THIS. ENDS. NOW.

The final day of Olympic gymnastics brings us parallel bars, beam, and high bar.

The big focus is of course the return of Simone for this beam final, and I’m eager to see what kind of composition she ends up putting out there. If she’s able to dismount with a double pike or tuck with no twisting, she would remain extremely competitive in this final and have among the top difficulties. Honestly, even if she’s able to dismount with only an A, she could get her difficulty back up to competitive in this final with only a couple composition adjustments. If she’s not totally comfortable with double elements right now, that may be the way to go.

NEWS: Larisa Iordache went out to warm up but ultimately decided it was not happening and withdrew from the final. She’s replaced by the first reserve Ashikawa, who was also there warming up because of course.

But first the rotation orders:

We have three finals on the docket today, ideally less of a catastrophe than yesterday’s event final crapocalypse—but at the same time, messes sure are fun.

The competition orders are as follows:

RINGS
[5] Zanetti
[8] You
[2] Liu
[7] Abliazin
[4] Colak
[3] Ait Said
[1] Petrounias
[6] Asil

So, we assume Petrounias because Petrounias, but Liu came up just a tenth behind Petrounias in qualification, and did so with a higher D score. It’s a rings final—it’s a dismount competition.

Because everything is monstrous, the women’s floor final will be conducted today with beam tomorrow, and it makes me more uncomfortable than can possibly be expressed by words.

WOMEN’S FLOOR
[5] Listunova
[2] Carey
[4] Jessica Gadirova
[6] Melnikova
[1] Ferrari
[7] Murakami
[3] Andrade
[8] Jennifer Gadirova

Carey is going to have the D score advantage here, but a critical question will be how much advantage she receives. In qualification, Carey attempted a 6.6 D score (or 6.7 if you say she’s going for a split 1.5) but got credit for only a 6.2 (and 6.3 in the all-around) because she’s getting so hammered on dance elements. If she gets credit for more in this final, she may be the favorite here over Ferrari and the gang, but I think Carey should take a page out of Lee’s book and do less, ditch one of her attempted dance elements and just be OK counting her front layout stepout, which will lower her intended D but also eliminate a deduction trap of a dance element in a way that should increase her final score.

MEN’S VAULT
[4] Asil
[7] Souza
[3] Nagornyy
[2] Davtyan
[8] Onder
[1] Shin
[5] Abliazin
[6] Yulo

…stay alive?

Welcome back, and on to event final season. We’ve got four today, starting with men’s floor, then women’s vault, then pommel horse, and then bars.

The current Simone update is that she has withdrawn from vault, bars, and floor, though we haven’t yet heard about beam. It’s possible that she might still compete that one and elect to do something less with no twisting as a dismount, but time will tell there.

The start orders are thus:

FLOOR
[2] Nagornyy
[4] Zapata
[6] Moldauer
[1] Dolgopyat
[5] Kim
[3] Ryu
[7] Xiao
[8] Karimi

It will be interesting to see whether Nagornyy elects to pull out a triple a push it with the opening routine. He was not far behind Dolgopyat in qualification with a 6.2 D, but “keep it safer for a medal” has never really been the way of the Russian men.

VAULT
[3] Skinner
[7] Moreno
[2] Andrade
[1] Carey
[4] Yeo
[5] Olsen
[6] Melnikova
[8] Akhaimova

We know that Carey and Skinner will be going for the Cheng and Amanar combo. The big strategic question will be whether Andrade elects to pull out the Amanar as well. Theoretically, her Cheng form should give her enough of an advantage that she wouldn’t need the Amanar, but the reality of the scoring in the all-around final may put the pressure on for her to do the 2.5 so she can match Carey and Skinner on difficulty.

HORSE
[5] Whitlock
[4] Yoder
[6] Sun
[8] Belyavskiy
[1] Lee
[7] Kaya
[2] McClenaghan
[2] Kameyama

Lee, McClenaghan, and Kameyama all tied in qualification on 15.266, with Yoder just behind them at 15.200, and then Whitlock at 14.900. Whitlock’s execution scores have not been high at these Olympics thus far, but he’ll set the mark to beat with that first routine with the most difficulty in the field. This one should get real, and the rotation order lends to the excitement as we have some actual gold medal contenders ending the final instead of getting them out of the way in the first half like on the other ones.

BARS
[2] Lee
[8] De Jesus Dos Santos
[1] Derwael
[3] Iliankova
[4] Melnikova
[7] Fan
[5] Lu
[5] Seitz

The conclusion of the much-anticipated Lee/Derwael race. Lee got the better of Derwael for the first time in the all-around final, which I thought portended some advantage to Lee because it wasn’t her best routine, though having seen something closer to the judges’ side angle from the NBC rebroadcast, you really couldn’t tell from that position how crooked Lee was on her combo, so that may not have been taken into account too much in the scoring.