The first subdivision of men’s competition is a strong one, featuring Russia, France, and Romania.
Russia will qualify to the team final comfortably, so we won’t know a ton about what these scores mean until tomorrow when we get the results for all the other top teams and can do some comparing.
Coming off its bronze medal performance at Europeans, France is hoping to sneak into the team final here and will give us a solid baseline standard that other nations will try to beat in the later groups.
On events, vault is the big one in this subdivision because in addition to the Russians (hoping to put two people in the final), Loris Frasca and Marian Dragulescu are also among the compelling contenders for that final.
Russia begins on vault, with Romania on PBars, and France on HB.
OK, this is mostly just going to be about Aliya, and you’re going to deal with it.
The big news from the second day of women’s podium training was the authoring of a new installment in the Legend of Aliya and the Acro Series. Aliya did an acro series, you guys! A real one! With rebounding flight in a single direction!
BLESS MY UNHOLY STARS.
Thankfully, she also did hop right off on an Onodi to ensure she was still adhering to the traditional customs of Russian podium training. Similarly in accordance with orthodox Russian teachings, we were specifically told before the competition that Aliya would be performing only bars and beam, which meant also floor. And with only one mummified leg!
Mustafina may be called upon to do floor in qualification because of health concerns regarding Angelina Simakova, who is dealing with an ankle. Time will tell. It’s Aliya at worlds. She’ll find a way to hoist herself through a floor routine somehow.
There’s some concern about Russia struggling with the vaults, an emerging theme from women’s podium training and a critical factor in Russia’s dreams of silver. Angelina Melnikova effectively answered the question “How many coaches does it take to PLEASE DON’T DO A CHENG.”
Melnikova did, however, go through her whole beam routine without hopping off randomly, so she might have to give back her citizenship. Akhaimova granted us the honor of adding a lovely entry to the wolf turn fall collection.
WHEEEEEEE!
Someone should submit that as a dismount.
If you want to watch some of Ellie Downie on floor, you can see it in the background of Akhaimova’s beam. But I warn you, she falls on a double front. So I’m still worried about GB’s floor.
In China news, and worry news, vault and floor.
Floor was interesting (the order in this video is Luo, Zhang, Chen, Liu JR, then Du) in that we’re seeing Zhang try to squeeze out as many tenths of difficulty as possible in that first pass where she attempts to gain 0.3 in CV. Otherwise, China has a couple routines barely getting into the 5s that will need to count in a team final. Chen must get credit for her quad spin to break 5 in D score, and while Liu has bigger tumbling ability, the dance elements aren’t there, so she’s going to be stuck around 5 as well.
It doesn’t put China insurmountably behind Russia, but it’s not great. China’s beam should be amazing, of course, but how much can that carry the team?
Bars also requires a bit of change of perspective in that, even though this should be an excellent score still, the lineup is full of a number of 6.0 routines. Those aren’t the highest difficulties in the world, which means the Chinese gymnasts can hit these routines and still not be locks for the event final given the quality of the international field. The last time China missed a world/Olympic bars final was 2006.
In the race for who is the alternate, I think Luo (up 4th) looks stronger than Du (up 3rd) even though Luo missed during her set. Du is not showing the full upgraded difficulty that she performed at the Chinese individual championships, and if she doesn’t have a D edge… Continue reading Women’s Podium Training Update→
Men’s podium training is super boring, so you obviously weren’t paying feverish attention at all the updates. Understood. Here’s a quick rundown of the developments you missed.
Kohei Uchimura is NOT competing the all-around. He suffered an ankle ouchie last month, and after a rings dismount that left him limping in podium training, he did not perform on vault or floor and will not be competing those events in qualification. In addition to the shock waves this sends through the all-around field, it sours Japan’s chances in the team competition just that little bit more, where China was already coming in as a tentative favorite to regain its title. Japan has won the last two major men’s team competitions.
In further all-around favorite developments, Oleg Verniaiev did not perform on rings in podium training and watered down his difficulty on a couple other events. I’m not necessarily reading a ton into that because of #MensPodiumTrainingThings and how it’s basically a competition to see who can look the most unaffected and casual (compared, for example, to the Hermione Granger Cosplay Contest that is US women’s podium training), but Oleg is still newly back from his 1500 surgeries and expectations should be tempered.
I’m totally digging the look, though.
What I’m trying to say is, China went 1-2 in the all-around final last year, and it might happen again.
Everyone hates the floor because it’s made of granite, apparently.
The US men were fairly #MensPodiumTrainingThings in their session as well, not looking particularly crisp but also not displaying too many red flag developments. Don’t read anything into how nearly everyone fell on horse, for instance, because they weren’t really trying to save those routines or pretend these were competition sets. Continue reading Men’s Podium Training Update→
