Year: 2011

… OK — the women’s all-around competition was a close decision. The ladies of the International Gymnastics Federation scored it this way:

1. Wieber 59.382
2. Komova 59.349
3. Yao 58.598

All 3 medalists had significant “errors”.

Though the final ranking was a surprise at the time, it’s clear that Komova and Wieber should have been very close in final score. It could have gone either way. Either gymnast could have “won” Worlds … if they’d not made mistakes.

Jordyn Wieber is World Champion.

Too much is being made of this drama. All three gymnasts (and many other rivals) will soon be back in their gyms training for the Olympics. Psychologically, it’s tough to be world champion going into the Olympics — though Jordyn can handle that challenge better than Vika, I reckon.

The Russian media has jumped all over this, claiming some American conspiracy. … If Vika had won, Americans would be claiming that chief judge Nellie Kim manipulated the final Floor score. (Nellie can’t win, either way.)

Nobody I know has faith that the current rules, and current judges, are capable of accurately differentiating two close performances.

I agree with Brigid – The All-Around: Enough Already.

Let’s move on … to Apparatus Finals.

Today Rodionenko looked a lot happier talking to media. His girls had finished 1st and 2nd on Bars. The AA drama, I hope, has passed.

We were taken by surprise when Kohei upgraded his normal routine, busting out the very rare triple twisting double back for Finals.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (His routine starts at 1min 45sec)

The Difficulty judges may have been taken by surprise, too. An appeal raised his difficulty score up to 6.7 for the win.

As great is the great Kohei, Floor is to me his least appealing apparatus. There’s not much there in terms of connections.

… ah, we’ve seen this already.

Let’s instead watch the Silver medal routine – Arthur NABARRETE ZANETTI of Brazil. Only 0.2 behind Chen Yibing.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Here’s Chen Yibing’s Gold medal routine. (VIDEO)

The defending World Champion watched his major competitors miss. Then put down his usual excellent routine.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click through to YouTube to watch the rest of the Bar final, segments linked on the chinesegym1 YouTube channel.

Nabieva finished 2nd, but had an even stronger routine, I thought.

1.Victoria Komova (RUS) 15.500 (6.7)
2.Tatiana Nabieva (RUS) 15.000 (6.6)
3.Huang Qiushuang (CHN) 14.833 (6.7)
4.Jordyn Wieber (USA) 14.500 (6.3)
5.Asuka Teramoto (JPN) 14.200 (6.3)
5.Gabrielle Douglas (USA) 14.200 (6.2)
7.Koko Tsurumi (JPN) 14.066 (6.4)
8.Youna Duforunet (FRA) 12.641 (6.3)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Watch the entire final.

1.McKayla Maroney (USA) 15.300
2.Oksana Chusovitina (GER) 14.733
3,Thi Ha Thanh Phan (VIE) 14.666
4.Jade Barbosa (BRA) 14.566
6.Giula Steingruber (GER) 14.450
5.Tatiana Nabieva (RUS) 14.349
7.Alexa Moreno (MEX) 14.216
8.Yamilet Peña (DOM) 6.950

Confusion aplenty in Tokyo.

THE ALL AROUND is trying to interpret the new FIG regulations.

So far — it looks like — 

MAG teams: JPN – USA – CHN – GER – RUS – KOR – ROU – UKR

MAG Floor: 3.Diego Hypólito (BRA) + Alexander Shatilov (ISR)
MAG PH: 2.Cyril Tommasone (FRA)
… Kristian Berki (HUN) gold winner and Louis Smith (GBR) Bronze don’t reach criteria.
MAG Rings: 2.Arthur Zanetti (BRA)

Confusing. … And what happens if Brazil qualifies a men’s team at the test meet?

WAG teams: USA – RUS – CHN – ROU – JPN – AUS – GER – GBR
3.Phan (VIE) qualified

This is the best guess of Albert Minguillón i Colomer. We’ll wait on Stoica and Kim to tell us officially. Media has not heard a word from either one, so far, in Tokyo.

Related – TAA – More than medals on the line in Tokyo finals

I’ve loved following 362 excellent people on Twitter during the World Championships. Including Nastia.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Once this LIVE event ends, I’ll not check twitter often. Perhaps once a day for Direct Messages. … But now that Apple has integrated twitter into new devices, it may become more valuable to me, day-to-day.

I doubt it. The noise of all those trivial tweets will be deafening.

But for finals I’m @GymCoaching.

My Mac is freezing up when trying to load pages from universalsports.com

Yet I have the Current version of (crappy) Silverlight 4 (4.0.60831.0)

Leave a comment if you’re having problems with that site, too.

Nice tribute edit.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

It ain’t over ’til it’s over. A good story for up-and-coming gymnasts.