A review of the women’s elite gymnastics competitions over the past week, highlighting those who placed on the medal stand. Otherwise, nothing.

This week, we had world championship places awarded at the Oceanic Championships, up to three dollars in prize money won at the Varna World Challenge Cup, and tears and dances and event titles bestowed at the Brazil Trophy. Let’s go.

Oceanic Continental Championship

Team
GOLD – Australia – 156.497
SILVER – New Zealand – 138.229
BRONZE – The Enemies We Made Along The Way

In the result with the most significance for future competitions, the Australians won the continental championship for the federation of…I want to say Atlantis? Oceania. It’s Oceania. This qualifies the Australian squad to this year’s world championship by earning the lone team quota spot available.

The finish was never really in doubt as the Australians accumulated a massive 16-point margin over New Zealand, the only other team competing. That means there’s no team bronze medalist for Oceania, at least until we see which American Level 10s scrounge up some Solomon Islands citizenship all of a sudden.

All-Around
GOLD – Emily Whitehead (AUS) – 50.998
SILVER – Lucy Stewart (AUS) – 50.299
BRONZE – Jun McDonald (NZL) – 48.398

With Australia already qualified as a team, all-around gold medalist Emily Whitehead and silver medalist Lucy Stewart were not eligible to earn the two individual quota spots available for worlds. So, by virtue of her bronze medal, New Zealand’s Jun McDonald then took the first individual worlds spot available, with the second going to teammate Freya Reid, who placed 5th.

Whitehead and Stewart now rank 2nd and 3rd overall among continental championship all-around scores, just a smidge or fifty behind Kaylia Nemour’s world-leading** 56.498 from the African Championship. Oceania and Africa are the only continents that have completed their continental championships thus far, with Pan-America, Asia, and Europe still to come.

**From an official World Gymnastics event.

Events
Vault	Bars	Beam	Floor
Georgia Godwin (AUS) 14.000	Georgia Godwin (AUS) 14.066	Georgia Godwin (AUS) 13.133	Lucy Stewart (AUS) 13.000
Emily Whitehead (AUS) 13.866	Emily Whitehead (AUS) 13.100	Lucy Stewart (AUS) 12.633	Emily Whitehead (AUS) 12.866
Courtney McGregor (NZL) 13.433	Lucy Stewart (AUS) 12.900	Freya Reid (NZL) 11.766	Audrey Hawkins (AUS) 12.600

While not strictly a medal thing with event finals, the top scores on each event still exist and were almost entirely dominated by Georgia Godwin. She led vault with a Tsuk 1.5 (4.8/9.200), just outdoing the Yurchenko 1.5s from Emily Whitehead and Courtney McGregor. McGregor was third-best among the single vault scores but did also perform her Servente second vault.

Godwin cruised on bars with a Maloney to Hindorff combination and stuck DLO, creating a large buffer over the rest of the field. Whitehead and Stewart were next best, getting their LSU on by performing two Khorkinas in the same bars rotation, but then also dismounting with only flyaways to trail Godwin on difficulty.

Godwin successfully stayed on for an entire beam routine to pick up a third event win, ahead of Lucy Stewart, who nonetheless showed her high scoring potential by going 12.633 even with a fall on a layout stepout. Stewart, however, did finally get her chance to win something on floor when Godwin didn’t compete there.

Varna Challenge Cup

Vault
GOLD – Mara Slippens (NED) – 13.233
SILVER – Julia Weissenhofer (LIE) – 13.116
BRONZE – Tijana Korent (CRO) – 13.100

Mara Slippens opened her final by hitting a Yurchenko 1.5, clearly the single best vault of the day for 13.400, outscoring all other vaults by more than two tenths. That provided enough of a buffer that Slippens was able to bounce back directly into the Black Sea on a Servente second vault and it didn’t really matter at all.

Julia Weissenhofer made history for Liechtenstein by being an artistic gymnast from Liechtenstein. But also by winning the silver medal. She successfully completed a Tsuk full and handspring pike 1/2, joining Slippens for her field trip to the sea but, critically, not showing under-rotation.

Tijana Korent won her 956th career world cup vault medal with a bronze, getting up into the top three thanks mostly to a controlled landing on a Yurchenko full second vault, the highest-scoring second vault of the competition. Performing a little impromptu quadrille when landing her handspring pike 1/2 first vault brought that score down lower than most of the other first vaults, which kept her just behind gold and silver.

Bars
GOLD – Roni Shamay (ISR) – 13.200
SILVER – Shantae-Eve Amankwaah (GBR) – 13.133
BRONZE – Coralie Demers (CAN) – 12.800

Stay on for a medal. ‘Twas the theme on bars. The other five competitors fell (or empty-swung for the equivalent of a fall), opening the hardware store for any and all who hit.

The bronze medal went to last year’s junior Canadian all-around champion Coralie Demers, who executed the best actual bars routine of the final but had a much lower D than the other top finishers because of a lack of combinations (she also lost her E-score case a little at the very end by doing a hot coal walk on dismount). Her front Stalder work, amplitudinous Jaeger, and legs together Pak and Van Leeuwen made it a standout routine.

Higher in difficulty were silver medalist Shantae-Eve Amankwaah, who performed the showcase same-bar release among the hit routines with a Church, and gold medalist Roni Shamay, who had the best connections/composition of the group with a toe full + Maloney + Pak + Van Leeuwen to rack up the tenths. A particular highlight of Shamay’s routine was her amplitude on the Maloney, caught with her face still above the high bar.

Beam
GOLD – Maria Drobniak (POL) – 12.866
SILVER – Nikolett Szilagyi (HUN) – 12.700
BRONZE – Amy Jorgensen (CAN) – 12.600

If bars was about staying on for a medal, beam was about not falling twice. A lot of people fell twice.

