World Championships BEGIN

Tokyo Olympic qualifications start with the ladies this time. The next two days will decide which 12 teams qualify. USA, RUS and CHN have already booked their tickets from Worlds last year.

I’ll be commenting LIVE via Twitter @GymCoaching.

More LIVE coverage:

• Balance Beam Situation
• GymCastic
• theGymter.net 
• Olympic Channel
• Stuttgart 2019 YouTube channel 
• FIG on Twitter
• Inside Gymnastics 
• International Gymnast Magazine Facebook

What an honour to watch all these great gymnasts at one of their career peak competitions — Olympic qualification.

• • Australia and Ukraine were unlucky to draw the first flight of 10. I don’t have confidence that scores won’t escalate over the two days.
  • Australia really looks back on the right track. They competed less difficulty than they train, looking to improve E-score. On vault for example, their landings were  fantastic. Fans down under had no streaming video nor TV coverage. That’s bad for the sport.
  • Belgium killed it. A terrific team performance, especially Bars. Led by the great all-arounder Nina Derwael, looks to me like they will qualify a full team to the Olympics.
  • Jade Vansteenkiste competed the best triple twist I’ve seen in a long time
  • Danusia Francis, now competing for Jamaica, likely punched an AA invite to Tokyo. It’s been a long road. I’m thrilled for her.
  • Aneta Holasova CZE is another I really enjoyed watching today. Great Floor.
  • Oksana Chusovitina fell on her second vault. And Beam. She’s at risk of not qualifying for Tokyo. That would be a disaster for both Gymnastics and the Oympics. She’s one of our best stories.
  • Milka Gehani from Sri Lanka had everyone raving. Best ever from Sri Lanka.
  • the team that surprised me most and best today was Egypt.  Gymnastics is booming in that nation. One double twisting Yurchenko. Great stuff on all 4 apparatus.
  • Big crowd. Especially for the Germany session. And they did not leave unhappy.
  • Both North and South Koreas were excellent. Some of the best form and technique in the competition. It was great to see them on the floor at the same time.
  • Stars of the day were Germany and France. Both fantastic, but France finished ahead and is gunning to challenge China and Russia for the podium. They could do it.
  • Mélanie scored 56.482 and is definitely a favourite for podium AA. Love her unique Bars construction.
  • Congratulations to Team Canada. Despite some injury problems, they pulled off another very good prelims performance. Good chance to qualify to the team final.