2015 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

[LatinXTC]

I'm surprised no one has started a topic on this yet!

So the world championships for artistic gymnastics in Glasgow, Scotland is almost done and so far the US has been dominating in women's competition, while the US men have not.

Summary of the Men's competition:

The men's Japan team FINALLY won gold in worlds after an almost 40 year drought and coming 2nd behind China in the last 4 championships the event was contested. China came in 3rd, and this could be a sign that China's men's team is finally losing the glory that the Chinese women's team has lost years ago. The Chinese men have failed to medal in the individual events for floor exercise and pommel horse (one of their strongest events), and were beaten by a Greek gymnast for gold in the rings. They managed to grab silver and bronze in that event, as well as bronze in the all-around.

The surprise success on the men's side has been team GB (Great Britain not Gamesbids ). They managed to pull ahead of China to place silver, and grabbed gold and silver in the pommel horse. Max Whitlock, who won gold in pommel horse, also grabbed silver in the floor exercise. So team GB could be a surprise threat for next year's Olympics, but artistic gymnastics is hard to predict considering one false move, like a fall or step out, could cost your whole team a medal placement.

US men's team has had a rough championships with consistent athletes Sam Mikulak, Jake Dalton and John Orozco out recovering from injuries and/or surgeries. They placed 5th in the team event and out of 2 athletes the best they placed in the all-around was 8th. No individual event medals as of yet, but we have one athlete competing in the vault and Danell Leyva will be competing in parallel bars and the horizontal bar, two of his strongest events. He hasn't had his best showing this whole competition but we'll see how it goes.

Summary of the Women's competition:

The US women's team has won gold for the 3rd straight time the event has been contested, and Simone Biles has also won her 3rd straight all-around gold medal, the first woman to win 3 all-around gold medals back to back. Gabby Douglas won the silver for the all-around. Simone Biles also won a bronze medal in the vault event, and she is poised to tie or even surpass the most gold medals won at the world championships tomorrow since she competes in both the balance beam and floor exercise.

China came in 2nd for the team all-around, and so far they managed to pick up a gold medal in the uneven bars alongside 3 other athletes. The first time ever in world championships history. Alongside China, US' Madison Kocian shared a gold medal win with China alongside 2 Russian athletes.

http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2015/10/31/a-four-way-tie-for-gold-at-world-gymnastics-championships/

Apparently pint-sized former US men's team athlete Jonathan Horton wasn't too thrilled of a 4-way tie for gold. I guess when you've never been screwed by a tie-breaker policy like Nastia Liukin was in the 2008 Olympics and Aly Raisman was in the 2012 Olympics you don't know how crappy those tie-breakers really are. Stay bitter you douchebag.

Speaking of bitter, bitter Russian bitch Viktoria Komova put a post on a Russian-run social media site accusing the US women's team of only winning because they were on steroids, and the two teams placing silver and bronze winning only because they were lucky. Nevermind that the Russian team had 4 falls, two of which were her own fault, had anything to do with women's Russian team being shut out of a medal. Here's the story.

http://www.wogymnast.com/2015/10/russias-viktoria-komova-sparks-fury-as.html

And here's Viktoria's two "flawless" performances in the team final

She later apologized for the comment. I guess she stopped being bitter after winning a 4-way tie gold medal in the uneven bars event. One of her teammates also won a gold medal in the vault.

The two surprises for the women's competition are the bronze medal win for GB in the team event and Romania being shut out of the team competition altogether. They had an abysmal qualification day and as of right now they are not eligible to compete for the Olympics in the team event. They'll have to place in the top 4 in a later competition for Romania to have a spot on the women's team event. Still Romania managed to win a bronze medal in the all-around competition, but with no athlete qualifying in the balance beam or floor exercise event, that will be their one and only medal for the world championship, in both the men and women's competitions.

