Gymnastics News #23: Defying Gravity

[Aaron MB Fan]

Super happy with the Canadian MAG results! Couldn't believe my eyes when I saw William Emard's results. 11th in AA qualification, making finals in Rings (6th qualification) and Vault (8th qualification, lowest difficulty but highest execution of any finalist). It's been a long time since we've had a Canadian male gymnast who can make event finals (dating back to Kyle Shewfelt days), and I can't even remember the last to do this well in an AA competition!

So if I was super happy with William's qualification results, I am beyond over the moon for his AA final result! 8th in the AA Final, making history with Canada's best-ever MAG finish at a World Championships! The prior best finish I believe was Adam Wong in 2006 at 9th place.

William finished 1st in the AA on Rings and 3rd on Floor with no execution score below 8.500! And he achieved this with having only a 3.9 difficulty on Pommel. If he can upgrade Pommel and squeeze out another point, he could really get himself into contention!!

 

[pollyanna]

Congrats to Melnikova, well deserved! I loved her bars. Way to go, American ladies!

Wow! Incredibly close finish for men's top two spots, just 0.017!

 

[annie720]

Congrats to Yul!

 

[Erin]

So if I was super happy with William's qualification results, I am beyond over the moon for his AA final result! 8th in the AA Final, making history with Canada's best-ever MAG finish at a World Championships! The prior best finish I believe was Adam Wong in 2006 at 9th place.

William finished 1st in the AA on Rings and 3rd on Floor with no execution score below 8.500! And he achieved this with having only a 3.9 difficulty on Pommel. If he can upgrade Pommel and squeeze out another point, he could really get himself into contention!!

I’ll be curious to see this routine on the CBC coverage on Sunday - his routine in qualifications with a fall had a 4.0 D. I thought originally that maybe his low D score was unintentional but now I’m guessing it was probably just a couple of tenths that are missing.

It will be interesting to see if Canada can capitalize on the potential of Émard and Dolci (who was supposed to do AA here over Émard but was injured) over the next couple of years and be able to qualify a team to Paris. There were a few other top 20 and top 30 apparatus finishes from the Canadian men, so hopefully they can use some of the momentum from this. Gymnastics Canada has been doing a good job of getting the team experience and exposure at World Challenge Cups this fall (both the women and men). This finish (along with qualifying for finals) will hopefully help with securing funding for the program.

 

[becca]

Melnikova was the obvious favorite for these Worlds when Andrade and Murakami said they won’t do the all around

Murakami finished pretty far behind the others at the Olympics. Yes Gelya was the favorite but credit needs to be given to her and Wong because Wong made it fight. Gelya delivered.

Going in as the heavy favorite has its own issues as we saw with Simone. Gelya handled it well

 

[semillon27]

And I know FSU is full of Americans, but I'm so happy that after 11 years there's a non-American at the top of the podium. Very refreshing and good for the sport!

I think even a lot of American gymnastics fans are happy for Melnikova! She’s a wonderful gymnast. Maybe I’m not a typical American but I really like seeing all athletes do their best, regardless of nationality. Seeing her progression from 2016 to now has been amazing. I’m sure Valentina would have loved to have written her off after 2017 but she didn’t have a choice as there just wasn’t the depth in Russia then, and now look at her. I love it!

Happy for Wong and DiCello as well - wonderful achievements in their first Worlds, and after being Olympic alternates it has to be especially gratifying.

 

[Tesla]

US gymnast won pommel horse!

 

[Coco]

Shame for the other American, Yoder, that they broke the ties, though. No pewter metals at world championships.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

I was very glad to see Melnikova win worlds! A wonderful result for a wonderful gymnast. And it seems she is very well liked/respected in the international gymnastics community, as well.

I was also thrilled with the results for Kayla and Leanne, especially after seeing a bunch of Twitter trolls react to the US world team selection by saying they’d bring home 0 medals. Glad to see them prove they belonged!

 

[moebius]

US gymnast won pommel horse!

That apparatus has been US team's nemesis. Now they got 2 gymnasts in the event finals. They sure come a long way.

