What you need to know, in quick, easily digestible bullet points.
Aliya did an acro series, and it was easy looking for her.
Girl, where has this been for the last million quads? Did the baby punch your spine back into place?
Aliya also made the bars final. A DERRRRR.
Anyway, Russia qualified in 2nd as a team as expected, but only a couple tenths ahead of China
Because there had to be something: Simakova got a 0 on vault since she’s definitely not at full strength but still tried to do her rudi for some reason—and just sort of fell from the sky like a sack of wigs and landed eye-first
Akhaimova has successfully gone from being “one of those randoms who shows up at Russian Cup to finish 17th” to a world floor event finalist
Alexeeva is the consistent all-around rock Russia has been dreaming about for 10 years
If Simakova doesn’t make a dramatic recovery, Russia might have to vault a Yfull in the team final, which puts them down closer to China’s difficulty and removes a potential advantage Russia seemed to have going in
China will not be ignored! China hit all four floor routines and looks like a much more legitimate silver contender now than it did coming into the competition
Also, alleged bars and beam specialist Luo Huan somehow remains China’s best all-arounder most of the time and was an elegant sprite all day long, advancing to the bars final
Chen Yile fell on beam and also had just the weirdest pause ever where she momentarily passed into the spectral plane and didn’t want to come back, like a concentration pause but it was before choreography, and I still don’t really understand
Liu Tingting had to grab the beam so she didn’t die on her acro series and still made the beam final somehow. Admittedly, the rest of her routine was actually more perfect than sour Skittles
Canada was ON FIRE
Just…where has that meet been all our lives?
Ellie was Ellie, but it was also like EVERYONE was Ellie suddenly
Even bars was good, and Brooklyn Moors made it back to the floor final
France was…fine. Nothing disastrous, nothing to report, but they could have qualified as high as 4th and ended up 7th because everyone was just a little off, especially on those fab bars routines that all had small mistakes.
No Boyer in the beam final
Great Britain didn’t make the team final, BY A TENTH, so if you need to take a week-long sad nap, it’s completely understood
No rush Amy and Claudia, but also yes rush please
Your team qualifiers are USA, Russia, China, Canada, Brazil, Japan, France, and Germany
But, Becky Downie jusssst made the bars final, finishing in 8th. Phew.
Lots of close ones with absolutely necessary event-final participants only barely sneaking into their finals—Downie in 8th on bars, Liu Tingting in 8th on beam, Moors in 8th on floor.
Brazil was quite good, finishing 5th despite some misses on beam, which will be cause for great optimism heading to the team final
And Andrade isn’t even fully back yet
What I’m saying is, Brazil = legit
Also #JusticeForRebeca on that bars score
ROMANIA HIT ALL THE THINGS. THE MIRACLE HAS HAPPENED. Romania went 16-for-16, including all the bars routines, and finished 13th. So much better than we ever could have expected
Granted, this is the exact same finish as 2015 when the sky was falling about Romania’s horrible performance, but the world is a much different place now
Your VAULT qualifiers are Biles, Olsen, Yeo, Moreno, Chusovitina, Pyon, Black, and Liu JR
Your BARS qualifiers are Derwael, Biles, Seitz, Luo, Hurd, Mustafina, Adlerteg, and Downie
Your BEAM qualifiers are Biles, Eaker, Zhang, Wevers, Padurariu, Derwael, Black, and Liu TT
Your FLOOR qualifiers are Biles, Murakami, Melnikova, Hurd, Saraiva, De Jesus Dos Santos, Akhaimova, and Moors
The lead group in the all-around final will be Biles, Hurd, Murakami, Derwael, Melnikova, and Black
The bars group in the all-around final will be De Jesus Dos Santos, Luo, Saraiva, Downie, Alexeeva, and Chen
The beam group in the all-around final will be Teramoto, Simm, Visser, Seitz, Golgota, and Barbosa
The floor group in the all-around final will be Moors, Mori, Kovacs, Charpy, Perez, and Klinckaert
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.
