Category: bars

Women’s Jr Worlds Podium Training

A few notes from the 2025 Junior World Artistic Gymnastics Championships MAG podium training.

Competition goes 20 to 24 November at the Marriott Grand Ballroom at the Newport World Resorts in the Metro Manila city of Pasay.

Manila Junior Worlds: Women’s podium training showcases depths of global talent

  • super exciting to see all the new faces at a World Championships ➙ gymnasts and coaches
  • it’s safe to say that the concept of a World Artistic Jr Championships is well accepted now. 10 more nations sent Juniors to this meet for the first time.
  • we always have to admit that it’s silly to have small nations like Malta (pop. 520,000) compete against huge nations like China. That said, Algeria has an Olympic champion. It’s possible.
  • it’s great to see good gymnastics from unexpected small nations. Sophie St John from Malta is a name to remember, for example.
  • while level of gymnastics is mixed, I found the level of Jr. WAG mostly closer to Senior level than MAG
  • myself and some of the judges I spoke with were impressed with the ARTISTRY of these young gymnasts on Floor. Entertaining choreography.
  • the FIG WTC push to improve artistry on Beam and Floor worked
FIG photo

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

FIG posted a preview article:

  • all those competing in Manila will be eligible for senior level competition by 2028 Olympics
  • Competitors to watch include Elena Colas (FRA) and Muneta Rinon (JPN), the reigning women’s Junior European and Junior Asian All-Around champions, respectively. Charleigh Bullock (USA), who earned five gold medals at the Junior Pan American Games earlier this year, will lead the U.S. effort.
  • Lavi Crain (USA) looked great in Podium
  • Elena and team France look terrific in podium training
  • the tiny gymnasts from Japan do HUGE difficult skills
  • Minamino Yume full-twisting layout Jaeger from a jam to handstand
  • one young gymnast not ready for full difficulty on Bars opts to compete a super clean, simple routine with Straddle Cut and Sole Circle dismount.  Maximize execution score. 
  • I was surprised at the number of backward handspring tucks on Beam. Layout is normally more consistent.
  • as rules still promote difficulty over execution, I’m expecting a lot of falls
  • USA puts a priority on HITTING routines. I expect them to be very successful at this level.



Lucia Piliarova – Bars

Maloney/Shaposh/Chow drills

Click PLAY or watch it on Instagram.

Gabriel Eichhorn breaks the H Bar

The best gymnasts in the world put a LOT of force into the apparatus.

Breaking springboards, for example.

Guys told me that the connection between cable and top of the post failed, in this case. I saw TaiShan guys going around and checking them.

Backward Roll to Handstand

How to Gymnastics has a terrific article & videos on how gymnasts can perfect Backward Extension to Handstand skills:

How To Back Extension Roll to Handstand

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Best Tkachev from Giants at Worlds – Kate McDonald

So much turnover (counter rotation). She could easily do Layout.

In the Gym, Kate says she can do Tkachev series. She takes it a little easy 😀 in competition in order to connect the Pak.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Best Execution Scores 2025 Worlds

I have very little faith in E-scores in 2025. Judges seem to mostly RANK the best gymnasts from a starting point around 8.1.

They can’t specifically justify their deductions in any objective way.

STILL ➙ these top scores are good performances.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Worlds ’25 Apparatus Finals – day 1

World Gymnastics Championships 2025 Jakarta. 

Gymnasts warm-up in the arena for Event Finals. This competition is LONG, of course, with only 1 routine at a time, so many go back to the training Gym to stay warmed-up.

Links to full results.

Floor

Superb Final. Huge difficulty. Really well done.

Vault

Terrible Final.

I expected Deng to medal. Warm-ups were strong. But she ran over the horse and got a zero on her first vault. Judges wouldn’t let her do a second.

Schönmaier tried upgrading to Cheng  — but lost 2.0 for using only 1 hand.

16-year-old Lia-Monica Fontaine is the breakout star on Vault. Tons of potential here. And very good in the AA, as well. She’s destined to be on the Canadian team for years to come.

Pommels

Toughest final, in my opinion. Of the top routines, any could have been World Champion. Scores are that close.

Bars

After the awful Vault Final, Bars was one of the best ever. Fantastic performances.

In fact, the routine everyone will remember from Jakarta will be G.O.A.T. Kalyia Nemour hitting this set.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Skye hit her best Bars in some time. Ever?

Zoja Szekely did a good routine, but couldn’t land her dismount. I understand she was too injured from Vault the previous day. I admire her courage. But with 20 / 20 hindsight, she should have withdrawn and let the Reserve gymnast go.

Rings

Amazing Final. Superhuman strength.

Dismount landing critical.

This sets up Donnell for the coming quadrennial. USA can always use a top Ring man who can compete other apparatus, if needed. Along with Asher Hong, it would not be a weak event.

Zhang Boheng and Adem Asil are incredibly good at Rings for AA gymnasts.

Related:

Melnikova, Wong, ZHANG Qingying

World Gymnastics Championships 2025 Jakarta All-around Final.

🥇 Angelina Melnikova, AIN, 55.066
🥈 Leanne Wong, United States, 54.966
🥉 Zhang Qingying, China, 54.633

4. Kaylia Nemour ALG 54.564
5. Asia D’Amato ITA 53.532
6. Rina Kishi JPN 53.232
7. Aiko Sugihara JPN 53.132
8. Abigail Martin GBR 52.998
9, Naomi Visser NED 52.299
10, Ruby Evans GBR 52.066

Full results.

Zhang said she was satisfied with her performance. “I would give myself 95 out of 100 today,” she said.

“My goal was to do my routines as I trained them. I didn’t expect to make the podium, so this result really motivates me for future competitions.”

Source: Xinhua

An amazing Bronze medal, considering she only competes a Kasamatu vault with average execution.

Well … quite a poor All-around Final, I must say. How many gymnasts had zero falls?

How many fell on Wolf turn?

Disappointing after the excellent Men’s Final the previous night.

Leanne Wong had an excellent meet. Many were doubting her Cheng Vault (including me) — and she proved the haters wrong. It was fairly good, putting her back in medal contention.

Gold was decided on the very last routine — Angelina on Floor. Fans will be criticizing the judges on that score for years to come. Did they get the Out of Bounds deduction wrong? Were the turns evaluated correctly?

Controversial.

Judging at Worlds was better than ever, I felt. But E-scores are too close together. A routine far superior in every way will only get, perhaps, 0.2 higher than the average routine.

How long do we have to wait before FIG compares our human judging D-panels with Fujitsu Gymnastics Judging Support System video analysis?

FIG – In 2021 repeat, Melnikova edges Wong to take World All-Around title

Related:

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Jessica’s feelings. Spencer actually looking at performance. 😀

Kaliya short handstands

Greatest Bars all time. Not over-scored.

BUT most of her straight body Cast Handstands should be deducted.

I’d recommend she use Straddle Cast instead, for one or more. Less chance of deduction.

Via the very controversial GymTruthTeller.