 

[pollyanna]

Melnikova: I’m very upset with the floor final

Angelina Melnikova won silver on floor at the World Championships today but the happiness from the medal was marred by the score she believes to be too low. It took judges quite a long time to announce Melnikova’s score and when they did, the difficulty was 0.2 lower than Melnikova got in the qualification. Mai Murakami who won gold also initially got lower difficulty (5.7 instead of 5.8) credited which put her in the second place behind Melnikova. Both submitted inquiries, Melnikova’s inquiry was rejected, while Murakami’s – accepted, which moved her to the first place.

Melnikova said in the mixed zone that she was extremely upset and couldn’t even think about all the good things that happened at the competition. She couldn’t understand what happened with the score:

“I’m very upset with the floor final because I didn’t get my full difficulty, a turn wasn’t credited even though I’ve never had problems with this turn. We submitted an inquiry but it wasn’t accepted, I don’t know what to say.”

 

[her grace]

The medal ceremony for the FX event was pretty . Murakami was sobbing. Melnikova looked like she wanted to be anywhere, but there. And I was having major Kerrigan/Baiul flashbacks.

 

[Frau Muller]

Simone Biles & co. are criss-crossing America on the GOAT tour. Most reviews are “thumbs down” - mostly dance, very dark lighting, hard to tell who’s who, heavy “therapy session” focus, etc. All done in a proscenium format, as if in a theatre; not an arena. Only one complete beam routine. No complete floor or bar routines. No vault apparatus on view.

Expensive tix to a poor show. Glad that I read the reports before opening my wallet!

Sampling of reviews through this link:

Koobit

www.koobit.com

 

[Aceon6]

Simone Biles & co. are criss-crossing America on the GOAT tour. Most reviews are “thumbs down” - mostly dance, very dark lighting, hard to tell who’s who, heavy “therapy session” focus, etc. All done in a proscenium format, as if in a theatre; not an arena. Only one complete beam routine. No complete floor or bar routines. No vault apparatus on view.

Expensive tix to a poor show. Glad that I read the reports before opening my wallet!

Sampling of reviews through this link:

Koobit

www.koobit.com

Some of the “reviews” are just too much. Anyone who expected flat out routines might be just a tad out of touch. And wtf is koobit?

 

[Coco]

It's funny, Twitter has had mostly glowing reviews from people who went, although one renowned gymn blogger made fun of typos in some of the graphics. Non-gymnastics fans friends of mine went and loved it. It seems like they marketed to Disney fans, that's how the people I know got turned on to it.

 

[millyskate]

Gymnastics shows are often disappointing to gymnastics fans because they are not the opportunity to see high difficulty gymnastics anymore than skating galas are the opportunity to see big jumps.

As a child I went to the “France CEI” gala (France + athletes from former USSR) and it was amazing with a lot of full routines and exciting difficulty. But since then things have changed and all the shows are very watered down including the likes of Nemov’s show etc
I do sometimes question the point of watering down quite so much and I get people’s disappointment.

 

[Frau Muller]

A work colleague went with her little daughter to the Washington DC Show last weekend and confirmed what I read in the online reviews - that it was almost impossible to identify the famous gymnasts from a bunch of dancers on the stage due to frenetic staging and poor lighting. She told me, “Congratulations. You saved yourself $200.”

 

[VGThuy]

Suni Lee says she was a victim of an anti-Asian-American attack:

Olympian gymnast Suni Lee says she was pepper sprayed in anti-Asian attack

Olympic gymnast Suni Lee said she was pepper sprayed after being targeted with anti-Asian slurs while visiting her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota a few weeks ago. The 18-year-old go…

thehill.com

Olympic gymnast Suni Lee said she was pepper sprayed after being targeted with anti-Asian slurs while visiting her hometown St. Paul, Minnesota a few weeks ago.

The 18-year-old gold medalist said she was waiting for an Uber with a group of Asian-American friends when people in a car drove by yelling slurs including "ching chong" and saying they should "go back to where they came from," according to a profile in Pop Sugar.

 

[Coco]

I am so infuriated. I thought she has seemed a little tired or withdrawn the past few weeks on dancing with the Stars. I cannot imagine how she is processing all these emotions with so much stress on top of everything.

 

[Buzz]

I am so sorry this wonderful young lady had to endure sure a terrible attack.

