2021 World Championships wrap up. Happy Retirement Mai

Videos: Women [Qualifications] [All around ] [Vault] [Bars] [Beam] [Floor] Men : [ All Around ] [High Bar] [Floor] [Pommels] Thanks Rocio.

Results: Woman [ Qualifications] [All Around] [Vaults] [Bars] [Beam] [ Floor]

We started this World championship with everyone bitching about who wasn’t going to be here instead of who was. With the US team caring more about making money on Simone Biles Gold-ish tour the gymterhaters spent more time complaining about the lack of participants at the World Team trials than giving credit to who made the 2021 World “B team”, Russia’s Valentina started an uproar of her own when she left “Injured” Listunova at home and declared the real Olympic champion, Vlada Urasova was only doing 2 events. She changed her mind and then went on vacation, not even bothering to show up. After she pretty much browbeat Melnikova into giving up her time off, no less. The rest of the World also acted like this World Championships had the Wuhan Virus but in the end, this Worlds actually ended up being one of the most pleasant to watch in years.

After my retirement blog for Jiang Yuyuan, I doubted I would ever have a retirement blog for another gymnast but here we are. Mai Murakami, the princess of being screwed over for medals (Not Queen because that honor belongs to Shang Chunsong) has decided to hand in her grips and settle into retirement life. You don’t remember Mai being robbed but she had some amazing floor routines back in the day but the judges just refused to give her any credit for them. Anyway, this blog is about the 2021 World championships and Mai won two medals on the only two events she competed including a surprise bronze on beam and Gold medal on Floor where the judges tried to screw her over in her own country. Shame on you, judges (Remember I mentioned earlier that strange things happen when Worlds or Olympics are held in Japan well add this one to the screwing of the Kween in 98 (If you don’t know who that is we can’t be friends) the scoring at the 1995 Worlds for gymnastics (Lilia Podkopayeva winning a medal on bars, tying with Mo Huilan (SURE JUDGES) etc… (I know there are more I just can’t remember right now) Happy retirement Mai.

[ Mai crying on the medal podium ] [Floor Gold medal routine] [Beam bronze medal] [Congratulating her gold medal beam teammate]

Screwing of Princess Mai [2015 Worlds] [2016 Olympics] [2021 Olympics] (There’s another I can’t remember)

I don’t usually talk about the men and besides Kohei and some suspicious judging that seemed to keep the Olympic AA champion in silver medal position but this second vault byCarlos Yulo, was freaking amazing. The Dragalescu vault is no joke and he nailed the hell out of that landing. I feel like it deserves a mention. I also think Hashimoto Daiki should have won the High Bar final. The Chinese gymnasts usually have such amazing form that when they win I never have an issue but I watched the final (linked above) and boy was he overscored. Daiki had a messed up landing but I don’t feel like the judges were judging the two routines the same. Funny how the start value didn’t benefit him like it did Hu Euwei. Suspicious scoring in Japan is an occurrence that happens a lot and it doesn’t favor Japan. This being the case. Good thing he’s young. I also think Macchini should have had bronze on High bar over Brody who was the sloppiest gymnast in the final and his dismount was sloppy.

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Angelina Melnikova came here as the favorite for the All-Around gold medal and she didn’t disappoint. She also surprised the World when she made all 4 event finals adding her name to the likes of Olympic and World legends, Shannon Miller, Lilia Podkopayeva, Simone Biles, and Aliya Mustafina. Gold in the AA. Bronze on Vault and Silver on Floor.

Podium ceremonies are usually pretty boring unless a bee shows up or someone behaves like a toddler and forgets to congratulate the Gold medal winner (I’m looking at you Kim Zmeskal and Svetlana Boginskaya) but we now get to ad, medal switch to the list of fun and meaningless medal ceremony mishaps that in a few years will make us smile suspiciously (I mean was this really a mistake or was Valentina dressed as the person giving out the medals and she decided to make a statement by giving Angelina the wrong medal. Guess we will never know)

LEANNE WONG GOES 10ish FOR TEN and the US ” B”Team Makes a statement.