[MissEurasia]

Team Final -

GB winning bronze was the highlight for me, first ever team medal for the girls, shows what's to come in the future. Proud Brit . Russia finishing out of the medals wasn't a surprise, they didn't have head bitch Mustafina with them. Romania not qualifying was no surprise either, they had pretty weak teams over the past few worlds, hope they pull their act together and qualify a team at the Rio Test Event, Well they can with the likes of Andrea Iridon, Larisa Iordache, Diana Bulimar and a now returning Catalina Ponor.

All-Around -

Simone winning was no surprise, I had her down as AA Champion straight after that AMAZING Performance at US Nationals earlier this year. I wasn't expecting Gabby to take silver, but what a comeback from her. Happy that Iordache medalled for Romania in the Bronze Medal position, You can always count on her.

Event Finals -

Ok, This is where I got really pissed off. Maria Paseka of Russia, Who won Gold had TERRIBLE form on her first Vault (A Cheng) opposed to North Korea's Hong Un Jong's lovely first vault (Again, a Cheng). I can say Hong was robbed of the Vaulting Title here. Simone took Bronze, Hoping she would take a Silver or Gold but hey ho, Congrats anyway! Bars, Komova was ROBBED. Near perfect Routine compared to the other 3, I dunno how on Earth Kocian won a Gold with all those terrible Handstands...But yeah, the steroid comments from Komova about the US are a big No No.

All in all, It was 'Ok'was hoping for Dipa Karmakar of India to win a Medal, She performed one of the hardest Vaults in the World (A Produnova) and I was also hoping for GB's Ellie Downie and Ruby Harrold to win Medals on Vault and Bars, but still, it was meh for me.

[phandrosis]

What surprised me is that the Japanese women have improved a great amount since the London 2012. They went from 8th to 5th in team and went from none to two gymnasts in the top 10 of the individual all-around. If they keep improving they might be able to bring home a medal in Tokyo 2020.

[LatinXTC]

What surprised me is that the Japanese women have improved a great amount since the London 2012. They went from 8th to 5th in team and went from none to two gymnasts in the top 10 of the individual all-around. If they keep improving they might be able to bring home a medal in Tokyo 2020.

I'm sure that's the goal for them, it's usually the case for most upcoming Olympic host nations. China did it for 2008 in most of the sports, Russia did it for 2014 (they greatly improved their abysmal figure skating program that suffered under the new system) and sure enough Japan will do the same.

I just noticed the disappointing performance from the men's Brazil team. They went from 6th last year to 8th this year in the team competition. None of their two athletes in the individual all-around placed in the top 10. They failed to qualify an athlete in every event except the high bar. Its a shame that Diego hypolito, who won bronze in the floor exercise last year, and Arthur Zanetti, who won Olympic gold in London for the rings event, didn't even qualify for those events. Hopefully for them they improve for the Olympics in their home country.

AND just in, Simone Biles has won a gold in balance beam and on the floor exercise, making her the record holder for the most golds won in artistic gymnastics for the women's competition.

[LatinXTC]

And the competition has ended with the horizontal bar, with Kohei Uchimura of Japan winning gold, Danell Leyva of the US winning silver and Manrique Larduet of Cuba winning bronze. I'm a little upset with Danell winning silver since he had a much cleaner routine, but Kohei had the more difficult routine and could afford to make small mistakes here and there. Danell really needs to up his difficulty in both parallel bars and high bar. It looks like he's been doing the same routine the last 4 years in both, and that's not going to secure him gold in next year's Olympics. This event would have been a great time to showcase harder routines so that he's better prepared to execute them next year.

So Manrique could be the surprise spoiler next year in some events if he continues to improve. That will definitely annoy American fans to no end, and perhaps Danelle Leyva since he's of Cuban descent.

Also it's disappointing to see how Germany's men team has made no progress, and has even fallen behind other teams, placing 9th in qualifications and not even competing during the team event final. With the retirement of Phillip Boy after the 2012 Olympics and Marcel Nguyen still not back 100% from his surgery last year, Fabian Hambuchen was the reliable member of the team. He qualified for the high bars, but the routine fell apart. Hopefully they regroup to make a great showing next year.

