Rhythmic Gymnastics FIG World Championships 2018

[Gianlu33 3,570]

Group 3 Balls + 2 Ropes

Italy 22.550

Russia 22.200

 Ukraine 21.400

[Gianlu33 3,570]

Final Medal Table

 7 2 3

 1 2 3

 1 1 1

 0 2 1

 0 1 0

 0 1 0

 0 0 1

[thiago_simoes 1,359]

I'm somewhat torn about what to think about the World Championships. In a way, we had a big number of surprises and it made the sport feel a little bit exciting again, but when we look at the list of nations that earned medals, nothing is new under the sun. I really thought Estonia had a chance of getting a medal, or maybe even France, China or Finland on a very crazy day. But nope. All of the unexpected things that happened here only favored the same old nations. 

 

Nice to see Belarus getting a medal, nice to see Ukraine showing they are not dead, nice to see Japan getting a medal for the third WCh in a row, nice to see Bulgaria and Italy with gold, nice to see Italy also with a team medal and two individual medals... But these are all traditional nations in this sport, and when only athletes from traditional nations achieve medal results, even though these results were not really expected, I feel like the sport is not actually moving forward as it should. Oh, well.

As a final note: HUGE kudos to Mexico for finishing 9th in the group all-around and 9th on the mixed apparatus routine. This is the best result of a Latin American nation since 2002.

Congratulations to the medalists and let's hope for more surprises next year.

 

Edited September 16, 2018 by thiago_simoes

[thiago_simoes 1,359]

Out of curiosity, I decided to research about when nations got medals at the World Championships for the first time and these are the results:

 

1963:  and Soviet Union

1965: Czechoslovakia
1967: East Germany

1971:  

1973:  

1975:   and West Germany

1987:

1992:    

1997:

1999:

2007:

2011:

2014:

 

In comparison, the World Cup series shows a lot more variety, especially in recent years. This is the timeline showing when nations earned medals for the first time at the World Cup:

1983:   and Soviet Union

1986:

1990:   

2000:  

2002:

2004:   

2006:

2008:
2009:   

2010:  
2011:
2012:
2013:  

2015:

2016:

2018:
 

Edited September 16, 2018 by thiago_simoes