Gold went to Poland’s Maria Drobniak, whose world cup career to this point has largely been about floor but who showed here that beam might actually be the one. She decided to come as Kristen Maloney 2000 Olympics Team Final, and it worked out really well for her, pulling that hair back and landing with satisfying solidity and minimizing superfluous deductions.

Drobiak, however, nearly got caught by Nikolett Szilagyi, who didn’t show a ton of difficulty or extension but kept doing this thing where she didn’t get sucked into a jet engine on every single skill, which did wonders for her execution score. Szilagyi finished her routine with a stuck 2/1 dismount that sealed a silver medal despite the 6th-best D of the final.

Amy Jorgensen added a second Canadian bronze medal of the competition thanks to hitting and also thanks to a noteworthy switch 1/2 + split jump 1/2 + split jump series that is very Donatella coded. Split jump 1/2 is so hot right now. Spring is for trends. Eurovision this week has already taught us that this year’s hot trends are 1) Nazca lines directly on skin, 2) using Sudden Violin Lady as a distraction, and 3) screaming disconnected nouns and locations at a 4-year-old’s AI birthday party. Add split jump 1/2.

Floor
GOLD – Shantae-Eve Amankwaah (GBR) – 13.233
SILVER – Grace Davies (GBR) – 12.966
BRONZE – Floor Slooff (NED) – 12.800

Shantae-Eve Amankwaah earned her second medal at Varna with a gold on floor, not breaking the bank with tumbling difficulty (her most difficult acrobatic skill was a double pike) but still spinning enough to get up to a 5.2 D score. Add in a stuck double tuck, and she ended up kind of dominating the final. She basically won by out-Netherlands-ing the Netherlands, earning a 4-tenth advantage over Floor Slooff’s floor (slooff) as they both performed three-pass routines maxing out at double backs.

Amankwaah’s British teammate Grace Davies was the strategic outlier of the medalists, taking a completely different route to silver by performing a more American-style routine where the theme was doing a double layout and her character was double layout. Davies showed by far the most difficult and taxing gymnastics of the final but was down about half a point on execution compared to the other top contenders.

Brazil Trophy

Vault
GOLD – Larissa Machado – 13.199
SILVER – Clara Stecca – 13.116
BRONZE – Nicole Bello Campos – 12.733

Larissa Machado landed a DTY so feet-first that she immediately burst into a typhoon of tears and earned a gold medal for it. That DTY was the most difficult and highest-scoring vault of the final, but her Tsuk full second vault also ended up being the second-best score of the final.

The standing were still close between Machado and Clara Stecca, however, because Machado’s post-flights were the same direction, while Stecca’s Tsuk full and handspring front pike earned her the 0.2 bonus for different post-flight directions. Nicole Bello Campos took bronze with a Tsuk full first vault and Yurchenko layout second vault, which was clean and earned an E score of 9 but didn’t have the difficulty or post-flight bonus to challenge the top 2.

Bars
GOLD – Ana Luiza Lima – 13.233
SILVER – Sophia Weisberg – 13.133
BRONZE – Carolyne Pedro – 13.000

Within a very competitive, hit final in which everyone broke 7 in E score, Anna Luiza Lima was just able to pull out the gold medal over Sophia Weisberg. The two tied on execution but Lima had one tenth more in difficulty, basically meaning that Lima’s ability to make a Maloney Pak Sandwich was the difference maker.

Weisberg did show us the highlight element of the bars final, dismounting with an exceptionally high double front 1/2, completed very early and landed comfortably chest up.

Carolyne Pedro also got into the medals through a different route, the Tkatchev path, performing a Ray and a connected Tkatchev to rise into the 5s in difficulty, just losing a little on leg and foot execution compared to the other medalists.

Beam
GOLD – Flavia Saraiva – 13.433
SILVER – Thais Fidelis – 13.233
BRONZE – Andreza Lima – 13.166

I mean, it’s Flavia. She had a few checks and dismounted with only a layout and nonetheless owned the final, the arena, and everyone in it. We can have the conversation about what changes might be required to actually, finally win the world beam medal she deserves, but today is not that day. The switch ring, the toe point, it’s all there.

While Flavia was Flavia, all credit to Thais Fidelis for being in it to win it. Fidelis performed the most competitively difficult routine of the final, with multiple mixed series, a side aerial + split jump 1/2, a punch front, and a double pike. She had the top D score even without getting some of her combinations and almost took the win.

Another flex in the beam final came from bronze medalist Andreza Lima, who also dismounted with only a layout, still had a D score over 5, and still won a medal, without even being Flavia. That’s a power play.

Also if you fall but are a consistent GIF queen, you also count as getting a medal.

Floor
GOLD – Thais Fidelis – 13.066
SILVER – Gabriela Boucas – 12.966
BRONZE – Lorrane Oliveira – 12.866

Still in it to win it but without having to deal with the presence of Flavia this time, Thais Fidelis won gold on floor. In contrast to the winning floor strategy we saw at Varna, Fidelis showed four tumbling elements of D or higher, including a double Arabian and a full-twisting double tuck. Her 13.066 winning score was down on the 13.400 she got in qualification but still enough to fend off the efforts of Boucas and Oliveira.

Boucas did not have the same difficulty (no connection bonus, counting a B) but performed the cleanest gymnastics of the final to nearly sneak out a gold medal, while veteran Lorrane Oliveira also went big with a whip to double Arabian and a full-twisting double tuck and ended up taking a bronze medal. There were some high moments in Oliveira’s routine, including the double Arabian and an excellent double pike, though she had an OOB tenth and I don’t think she got her Memmel around, which was enough to make the difference between gold and bronze.