Author: Rick Mc

In the media section at the World Championships, the 2 hardest working people so far as I’m concerned are Anne Phillips of Gymnastike and Blythe Lawrence of Gymnastics Examiner.

Read Blythe’s summary of the competition so far:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: one of the things I’ve learned this week is how a team does in podium training is not necessarily indicative of how it will perform in the competition. …

… The question of the women’s competition now is how much of a gap is there between the top three from China, the top three from Russia, and the top three from the U.S. on each event? The answer: Not much. …

Nice surprises: China’s consistency, Australia and Russia’s women’s teams (Russia given the reports that came out of podium training), Great Britain’s men and women, Vanessa Ferrari, He Kexin on floor, Jade Barbosa, Yana Demyanchuk (hit routines on both bars and beam for Ukraine, made event finals on beam), Ariella Kaeslin on vault (DTY!), Aliya Mustafina on vault, Ali Al Asi on events other than rings, Kohei Uchimura, the Dutch women’s determined performance, Ashleigh Brennan on beam (extraordinary), Imogen Cairns on floor (hit the hell out of the set), Philipp Boy in the all-around (second place in qualifying

Gymnastics Examiner – Rotterdam reflections: Men’s and women’s team/individual qualifications

I’m super excited for the Team Finals over the next 2 days. What gymnasts can HIT under the pressure of 3-up, 3-count. There could easily be big changes in the ranking from prelims.

Gymnastike specializes in video interviews. But does much, much more.

If you speak German, the excellent GymMEDIA site is doing something similar. Click through to see their interviews auf Deutsch. GymMEDIA reports that Germany was quite happy with a 5th place finish.

Photos from Facebook: 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships by Grace Chiu GraceClick

2010 Team Finals Qualifiers:
1 China 362.482
2 Japan 361.40
3 United States 357.092
4 Great Britain 357.033
5 Germany 355.383
6 Russia 355.076
7 Korea 352.042
8 France 350.284

2011 World Championships Team Qualifiers (including the above teams):
Romania, Italy, Spain, Puerto Rico, Ukraine, Canada, Switzerland, Belarus, Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Colombia, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Uzbekistan, Portugal

All Around Finals:
UCHIMURA Kohei JPN, 92.231
BOY Philipp GER, 90.156
LU Bo CHN 89.639
HORTON Jonathan USA 89.598
PURVIS Daniel GBR 89.498
YOO Won Chul KOR 89.423
KOCZI Flavius ROU 89.398
KHOROKHORDIN Sergey RUS 89.241
TENG Haibin CHN 89.181
HUNTER Samuel GBR 89.090
KUKSENKOV Mykola UKR
LEYVA Danell USA
UEMATSU Koji JPN
RIVERA Luis PUR
DEVYATOVSKIY Maxim RUS
SPIRIDONOV Evgenij GER
TOMMASONE Cyril FRA
SHATILOV Alexander ISR
GONZALEZ SEPULVEDA CHI
MUNOZ Sergio ESP
VARGAS VELAZQUEZ L. PUR
SAVITSKI Dzmitry BLR
FOKIN Anton UZB
KIM Soo Myun KOR

Reserves:
VALEIEV Ildar KAZ
GIRALDO LOPEZ J. COL
JEFFERIS Joshua AUS
GAFUIK Nathan CAN

Floor Exercise Final:
1 KOSMIDIS Eleftherios GRE 15.466
2 SHATILOV Alexander ISR 15.308
3 PURVIS Daniel GBR 15.266
4 LEGENDRE Steven USA 15.233
5 PENEV Eddie BUL 15.066
6 KOCZI Flavius ROU 15.000
7 BOUHAIL Thomas FRA 14.966
8 UCHIMURA Kohei JPN 14.966
Reserves
R1 GONZALEZ SEPULVEDA E. CHI 14.933
R2 BOTELLA PEREZ Isaac ESP 14.866
R3 PICHLER Thomas AUS 14.825

Pommel Horse Final:
1 BERKI Krisztian HUN 15.900
2 SELLATHURAI Prashanth AUS 15.566
3 TOMMASONE Cyril FRA 15.500
4 UDE Filip CRO 15.500
5 TRUYENS Donna Donny BEL 15.416
6 BERTONCELJ Saso SLO 15.400
7 MERDINYAN Harutyum ARM 15.333
8 SMITH Louis GBR 15.300
Reserves
R1 SELIGMAN Robert CRO 15.200
R2 NAKASHIMA Tatsuki JPN 15.166
R3 BUSNARI Alberto ITA 15.166

Click PLAY or watch the #1 Pommel routine on YouTube.

