Thoughts from the 2014 World Championships. Part 1

Surprise

Larisa Iordache and her 6.3 start value Uneven Bar routine. Not only is this routine pretty good for a gymnast not known for her Uneven bar prowess but it helped her nearly take the All Around gold medal from a guaranteed outcome.

Everyone knew Simone would take the title but we all thought she had over a fall buffer to win but Larissa came along with improved routines like this and only lost the gold medal by a little over 5 tenths. Maybe the person who put this bar routine together for Larisa should put together a similar one for Kyla and Simone.

Daria Spiridonova (first routine in this video) ended up winning a bronze medal during the UB final but she was a positive surprise to me during qualifying. Russian giants aside she hit every handstand and only had a slight form issue in the routine and I thought her score deserved to be higher than Mustafina during qualifying. She had a 6.4 start value.

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What happened to?????

Mai Murakami : Mai made the event finals last year at worlds and just about everyone thought she got the royal screwing from the judges when it came to scoring (an artistry deduction, really?) She was at Worlds this year competing vault, bars and Floor during prelims and fell on her first past. Here is her prelims Floor routine She competed the same 3 routines in team finals where Japan finished 8th ( Vault 14.566 (5.8) Bars 13.400 (4.9) and Floor 13.700 (5.4) You can watch her team final floor routine here

Anna Pavlova: When Anna moved to Azerbaijan to compete everyone thought it was a great move for her. Russia refused to add her to their National team even when she out performed gymnasts they did add but it looks like Russia was right because Anna had a very forgettable qualifying performance finishing 50th and scoring 12.933 on her best event and doing just as bad on the remaining 3.(12.833 (bars)12.166 (beam) 13.166 (floor) Here is her qualifying Floor routine where she started with a double pike.

Lauren Mitchell: The former Floor world champion injured herself before qualifying and withdrew from the competition.