Category: floor (women)

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.



excellent Wolf Turn

Judges need be more discriminating — OR FIG WTC should devalue.

Click PLAY or watch it on Instagram.

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.

Apparatus Finals – day 2 VIDEOs

World Champions:

  • MAG VT: Carlos Yulo
  • WAG BB: Zhang Qingying
  • MAG PB: Zou Jingyuan
  • WAG FX: Sugihara Aiko
  • MAG HB: Brody Malone

FIG – Familiar faces adorn the podiums as World Gymnastics Championships end

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Vault, Parallel Bars, and High Bar PODCAST.

Click PLAY or watch the GymCastic PODCAST on YouTube. WAG & MAG.

Denisa Golgotă – FLOOR

World Gymnastics Championships 2025 Jakarta.

Maybe my favourite routine at Worlds. I love the false endings. Unique choreography. The whole package.

It was great in qualifications — but the Finals routine missed passage of dance.

I did hear that she was suffering from something, perhaps food poisoning.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Sadly, Denisa is in the middle of yet another Romanian team drama.

Worlds ’25 Apparatus Finals – day 2

World Gymnastics Championships 2025 Jakarta. 

Gymnasts warm-up in the arena for Event Finals. Some did a lot. Some very little. Each has their own strategy.

Links to full results.

Vault

Without question, the greatest Men’s VAULT Final in history.

After our Olympic Champ Yulo delivered near perfection on his 1st vault, we thought the legend Davtyan couldn’t catch him due to lower difficulty. BUT it nearly happened. What a rivalry!

Beam

That might be the greatest BEAM Final in history. It’s so often been a disaster.

Following the Beam Final, FIG posted Ellie Black’s Fair Play Award from the Paris Olympics. Everyone loves Ellie, in good position to qualify for her 5th Olympics.

Her Beam was fantastic, by the way.

P Bars

LEGEND. G.O.A.T.

Floor

Thrilled Sigihara Aiko at age-26 is World Champion. Gold on Floor, Bronze on Beam.

I was disappointed for Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, finishing 4th. Fantastic tumbling.

Ruby and Abigail are great on Floor, as are their GBR male teammates.

H Bar

A super strong field of competitors. But there were 2 falls and a number of bent elbow errors.

Brody is World Champion for the second time. Recall he only barely qualified for the Final.

We can argue Brody v Daiki for Gold. But Brody does have 0.2 higher difficulty.

I was happy to see Joe finish Bronze rather than 4th. That was a good set with BIG Triple Pike dismount

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. 😀

Kaia Tanskanen – Floor

So powerful.