Still Rings Final:
1 CHEN Yibing CHN 15.966
2 YAN Mingyong CHN 15.700
3 YAMAMURO Koji JPN 15.633
4 MORANDI Matteo ITA 15.500
5 YOO Won Chul KOR 15.466
6 CHEN Chih Yu TPE 15.466
7 KOBAYASHI Kenya JPN 15.433
8 SAN MIGUEL Ivan ESP 15.400
Reserves
R1 WYNN Brandon USA 15.400
R2 ANGIOLETTI Matteo ITA 15.366
R3 TARANU Thomas GER 15.266

Vault Finals
1 GOLOTSUTSKOV Anton RUS 16.475
2 KASPIAROVICH Dzmitry BLR 16.433
3 BOUHAIL Thomas FRA 16.366
4 YANG Hak Seon KOR 16.266
5 KOCZI Flavius ROU 16.266
6 ISAYEV Andriy UKR 16.233
7 WAMMES Jeffrey NED 16.216
8 RIVERA Luis PUR 16.133
Reserves
R1 YAMAMURO Koji JPN 16.116
R2 YAKUBOVS’KYI Oleksandr UKR 16.083
R3 TUUHA Tomi FIN 16.016

Parallel Bars Finals:
1 FENG Zhe CHN 15.866
2 TENG Haibin CHN 15.633
3 HAMBUECHEN Fabian GER 15.433
4 UEMATSU Koji JPN 15.400
5 KIERZKOWSKI Adam POL 15.366
6 UCHIMURA Kohei JPN 15.366
7 PIASECKY Samuel SVK 15.366
8 VALEIEV Ildar KAZ 15.366
Reserves
R1 ZONDERLAND Epke NED 15.333
R2 BOY Philipp GER 15.258
R3 CAPELLI Claudio SUI 15.241

Click PLAY or watch the #1 PBar routine on YouTube.

High Bar Final:
1 ZHANG Chenglong CHN 15.766
2 UEMATSU Koji JPN 15.733
3 HAMBUECHEN Fabian GER 15.700
4 LEYVA Danell USA 15.633
5 BOY Philipp GER 15.566
6 BROOKS Christopher USA 15.500
7 ZONDERLAND Epke NED 15.325
8 FENG Zhe CHN 15.266
Reserves
R1 MOZNIK Marijo CRO 15.233
R2 WAMMES Jeffrey NED 15.166
R3 KIM Jihoon KOR 15.166

Updated on October 19, 2010, 6:37pm

This summary via the wonderful Gymnastike. Official results available via the Start Lists and Results link on the competition home page. That’s in detailed PDF format.

related – photo montages of the Chinese men in Rotterdam: Podium and Team competition

Inside Gymnastics has a succinct summary.

Highlights of the Day
• Russia on Floor
• China – technique and artistic gymnastics
• Fabian Hambuechen

Gripe of the Day
• Takemoto full to Voronin on H bar… overused

Favorite Performances of the Day
• Chen Yibin on Still Rings

INSIDE SCOOP: OUR TAKE ON MEN’S PRELIMS 2

http://view.picapp.com//JavaScripts/OTIjs.js

There’s much, much more to talk about. Far more than with the Women’s competition.

Here’s the FIG press release:

… Russia is back! We … were absolutely taken by this generation of seeming champions. …

… Hungary is back with a full team in Rotterdam. The team is led by two-time World Pommel Horse Silver medallist Kristian Berki, who has a shot at the title this time around. Showing an extremely clean routine with high Difficulty, the 25 year old took his first step in the right direction by qualifying in first position (15.900). …

… Armenia was proudly represented by 2008 European finalist Harutyum Merdinyan. The Pommel Horse specialist put on a terrific routine (15.333), qualifying him for the Final …

There will be very few disappointing routines in event finals this year. It was super tough to get into one.

… Led by Olympians Luis Vargas and Luis Rivera, Puerto Rico, who placed 16th at both Worlds in 2006 and 2007, made it to the top 12 this year with 349.260 points. 2006 and 2009 finalist Vargas qualified again for the Individual All-around Final with 86.982 points overall. Compatriot Rivera, who had the brightest moment of his career when he finished 14th in the Beijing All-around, qualified on Vault today (16.133). …

read more on FIG –
China tops men’s qualifications

http://view.picapp.com//JavaScripts/OTIjs.js

Full lists via the official meet homepage.