 

[pollyanna]

Suni Lee, Caeleb Dressel named Sports Illustrated’s Athlete of the Year

Olympic gold medalists Suni Lee and Caeleb Dressel were each named Athlete of the Year at this year’s Sports Illustrated Awards.

www.yahoo.com

Lee, who is a first-generation Hmong American, has spoken about her connection with her culture and community. In an interview with People magazine in July, she said becoming the first Hmong American Olympic gymnast “means a lot to the Hmong community ... and to just be an inspiration to other Hmong people [means] a lot to me too.”

 

[pollyanna]

Tom Forster, U.S. women's gymnastics team leader, steps down

U.S. women’s gymnastics high-performance director Tom Forster is stepping down at the end of the year. Simone Biles reacted.

olympics.nbcsports.com

Biles, one of the hundreds of women abused by Nassar, a former national team doctor, has been a vocal critic of USA Gymnastics through the years.

“Wait till y’all realize the real problem with USAG isn’t Tom,” Biles tweeted Wednesday night.

USA Gymnastics has undergone a significant leadership overhaul in the five years since Nassar survivors first came forward. The organization may be near the end of its lengthy mediation with survivors. A vast majority of survivors approved a proposed $425 million settlement with USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

A hearing on confirmation of the settlement is scheduled for next week in Indianapolis.

 

[pollyanna]

Simone Biles named Time's Athlete of the Year for 'raising the volume' on mental health

Simone Biles received the honor for propelling the conversation around mental health to new heights.

www.yahoo.com

Simone Biles is Time's 2021 Athlete of the Year, the magazine announced Thursday. Biles, the most decorated athlete in gymnastics history, received the honor for propelling the conversation around mental health to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist. In withdrawing from events at the Tokyo Olympics she "made clear the importance of prioritizing oneself and refusing to succumb to external expectations," Alice Park and Sean Gregory wrote for Time Magazine.

 

[floskate]

Simone Biles named Time's Athlete of the Year for 'raising the volume' on mental health

Simone Biles received the honor for propelling the conversation around mental health to new heights.

www.yahoo.com

Humanity not learning a single lesson about anything, ever, on full display in the comments section.

 

[ioana]

Larisa Iordache confirmed her retirement that was already being talked about since she filed to get her subsidized income as a World medalist. Good news is she plans to work as a coach alongside Moldovan husband & wife team that have been doing very good work of their own -and were in Japan as Olympic coaches.

I really hoped she could end her career on a happier note than not being able to compete in an Olympic final, but she made it clear she's ready to move on and have a more normal life.

Larisa Iordache se retrage din gimnastică! Și-a depus actele pentru rentă | EXCLUSIV

La începutul acestei luni, mai precis pe data de 3 decembrie, gimnasta Larisa Iordache suferea o nouă intervenție la picior, într-o clinică privată din

www.prosport.ro

 

[FiveRinger]

Wendy Bruce named Head Coach of Swiss Women’s Gymnastics Team

 

[Sylvia]

2021 Star Tribune Sportsperson of the Year: St. Paul's Olympic champion is a college freshman now — a very busy, very recognizable one. By Rachel Blount (Dec. 25):

Suni Lee seeking balance after her life flipped in one golden year

2021 Star Tribune Sportsperson of the Year: St. Paul's Olympic champion is a college freshman now — a very busy, very recognizable one.

www.startribune.com

 

[Rukia]

US gymnast Shilese Jones's father has passed (after a long battle with kidney disease) a few days ago, and today Konnor McClain posted that her father passed away this morning (my understanding is that it was c*vid). I remember her dad from Golden, and he seemed very supportive of Konnor and all his kids really. Very sad for both of them.

 

[danafan]

Jones started a gofundme to help with funeral costs.

Donate to Help Lay my father Sylvester Jones Jr. to rest, organized by Shilese Jones

Hello, my name is Shilese Jones. My dad has been fighting a long term bat… Shilese Jones needs your support for Help Lay my father Sylvester Jones Jr. to rest

gofund.me

 

[Gazpacho]

Uchimura Kohei has officially retired. Surely he'll go down in history as the best male gymnast ever, no?