Call them team B team all you want but even though the US didn’t come home with an individual gold medal they took 2 out of the 3 available spots in the All Around beating the should have been Olympic champion in the process. If the 2 per country rule didn’t exist all 4 gymnasts would have qualified to an Event final. Sure that says more about the judging than anything else but I don’t make the rules. And can we please celebrate Leane freaking Wong going 8 for 8 in prelims and the All Around? I don’t think I remember her ever doing this. Even as a junior. I knew if Leanne hit bars at a competition there was no way she would hit beam and vice versa but after having a shaky performance to make the team, Leanne showed her mettle and will from here on out be called, Leanne F-IN Wong. I have never been more proud of a US gymnast’s performance at a World championship, EVER. She didn’t back into an AA medal with a fall. She wasn’t expected to come within 3 tenths of being the World AA champion. People expected Kayla to be the one in the running but Leanne did what very few US gymnasts have ever done. She went overseas and scored better than inside the US and proved she belonged here. I hope she sticks around next year and competes Elite. **** Hand on beam in event finals is why I say-ish and she still got a 13.333. Without the hand and the bobble she might have won.(and then I would call her underscored)

Let’s pretend that the beam didn’t eat 5 of the 8 medal hopefuls for dinner during the EF and instead celebrate the surprise Gold medalist, Urara Ashikawa. IT’S TOO BAD I CAN’T FIND A SINGLE VIDEO OF HER WIN BECAUSE NBC HATES WHEN THE US DOESN’T WIN A MEDAL AND IGNORES THAT THIS COMPETITION ACTUALLY INCLUDES GYMNASTS UNDER A DIFFERENT FLAG so I have to leave you with an interview instead. I read that Russia didn’t even show the meet. What the actual F&*%?

Kohei’s last meet BUT WAIT. Damn that close catch on HB or he would have had a medal but since he isn’t retiring, I don’t have to write a farewell blog. I AM SO…. 1 – 2– 3– 4– 5– 6– 7- 8– 9

The US was one slipped hand from having two men on the podium for pommel horse. Who would have ever thought that could even be a dream? Stephen Nedoroscik made the impossible happen and he’s knocked the annoying Yoder down a peg which is a plus. I don’t begrudge people celebrating their wins but it was nice to see Nedoroscik win with complete class and respect for his fellow competitors. Like Leanne, he had to go out of the US to get credit from the judges who clearly pegged Yoder as the superior Pommel horse worker. The bad news is Stephen only seems to compete pommels and that isn’t going to put him on future teams.

OVERALL, this Worlds results were fair and balanced (For the woman and save execution scores in qualifications for certain gymnasts on bars and beam) but the Gold medalists all deserved their medals and I can’t remember a time where at least one result didn’t result in bickering amongst the gymterhaters.

Being happy with all the Gold medalists. Medalists overall really at a World Championships is like finding a Unicorn dancing among the Lillies at your local 7-11 but Melnikova as World AA champ. Andrade winning Vault. Wei Xiaoyuan winning bars. Urara Ashikawa ‘s surprise win on beam and Mai winning Floor. All deserved. I have only one medal BULL SHIT SCORING and that’s Luo Rui on bars but I rather enjoyed watching the Woman’s portion of the 2021 Worlds. It is so much more enjoyable to not know the outcome before it begins.

BONUS BITCHING :)! Are the Vault judges blind?

