Kohei Uchimura made history winning his 3rd World Championships in series.
(Khorkina won Worlds 1997 Lausanne, 2001 Ghent & 2003 Anaheim — but not 1999 Tianjin.)
… The only thing disputable about Uchimura’s performance in this all-around was whether his scores were high enough. …
They weren’t. The men’s judging is (mostly) an embarrassment.
It’s absurd to deduct Uchimura 1.0 on P Bars and not much more for mere mortals. (See VIDEOS of all 6 of his routines.)
— Media are not being given breakdowns of scores. Leave a comment if you’ve got a link to those. —
Here are the men responsible (PDF) for the “boxed” scores.
Inside Gymnastics:
1 League of His Own
2. One for the History Books
3. Boy Oh Boy
4. Style PointsWe were really stuck tonight by what a stylish field this was. With the Code encouraging mad skills with the open-ended Difficulty value matrix, many athletes seemed to be chucking skills with little attention to detail a few years ago. That’s no longer the case. There were so many athletes who stood out to us as stylish and focused on form in tonight’s competition. Among our favorites in this category: Uchimura, Oleg Stepko and Mykola Kuksensov of Ukraine, Boy (Germany), Daniel Purvis (Great Britain), the USA’s Danell Leyva and John Orozco, Kim Seungil (Korea), Koji Yamamuro (Japan), Teng Haibin (China), Nathan Gafuik (Canada), Emin Garabov and David Belyavskiy of Russia, Cyril Thommasone (France), Alexander Shatilov (Israel), among others…. Think about all those athletes and their presentation – that’s a long list and a stylish field!
5. The All-Around Is Alive!
Purviss was in the fight for a podium finish … until he got to H Bar, the final apparatus. There he’d opted for the “easy” (compulsory) FIG routine 2011. That start value killed him relative to Boy who’s one of the best in the world on pipe.
Phillip had had many problems leading up to the AA final. It didn’t look likely he could repeat his Silver of 2010. But he hit Pommel. Landed a much better vault than in Rotterdam. Then hit this killer set to clinch his ranking as the best gymnast in the world … aside from Kohei.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Examiner:
“I’m in the wrong era,” said all-around silver medalist Philipp Boy of Germany, who rocketed from sixth to second in the last rotation with a high bar routine that would have been the toast of the competition had it not been followed by Uchimura’s own spectacular performance, which brought the whole arena to its feet for two minutes.
The men’s all-around final was punctuated by some stellar performances, including Boy’s routine and the high bar set of fourth-place finisher Daniel Purvis of Great Britain. There were also terrific parallel bars routines from Marcel Nguyen and Danell Leyva. But nobody could outclass Uchimura, who started with a near perfect performance on floor and simply got closer to perfection with each consecutive event. …
John Orozco has had a crazy good World Championships. I’d have bet you a lot of money this young guy could never finish 5th. And mentally tough — how would you be competing Liukin on H Bar immediately after your buddy just crashed on it?
… The 18-year-old Orozco, … has now hit 16 for 16 routines in his first world championships …
There are many fantastic Japanese gymnasts in the shadow of the great one. We know the Tanaka brothers, and sister Rie. But most people did not know Bronze medalist Koji YAMAMURO.
They know him now.
Click PLAY or watch his Parallel Bars on YouTube.
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In summary, the men’s AA competition was far better than the women’s. How is that possible considering the men count 10 skills, not 8 … and must do 6 different apparatus !?
Former MT Chair Hardy Fink has been to more Worlds and Olympics than anyone else — and he’s simply astonished at the depth and quality of competitors. We had 24 gymnasts from 17 different nations in this final.
The current rules — for reasons unknown — have not been nearly so damaging to the sport worldwide for men as they have for women. I have no idea why. Leave a comment if you’ve some insight into the relative success of men’s gymnastics over women’s in 2011.
The men do more. More difficulty. With better consistency. Seemingly fewer injuries. And possibly even more artistry. That just doesn’t make sense.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 