thiago_simoes

No chance for Ice Stock Sport? It's the only winter sport in which Brazil has won a medal at the world championships, and the (low) media coverage it receives around here always mentions hopes for it to be part of the Olympics in the future.

I don't buy it either. Makes no sense, with all due respect to fans.

Nice. Winter sports athletes are virtually unknown here, unfortunately.

Man, this is crazy. Take Coline Devillard, for example. She scored 14.250 on vault today, which is I believe would not be enough for a medal at the World Championships (I think the bronze medal winner might score around 14.5-14.6). Should she stay home? No! Her vaults are good and she should go to Worlds. How can she improve her score? The quick and dirty way is performing more difficult vaults. But the thing is: forcing her to add more difficulty could cause a serious injury, so their ambition for medals could harm athletes and ultimately cause the entire gymnastics program to collapse if they keep being so strict.

So, has France set a minimum score for gymnasts to be chosen for the team or something like this? 14.9 is a huge score, maybe even enough for a medal at the World Championships. It's quite ambitious to set a score this high for any gymnast to be chosen for the team, especially when it comes from France, a country not known to be a powerhouse in artistic gymnastics.

Fifth place in my first-ever participation at a prediction contest. I'm glad with it!

The result is right and I believe this is very interesting. It's just the picture seems to be different. Funny thing is that small Asian teams always pull an upset. Maldives beat India in the final match of the 2008 South Asian Football Championships, which is a huge feat if you consider Maldives had a population of around 300,000 people at the time, while India had a population of 1,200,000,000 people.

If this video is correct, that does not seem to be the correct picture.

Every year I have high hopes that things are finally going to be different, but year after year the group competition is a mess. I mean, Italy had a nice routine, but a score this big? Close to 19? Massive overscore. This makes no sense. Bulgaria got the chop in 5 hoops despite presenting a wonderful routine. Then, judges were generous with Bulgaria in ropes and balls. No medal for Belarus? Unbelievable. No medal for Ukraine? Well, I think Ukraine was overhyped the whole year, so I'm okay with that. But, still, totally unexpected.

Japan deserved their bronze medal. Their execution is tight and even though they are too technical (instead of emotional like Italy or Belarus), their medal was deserved. The US is clearly being favored for a number of years now. Still, they have improved a lot. Not as much to deserve the scores they are given, though, Canada was severely underscored, in my opinion. I mean, they got 17 for one of their routines at the World Cup circuit, and now they got 13. Come on! They had some mistakes here and there, but 13 is too low.

Some of the scores today make no sense at all to me. As usual, Russia gets scores unbelievably high, while smaller countries like Estonia receive scores impossibly low.

His father is American and his mother is Japanese. He is a haafu (half Japanese), not a naturalized athlete.

I'm somewhat disappointed with the results so far. Minagawa's bronze medal was a nice surprise, but overall this event is at a much lower quality than I was expecting it to be. I've never been a fan of Ashram, and even though she won a medal today, it was not the moment for me to change my opinion about her. Compared to gymnasts with creative routines like Vladinova and Pazhava, Ashram is just more of the same. She plays by the books, and I think it's just plain boring to watch. I expected more from Vladinova, but she still managed to walk away with a bronze medal, which is nice. Pazhava is still recovering from a nasty injury and it's clear she was not ready to compete on this level. Still, her routines are gorgeous and she is probably the best thing this sport has ever seen, in my opinion, even though she almost never wins major medals. Both Russians were once again overscored here and there, but you can't deny they are MILES ahead of the rest of the field. Deserved medals for them, for sure. Halkina was a big surprise to me. Even though she has had great results this year, I just thought she would choke, but she had the best result for a non-Russian gymnast (silver). Harnasko is wonderful to watch, but she seemed to be nervous during all of her routines. Agiurgiuculese had great results in her first year as a senior gymnast. Zeng is even more mechanical than Ashram, and I believe she has reached her peak. And I hope with all my heart that Ukraine manages to improve on what we've seen.

Nice to see Nacif Elias doing well. He's Brazilian and decided to compete for Lebanon because the Brazilian Judo Federation would not admit him in international competition. It's weird to listen to a coach from Lebanon speaking Portuguese to his athlete.

Terrible final. Most stages of the World Cup circuit this year were a lot better than this.

Russia losing the silver medal is surprising.

Team Brazil at the World Championships: Men: Arthur Zanetti, Arthur Nory Mariano, Caio Souza, Francisco Barretto Júnior Women: Rebeca Andrade, Thais Fidelis Jade Barbosa and Flávia Saraiva are injured, and both Daniele Hypólito and Carolyne Pedro did not reach minimum requirements for making the team.

I agree that it's hard to enjoy it fully if you don't understand much of what is going on. It helps a lot if you understand the value of some elements. But I admit that it is hard for most people, even die hard fans. Here are some videos that might help, though.

I remember there was some sort of discussion about rhythmic gymnastics not being a proper sport. Some people even consider it to be easy. When a girl performs a routine with big mistakes, everyone can see how hard this sport is, and maybe, just maybe, people will finally learn to respect the hard work each and every gymnast puts on their routines. Besides, you can post the routines of the medalists if you want. I encourage you to do so.

Another unfortunate routine...

I may be against the inclusion of games, but I agree about this. Fighting games, for example, ARE spectator-friendly. But not many people are aware of the competitive scene, and ignore the powerful effect some matches have on the viewers.

Instead of watching someone play virtual football, why not watch real people play real football? It's already part of the Olympics, anyway. I can see people playing games like League of Legends and maybe Counter Strike, since these are multiplayer co-op titles, but I still think there is no place at the Olympics for games. It takes a lot of skill to do something like Daigo did at that Street Fighter III match, but I can't see how well this would adapt to the Olympics.

Fair scores overall, except for Zeng ahead of Agiurgiuculese (but it was very close).

Vladi!!!! One of my favorite gymnasts! I'm glad she placed ahead of Ashram, which is a gymnast I don't really like to watch.

Minagawa had an unexpected loss of balance. Weird.