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Shocker.

The World and Olympic Champion falls on layout Jaeger. As she was first competitor, the podium is open.

Huang then falls on pirouette on low bar. What’s going on here?

1.Kristian Berki (HUN) … 6.7 start
2.Louis Smith (GBR) … 6.9 start
3.Sellathurai (AUS) … … 6.5 start

1 BERKI Krisztian HUN 15.833
2 SMITH Louis GBR 15.733
3 SELLATHURAI P. AUS 15.566
4 TOMMASONE Cyril FRA 15.433
5 UDE Filip CRO 15.316
6 MERDINYAN H. ARM 15.166
7 TRUYENS D. BEL 14.133
8 BERTONCELJ Saso SLO 13.933

The best apparatus final, so far. The top 5 routines were all worthy of a World Championships title. I don’t know how you can differentiate such perfection.

If you put a gun to my head and forced me to judge, I’d have handed the gold medal to Louis Smith. He takes the least deduction on scissors, the only gymnast not to even brush the leather at any time. But Louis’ coach, Paul Hall, was totally impressed with Berki. No complaints. … I thought Berki had some tiny form breaks.

Krisztian Berki has the best single leg work, by far. He looks like the classic tall gymnast of the 1970s. … And I think he’s been competing about that long. FIG calls him the best pommel man of all time.

Personally, I was cheering for Sellathurai. He must have the fastest circles of all time.

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Olympic Silver medalist Filip Ude (Croatia) had the flattest circles, no question. Awesome.

No gymnasts from China in Finals. They’re Ring specialists, now.

The comeback queen gets yet more redemption. She and Imogen had the best “form”, I thought.

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1. Sacramone 15.2 (USA)
2. Mustafina 15.066 (RUS)
3. Barbarosa Fernandez 14.799 (BRA)

Mustafina had better leg form on the twist today. And she landed Amanar right on the centre line. Look out world. This girl could compete triple twist.

Second vault was Yurchenko half-on, full-off.

We were shocked, then, to see her penalized 0.1. … Russia appealed though 0.1 would not change the final rankings. Like the old days, protests are still walked over to the boss, Nellie Kim. They’re having a nice little chat in Russian, looks to me.

Nabieva was not even close to completing the Amanar today. She got credit only for double twisting Yurchenko.

Bigger, stronger girls have an advantage on vault, on average. We see that in this final. Only 2 “small” girls made it.

Alicia is awesome. Look at the height. But she cannot “stick”. … Has she ever stuck in an international meet?

This is her first World Championships GOLD on Vault.

Gymnastics Examiner – Quick Hits

Well deserved. The gymnast from Greece easily had the best routine in Finals.

I liked Bouhail (FRA) and Purvis (GBR) too. Dan rolled out of layout Thomas with straight legs. Stylish.

1. Kosmidis
2. Uchimura
3. Purvis

Legendre has the most disappointing routine. He misses a lot in major meets.

Gymnastics Examiner Quick Hits.

… Nabieva is in, Kurbatova is out WAG vault finals.

There are two unspoken truths about gymnastics clubs:

1. Many coaches ‘friend’ their gymnasts
2. Many coaches bring their own children to play at the gym

You know those kids. “Gym rats.”

They think they own the gym, since it’s been their personal playground all their lives.

There’s a good thread on this topic over at Chalk Bucket.

… Men’s and Women’s Individual Apparatus Competitions: VAULT and BARS … FLOOR, POMMEL, RINGS

Here’s the start list. Check out how many medal favourites are up first.

Click through to Full Twist for a larger version.

My mascot, Stroopwaffle, is jealous of all the love Grace Chiu’s Tandoori Chicken is getting from the best gymnasts in the world:

more of Grace’s photos on Facebook

Eat this, bird!

The biggest surprise to me at this World Championships in the Men’s competition was Dan Purvis from Great Britain.

Purvis scored a strong 15.066 on the floor on the way to a total of 88.965 points, 3.366 behind winner Kohei Uchimura of Japan …

“It’s been great, I never dreamed about coming fifth,” Purvis told BBC Sport.

“One or two things could have been better but this is a totally different feeling to last year.

“Last year things didn’t click into place as much, but this year I’ve had luck on my side and great coaching.” …

BBC

Excellent pommels. Great technique. Great form. Watch for him in the lead up to the London Olympics.

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Consider the guys to be added to the top teams: Keatings (GBR), Marcel Nguyen (GER), Hamm (USA), Benoit Caranobe (FRA) … Who else?

China has another team this good back home training, of course.

The official FIG edit featuring the 3 medalists.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

I find it a surprising cut, emphasizing some of the biggest mistakes. Boy and Horton’s landings on Vault, for example.

And we see that Horton hit his foot on on Horizontal Bar. Not many in the arena saw that, let me tell you. … It also shows how close Boy was to the bar on that regrasp.

I’d like to see the highlights version now, showing some of the best things they did. If you only watched this edit you’d think these 3 were hackers, not the 3 that did a superb job over 6 apparatus.

If you’d completely forgotten the World Championships were on this weekend, catch up on what happened in the all-around competition.

Japan’s Kohei Uchimura and Russia’s Aliya Mustafina won the all-around titles Friday at the 2010 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam. …

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… Next year Uchimura could take an unprecedented third all-around title at the 2011 World Championships, which will be held in Tokyo no less. …

International Gymnast

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… Mustafina’s all-around total of 61.032 is even higher than it was in the team final and qualification, and is the second-best score posted by a female gymnast under the new Code of Points. (Russia’s Viktoria Komova, not eligible for Rotterdam, won the Youth Olympics in August with a record 61.250). …

Note that the rules at the Youth Olympics are slightly different than FIG.

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Gymnastics Examiner commentary – Aliya Mustafina, Kohei Uchimura win 2010 World all-around titles

FIG – Mustafina prevails in women’s All-around

FIG – Uchimura defends All-around title

Bross will be back next year, I’m certain. She’s determined.

Good night.