Elisabeth Geurts from the Netherlands qualified in 2nd place for Vault with, somewhat underwhelming execution. Her second vault had a very messy knee bend that had no business qualifying second into a vault final. Her first vault was also sloppy tho not as sloppy as everyone else doing the same vault. [Vault 1] [Vault 2] [Vault 2] (Two different angles) but my real complaint here isn’t with Elisabeth. It’s with the judges. If you watch the entire Event Final for Vault and check out, Elisabeth’s DTY, it had pretty decent form. She had a huge step back which brought down the execution but compare that to Melnikova with the same huge hop and what I would describe as worse than Paeska like form and yet if you look at the score the judges found Melnikova’s vault to be superior. There is no excuse for the judges giving, Angelina a 14.433 (9.033 execution) and giving Elisabeth a 14.366 ( 8.966 execution) Even with the 1 tenth deduction, Elisabeth clearly had better form throughout the vault. Legs together with only a small separation off the block. These judges were judging Melnikova on a completely different set of execution deductions. Now Elisabeth fell on her messy second vault so in the end it didn’t matter but the Vault judges at this meet need to be fired. Heck, at every meet they deserve to be fired. For them not to see the difference between these two vaults is criminal. Rebeca’s DTY had a few issues but she received a 9.4 execution score with far superior height and distance not to mention form. Asia DiMatto’s DTY was also a mess and it received an 8.733 execution score. You can say that all that matters, in the end, is results but one of these days the scoring is going to screw someone out of a medal and why not stop that from happening before it happens?

I am sorry there are not more videos for this blog but thanks to NBC being the only country that actually showed it on Television besides Japan, the individual videos are lacking.

Highlights:LEANE FREAKING WONG. Melnikova winning the AA. Maria Ceplinschi making Floor finals. Urara winning beam. Mai winning a beam medal. MAI WORLD CHAMPION on floor.

Sad. Qui Qui not making vault finals. The Chinese team in prelims especially, Li Shijia. Hatakeda Hitomi‘s injury. Luo Rui falling on beam in the EF. Mai retiring. KOHEI. Dragalescu not making Vault finals even though he didn’t fall. The US media bitching about Tom because the US didn’t win a gold medal while simultaneously whining that gold medals are not all that matters. The same people that bitch that Strug didn’t have to vault hurt are praising someone competing sick DURING THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC?

OMG. I should be blogging about the hypocrisy of the US media and gymterhater fans . What has the world come to that I AM THE VOICE OF REASON WHEN IT COMES TO EXPECTATIONS?

Not a factor in the EF is NOT TOM’S FAULT. The girls are on tour for money. They clearly don’t care about their legacy in the sport of gymnastics over their bank accounts. That is THEIR RIGHT. Shilese whined about not making a team she never had a shot to make so don’t go there, gymterhaters. Tom did his job at camps. She’s mad he didn’t visit her at home and make recommendations. Um, he didn’t seem to visit anyone but Mykayla when he was in her town for a different reason so he stopped by. USAG doesn’t send him around to everyone. His job is to give feedback at camp. People are still mad that Tom went the AA route to pick a team but don’t realize there wasn’t a single gymnast at Trials he could have put on that team that would have absorbed the loss of Simone Biles. I do not get the hate. Jade made her decision to go the individual route. Her father blackmailed USAG into sending her with threat of a lawsuit says the rumor. There is no way in hell he could know Simone would go gymblock and Jade would be given joke scores on bars and if the AA proved anything relying on her would have been a mistake. Mykayla would have made no difference if added to the team. The medal would still be silver. AND CAN WE TALK ABOUT RELYING ON SIMONE’S SCORES? Why the hell wouldn’t we rely on Simone’s scores? She is the staple of the gold medal. They can say they went the AA route to pick the team because the score added up was only a slight difference but don’t think for a second the committee wasn’t worried about putting Mykayla up in a team finals on bars and beam. That is why Grace was there. In case Jordan with no reputation had a meltdown or wasn’t scored as well outside the US as she was INSIDE the US. WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENED. She hit beam (the event she wasn’t going to compete) and fell on her best event. Someone is going to have to explain to me why Tom is all of a sudden the bad guy because while I get people thinking the team should have been picked with more transparency the only reason they have issue with this is that they took Grace based on AA and didn’t take the “best team on paper” with Mykayla’s vault. A whopping 2 tenths. Here’s some irony, Mykayla’s vault over Gabby’s bars in 2016 would have been exactly that situation if the extra judges didn’t raise Gabby’s bar score to ridiculous measure. (Adding in the two extra judges raised her bar score and out her in the EF but took Fan Yilin out of the finals. )

What are yours?

Rhythmic gymnastics live results

October 31st, 2021.