations to Belgium’s Lisa Vaelen in 4th who did lovely work in both the vault and floor finals and notched the best E score of the floor final, just missing out on a medal thanks to an OOB. She demonstrated near-Steingruberian height and completion of her leaps that did not go unnoticed.