Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.

WATANABE Hazuki – Qualification Beam

As promised, FIG is uploading all qualification routines to YouTube without GeoBlocking.

Hazuki ended up the surprise World Champion. Here’s the routine that got her into the Beam Final.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Worlds Liverpool wraps-up

Worlds Liverpool went surprisingly well.

One of the better worlds in recent memory. Not Glasgow 2015 good — but very good.

35,000 tickets sold and sell-out crowds for the final weekend.

Local fans had much to cheer about. Men & women’s teams both were top 3 — automatic qualification to the Paris Olympics. Six medals total including Gold on Floor for Giarnni Regini-Moran & Jessica Gadirova.

The FREE Championships Fan Zone was great for the kids.

406 volunteers worked 15,000 hours total.

Despite no covid precautions, I didn’t hear of even one gymnast having to withdraw due to the virus. (One medal contender from Taiwan didn’t travel to Liverpool because he had covid, however.)

Nicolas Buompane, FIG secretary general, answered the toughest question at the final Press Conference: Norway and 6 other nations opting not to attend FIG Congress 2022 in Istanbul.

Nicolas explained that FIG currently has no process for banning delegates. It would need to be added to their rules. And that their lawyers have concluded that FIG would lose any court challenge to such a ban.

Watanabe was more philosophical. An international democratic organization should listen to all view points. He respects both the Russian Federation and those who oppose those delegates attending Congress. He hopes that all member Federations will soon be back together as a family.

Personally, I’m worried about China invading Taiwan. In that case, I expect Chinese athletes to be banned from FIG events.

Worlds ’22 Apparatus Final 2

Beam

Japan is THE up-and-coming team in the world right now.

I felt Skye Blakely and and Ou Yushan had the best routines — but Beam is an apparatus where you have to hit under pressure. The medal winners did that.

Ellie Black had zero falls or major errors over 4 Beam routines in Liverpool. In fact she had no falls or major errors on any apparatus in Qualification, Team Final, AA Final or either Apparatus Final. Truly she’s been the most consistent of the top gymnasts in the world.

Floor

Crowd went wild.

In the craziest Final, Jessica Gadirova won the Floor title. As did her GBR teammate Giarnni Regini-Moran in Men’s Floor.

This will be the most discussed podium as nobody understands exactly what the judges want in terms of artistry.

USA appealed Jade’s Floor score — as many teams did for many athletes — but this time the score went DOWN 0.1.

That can happen.

As a result, Jade went into a tie with Rebeca. This made pretty much everyone in the arena happy. 😀

Vault

Fantastic vaults to get on to this podium. It was one of the best finals in years. Only 1 fall over 16 super difficult vaults.

You beat, Yulo … you are GOOD. Congratulations to 30-year old Artur Davtyan. Two fantastic vaults.

P Bars – Zou Jingyuan

The man. The legend. The greatest of all time on Parallel Bars.

Arguably the greatest routine of all time on any apparatus.

H Bar

Superb Final. No falls. No drama. Just great Gymnastics.

Brody hit the best routine I’ve ever seen him do.

Brody Malone – World Champion. I like the sound of that.

Apparatus Finals 1 in 1-minute

Wei Xiaoyuan 韦筱圆 – Bars

The World Champion defends with a near perfect routine.

This was a very competitive Bars Final.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Worlds ’22 Apparatus Final 1

Vault

Bars

A thrilling Final. I’m glad I wasn’t a judge trying to rank the top 3 awesome routines.

Shout out for Eli Seitz finishing 4th at her 10th World Championships. Ellie Black finished 4th on Vault but she’s still catching up to Eli on number of Worlds. 😀

Floor 

Pommels

Podium with gymnasts from superpowers Ireland, Jordan and Armenia.

Harutyun is age-38.

Rings 

Everyone very happy for Adem.

Crowd went nuts for Courtney Tulloch, who’s great on social media, by the way.

My favourite routine was You Hao, but his landing was terrible this time. And that’s enough to drop anyone off the podium.

Men’s ’22 AA Worlds wrap-up

After the terrible, horrible Men’s Team Final, the All-Around was excellent. Not as excellent as the WAG AA — but still super exciting with the title being decided on the last apparatus.

Watch the 1-minute summary.

dismount Floor like THIS

Yulo.

Tang Chia-Hung (TPE) – 9th AA

Taiwan wants again to qualify a full team to Paris. They were the miracle team of the last quadrennial, a surprise qualification to Tokyo.

On bouncing back from 17th to 9th:

“I am happy with my performance today, especially on horizontal bar. I will give myself seven out 10 for my HB routine. This is not all I have in my pocket. I hope I can improve my difficulty in the future. And show the world ‘a better me’ next time in a world wide competition.”