What is really the main event of women’s qualification begins now, because even though we’ve seen the US go, all the news with regard to team and individual qualifiers will be determined by today’s performances of Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Canada and more.
In subdivision 7, we have China and lighting all the candles for Romania. At this point, Romania just wants to avoid disaster and place in the top 24. China is looking for second place as a team right now with Russia still to go—and trying to get two people into the beam final (Chen, Liu TT, and Zhang are all capable), someone into the bars final, and Liu Jinru into the vault final.
China has indeed gone with Luo Huan as the fifth team member rather than Du Siyu, which seemed the logical choice based on what we’ve seen from training. She’ll do the AA along with Chen Yile and Zhang Jin.
What you need to know, in quick, easily digestible bullet points.
The Doha Pearl: That’s what Simone nicknamed her kidney stone
That’s literally all you need to know
About this, or anything
Ever
Anyway, Simone is fine because she scored 60.965 in the AA
For comparison, she won worlds in 2015 with 60.333, under the previous code
Morgan Hurd is second all-around with 56.465, so she will advance to the all-around final with Simone after putting up her own fab day
Riley McCusker struggled, falling on beam, not getting her full difficulty on bars, going OOB on floor, and landing short on vault, so she will miss out on all individual finals
Biles will advance to all four event finals, while Hurd looks likely for floor and is a possibility on bars. Eaker is a lock for beam
Grace McCallum currently sits in 5th on vault but with some major vault contenders still to come, so she’s going to need some help to make that final
Also the US is in first place as a team by 12 points, but like duh
Nina Derwael is the only non-Simone to be leading an event at this point after breaking the 15 mark on bars. She also sits 4th AA after nearly outscoring major medal contender Murakami
Speaking of, Japan had a bit of pre-meet drama with Aiko Sugihara’s injury withdrawal so ended up competing just four gymnasts, all doing AA
Still, Japan met expectations and is currently 2nd in the team standings
Mai Murakami is third AA and likely to make it back to the floor final
Germany sits 3rd as a team after a crucial exorcism of the Euros demons, hitting three beam routines and counting three 13s there. A far cry from the 9s this summer
Seitz is in fairly good shape for the bars final, but few others in the temporary top 8 on bars are (Adlerteg, Bui, etc) with RUS, GBR, and CHN still to go tomorrow
The Netherlands sits in 4th, ahead of Belgium (which had to count falls on bars and beam) but both teams are still in a rough position for TF with so many good teams left to go. There will be some nervous watching tomorrow
Wevers will make the beam final, currently in 3rd, and Naomi Visser had an excellent day in the all-around, sitting 6th once you take into account 2-per country. 6th! Visser!
Volleman is currently 4th on floor and will have to see how tomorrow goes because of her borderline position
As for the performances of Italy and Australia, sitting 6th and 8th, I feel similarly about both. Based on our general, traditional expectations for these countries, these are not strong results as both will finish clearly short of TF, but given the injury situations and the rosters available, both met expectations and live to fight another (better) year
A rough day for Hungary and Ukraine has them 10th and 11th respectively as teams, both behind North Korea who competed in the same subdivision. They’re not in danger of missing the top 24, but they would have expected better
North Korea looks like it will have Pyon Rye Yong in the vault final, but Kim Su Jong will miss the AA final after throwing in a couple 11s on beam and floor. I thought she would make it
South Korea will put Yeo Seojeong in the vault final and is currently a very impressive 7th in the team standings. Yeo is the power option they’ve been missing lo these many years
Chusovitina is third on vault and should make that final as well
The new skills went well, Biles competing the Biles, Jurkowska-Kowalska getting her beam dismount, Volleman doing her floor (it was floor) hop, Olafsdottir getting her beam dismount, and Tienna Nguyen competing her new turn. Because of the judgment-call nature of turns, we’ll have to see whether she got credit for it
Poland finished a whisker ahead of Argentina, both teams hovering around what should be the cutoff point for the top 24 advancing to next year’s worlds
In first subdivision news, Belgium has recorded the current team score to beat with 158.970. It’s a fine total, but it does include counting a mistake on both bars and beam.
Derwael was the star, going 55.564 in the all-around, hitting all four sets, and breaking 15 on bars for a routine that will surely make the final. We also learned that it’s not 2017 worlds anymore as she got an E score over 8.5 on beam.
A really tight fight among the other two teams in subdivision 1 ended up with Poland ahead of Argentina by less than a tenth, 149.671 to 149.603. They are both in my top 24 but on the lower end, so that difference could be significant. Other teams will be looking at hitting 150 now as the “phew, we’re in the top 24” goal.
What you need to know, in quick, easily digestible bullet points.
The pommel horse is a butthead
The team final qualifiers are Russia, China, Japan, USA, Great Britain, Brazil, Netherlands, and Switzerland
China only might be better than Russia after a fantastic first half of the meet (vault, PBars, HBar) and a weakish second half of the meet (floor, horse, rings) saw the Chinese men qualify second, behind the Russian team
China was not the only team to suffer multiple falls on pommel horse: so did the US and Japan…and basically all the countries. Mexico counted a 3. Argentina counted a 4.
2017 silver medalist Lin Chaopan has been 2-perred out of the all-around final after a struggle on floor and a miss on horse put him behind Sun Wei. He joins David Belyavskiy, who suffered the same fate yesterday
Xiao Ruoteng is now an even stronger favorite to defend his AA title
Sam Mikulak had his best-ever day at a major international meet, hitting all six events, qualifying 3rd into the AA final, and advancing to four event finals (FX, PH, PB, HB)
After Xiao, the remaining AA medal spots are truly open to be won, with Nagornyy, Mikulak, Dalaloyan, Sun, and Shirai joining him in the lead group
Beyond Mikulak, the US team was a mixed bag, struggling on pommel horse (most notably Yoder, who fell and will miss the final), but not falling on any HB routines. Back to normal?
Yul Moldauer also advanced to the AA final and the FX final
The US qualified in 4th as a team, exactly meeting expectations in the end
Rhys McClenaghan fell twice on horse and will miss the final, as will fellow specialists like Ude, Seligman, Bertoncelj, Merdinyan, and a host more.
Even Kohei fell on horse
Japan qualified in 3rd, and Kenzo advanced to both of his finals—floor and vault. Despite the mistakes, Japan does not look like it will challenge Russia and China at this point even with a clean meet in the final, at least without serious help
Marcel Nguyen and Marios Georgiou barely (and I mean barely) squeaked into the AA final. Phew
Whitlock was impervious to the pommel devil, hitting his routine and qualifying in first
GB was on track to overtake the US, but struggled on HB and finished fifth. It should be a good fight between the two in the team final
Ukraine will miss the team final after a strong five-event performance from Brazil (once pommel horse was done) knocked the Ukrainians out
Germany had a tough one and finished 10th. That damn pommel horse (and high bar) (and floor kind of)
Netherlands and Switzerland held on!
Did I mention the pommelling was bad?
47 people scored under 10.000 on horse. Meanwhile, 7 people broke 14.000.
Somehow, Eleftherios “my shoulder is missing” Petrounias is still in first place on rings.
No finals for Manrique Larduet, as he finishes 9th on HB, which was his best result.
Simone is in the ER because of kidney stones but will be fine (??????allthequestionmarks)
There were definitely at least 23 people in the stands today