Top 8 teams:

China
Japan
USA
GBR
Germany
Russia
Korea
France

Romania, somewhat overscored, just missed. Actually, Italy, Spain or  Puerto Rico could have grabbed that 8th spot with just a few more tenths of a point. … Next year.

All-around finalists (24) marked with a Q for qualified, max. 2 / nation.

I’ll post apparatus finals separately.

Congratulations Germany.  … With all the problems and controversy in the program right now, I really didn’t think they could pull this off.

Gymnastics Examiner:

With German national champion Marcel Nguyen out of the World Championships with a broken leg and Fabian Hambuechen’s announcement that Achilles pain will limit him to four events in Rotterdam, 23-year-old Philipp Boy is likely to be the top German competitor in the Netherlands. …

Philipp Boy, Germans seeking to replicate Europeans success in Rotterdam

Their team jacket.

Photographers are observant. explorerdk from Denmark picked up this at a glance.

… I’m abandoning the blog. Off to see TOTEM in Amsterdam  with Cirque casting friends and some of the lady judges.

Will update end-of-day when the chalk dust settles.

Since he competed back in the perfect 10 era, we’ll take it.

This is actually the 14th World Championships for Espen, the eldest here, age-41.

THE ALL AROUND reports his daughters are cheering for him from the stands.

What I love about this World Championships is seeing all the smaller nations getting a chance to share the big stage.

… Irish Gymnastics is getting some coverage

Great interview on Gymnastike.

http://videoplayer.flocasts.org/player.swf

related – Couch Gymnast – Renmore Gymnastics, Ireland, Interview with Ariel Edesses

So far.

Most of the top teams have competed now. Team prelim rank pretty much as predicted.

1 CHN 362.482
2 JPN 361.400
3 USA 357.092
4 GBR 357.033
5 RUS 355.076
6 KOR 352.042
7 FRA 350.284
8 ROU 350.134

I could see Russia moving up to 4th in Team Finals. And France hurting (if they qualify) now that they’ve lost Caranobe to injury.

1 UCHIMURA Kohei JPN 92.231

2 LU Bo CHN 89.639
3 HORTON Jonathan USA 89.598
4 PURVIS Daniel GBR 89.498
5 YOO Won Chul KOR 89.423
6 KOCZI Flavius ROU 89.398
7 KHOROKHORDIN S. RUS 89.241
8 TENG Haibin CHN 89.181

Who gets to stand next to Uchimura on the podium? … Whoever has a good day. It’s wide open though I’m personally betting on Horton to be second. The inconsistent one has got it figured out.

Facebook: 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships by Grace Chiu GraceClick

There’s some prize money at this meet, by the way.

UPDATE: 5th as a team, so far.

China leads World Gymnastics Championships with 362.482.

Full team results (PDF), so far.

… And we have no idea what China is keeping in reserve. For example, their 5th man on rings didn’t need to compete after the superb performance of the first 4 competitors.

For all we know they many have left better gymnasts at home, planning to surprise when they show at Worlds 2011.

_____

Russia is the last team that could possibly challenge. They’re looking GOOD on Parallel Bars … meaning low start score routines with very nice execution. Sadly, that doesn’t win in 2010.

A good example is David Belyavsky on Horizontal bar. Uchimura clean. But the start score will be too low.

On Floor Russia is the only other team aside from GBR that takes pains to try to STICK landings. Respect.

WOW. They are killing on Pommels, the strongest team, so far. Hit 5 for 5. My old coach Physical Ed Vincent would love Russia. He always told us that Pommel was the most important discipline. Then the all-around. Then school.

Vault last rotation. Hit (9.5E). Hit. Hit. Very clean.

Anton Golotsutskov nearly sticks Tsuk double pike. And nearly sticks a (slightly early twisting Dragalescu. Two 7.0 vaults. We’ll see the Olympic Bronze medalist in Finals.

Russia will likely finish lower than JPN, USA and GBR. … Perhaps even lower than that. But personally I’m a big fan of team Russia. They should win the EXECUTION World Championships. Or finish 2nd to GBR.

Rings starts well. Cherkasov sticks triple tuck, the first I’ve seen at this meet.

… OK, China will probably win that too, despite errors.

Not everything. David Belyavsky RUS is my leading candidate for the Men’s Longine Prize. Him and Romanian Ana Progras.
_____

Update: Brazil has been quietly hitting a lot of routines today. They were somewhat written off since injured Diego Hypolito is not here.

Gonzalez from Chile mounted Floor with double double layout. Nice. And dismounted triple twist STICK like a knife in a plank. Awesome. … He’s sitting in 8th right now, will likely get bumped from finals.