[MissEurasia]

I'm happy for the Japanese Women, Back in the 90's it'd be mainly Risa Sugawara and Miho Hashiguchi representing Japan, Now they have a much bigger team with better chances. Germany had a strong Women's Team back in the 80's, (Well, GDR did), They were WAY Overscored though especially at the 1988 Olympics where they ROBBED the USA AND Bulgaria in what I believe should have been a joint Team Bronze. Dagmar Kersten took a Bronze on Bars for a 10 that was not deserved at all IMO e.e Here's here Routine -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVPp5nKr398

How did THAT get a 10?! Insult to Perfect 10 Winners like Nadia Comaneci and Daniela Silivas if you ask. Kersten and her Teammate Ulrike Klotz, Had to be the most Overscored Gymnasts I have come across ever.

[baron-pierreIV]

What about the Iranian women's team? How did they do?

[spectator12]

Any opinions on the Americans competing for Belarus?

[spectator12]

Also, with Dowell's downfall Rio team probably set. Bet Douglas, Raisman, Biles, Nichols? are prob, locks. and then probably Kocian as bars specialist.. Guess Dennis, Hernandez, etc. might have to 'wait' for Tokyo. On Russia, Mustafina would be a lock, and I hope that some other names such as Sosnitskaya or Melnikova (age eligible?) are in the mix. Guess Komova might be on shaky terms but earned a medal & can't really replace her. Seda's usually solid. Paseka on vault and Afanasyeva on floor were awesome. IN MAG, surprised Leyva's medalled in HB and not PB this year, but guess he might have medalled before had he not wiped out on bar with chin that one time, and his hop skill is the coolest Didn't watch the men's competition, but surprised Ablyazin or Belyavskiy didn't medal.

[spectator12]

hope skrypnik or sokova might make rio too.

[spectator12]

or Grishina

[MissEurasia]

or Grishina

Grishina getting onto the Russian Squad would be very unlikely, After her London Performance, She's been blacklisted by Russia since, You don't see Pavlova competing after Beijing for Russia for the same reason. Grishina's better off doing what Pavlova did by moving to somewhere like Azerbaijan and competing for them. I would love to see Melnikova and Skrypnik in Rio! Also can't wait to see Flavia Saraiva there too!

[MissEurasia]

The American's competing for Belarus was just stupid, I felt sorry for the original two Gymnasts scheduled to compete for BLR (Sviatlana Lifenka & Valeryia Tsekhmistrenka) These two may have dreamt about competing for the their home nation but it was ultimately snatched away by 2 Gymnasts who don't train in Belarus, Don't speak their language & Have never set foot in the country. I watched an interview on Youtube and I noticed that Alaina Kwan had no shame when she said 'So we just replaced the 2 other girls and took their place' Really disgusted me. I'm sure placing 74th isn't that much of an improvement for Belarus. Seriously, You had greats like Olga Korbut and Svetlana Boginskaya, It wouldn't hurt in asking them to come over and train their Gymnasts.

The US Team was awesome! I loved how they co-operated with one another and stuff! I would say Biles, Douglas, Raisman & Nichols are definite locks for Rio, I would think the other spots would be contested between Madison Kocian, Kyla Ross & Bailie Key (Who is trained by Kim Zmeskal!).

For Russia I would expect Mustafina and Komova on the Team, Unless something HUGE happens that takes them completely out of the equation, I see them on the Team. I would think that Paseka would also be on the Team, Russia need some strong vaulters and considering she is now World Champ on the apparatus I see her in Rio for sure. I'd say Afanasyeva is a lock too. I think the other spots would be between Spiridonova, Melnikova & Skrypnik. Grishina...Not so sure about.

Japan seem to be following US's footsteps, They finished 5th (US would usually end up there in the 70's) so expect great things from the Japanese in years to come I would think in the 20's they'd be medalling in team competitions.

My favourites however were the Netherlands, They brought back 'Artistic' in Artistic Gymnastics for sure, Adored Lieke's and Eythora's Floor Routines.

Pulling for GB Women to win a Medal next year! I really really REALLY want Catherine Lyons on that Team! I hope Ellie, Becky, Amy, Claudia and Ruby Medal individually too!