#Glasgow2015 Worlds predictions

Win money ! 🙂

If you’ve got predictions for the AA and Apparatus Finals, click through to this Facebook page.

It will get you to the contest page.

From there … log-in first.

Then get your password by email.

THEN make your predictions WAG and MAG.

Here are mine … just so you can prove me wrong. 🙂

WAG predictions

MAG predictions

I was going to predict Giulia Steingruber for Bronze in the AA. But couldn’t find her name in the pulldown menu. I was forced to go ELLIE. 🙂

Update. Seems I believe that Oleg Stepko will beat Oleg Verniaiev on P Bars. Be careful how you click. 🙂

Japan Ends China’s Winning Streak

Dwight Normile:

China came to Glasgow as winner of six straight world titles, but it struggled early with a fall on its second event, pommels, and was never in the hunt until it surged into the mix with the highest parallel bars total in rotation five (47.765).

The Chinese finished on high bar, where a year ago Zhang Chenglong dumped Japan to second by 0.10 with the last routine of the meet. This time, however, he opened early on a half-Takemoto and finished on the wrong side of the bar. That was enough to end China’s gold medal hopes. …

IG

It’s been 33yrs since Japan won Worlds.

full results

World Champions: Japan, GBR, China

Fantastic show tonight in the Men’s Team Final at #Glasgow2015. The guys hit a higher percentage of routines than did the women the previous evening.

https://twitter.com/johnmason85/status/659476918463500288

Max Whitlock capped the night with as good a Floor routine as he’s ever done to thrill the home crowd. 🙂

Japan had a big lead going into their final apparatus, Horizontal Bar. Rather than play it safe, they went full difficulty. Shockingly Tanaka fell on release. Then Kohei fell on release.

Dramatic music played as we waited for Uchimura’s score. Happily it was enough to pull out their long awaited team victory.

Shannon Miller eats chocolate

I saw one of the Chinese girls eating a chocolate bar at #Glasgow2015.

Now this.

🙂

pronouncing / spelling gymnast names

I still use Marta Karolyi – not Martha – because wikipedia uses that spelling, with accents. When in doubt, I default to wikipedia spelling.

The Glasgow arena announcers don’t seem to have done much homework on pronunciation. There have been some wild guesses.

https://twitter.com/thegymshark/status/659378092134154241

Korbut Flip linked to a good suggestion. FIG should:

… require that each gymnast upload a sound clip of them saying their name to get an FIG licence and make these available to the press …

That would help. A bit. 🙂

Artistry awards for women

I spoke to one of the Longines guys at #Glasgow2015. Asked him the process for 2015.

He told me everything is TOP SECRET.

Longines

Some panel will make the decision. The gymternet will disagree. The usual.

Since it’s impossible to consistently score artistry, I’d love to see a parallel set of awards – something like Longines – at the major FIG meets. Awarded just prior to the medals on each apparatus.

Instead of some mystery panel, those awards should be decided by FIG judges. For 2015 gymnasts like Vasiliki Millousi, Eythora Thorsdottir, Viktoria Komova, Lieke and Sanne Wevers are examples of those in the running.

Floor is the most exciting apparatus this year, I’d say. But of many great routines (Simone, for example) I’d vote for Eythora.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The most artistic gymnasts look fantastic … even when they make mistakes. 🙂 A dancer can admire this choreography. A dancer will cringe watching the majority of 2015 routines.

To me, artistry is the ability to perform and sell the routine- while being in sync with the music. Simone Biles does this. Laurie Hernandez does this. Llomincia Hall does this. Catherine Lyons does this. …

My point is- artistry is not always about being the most graceful or having beautiful balletic lines. Sure it’s nice to see, but unfortunately not everybody can move like that. I don’t want to see Simone Biles doing Aliya Mustafina’s floor routine! It just wouldn’t look right! Every gymnast has to do a routine that works for them. …

Triple Twist – The Artistry Debate (2014)

https://instagram.com/p/9Ylt-hQDgc/

related – Hard Way To Success – Episode 19 – Eythora Thorsdottir (July 2015)