thiago_simoes

I wonder what happened to Germany. More than seven points behind Canada... Ouch.

You need around 10 years to make one athlete go from beginner to world class level in artistic gymnastics. I don't think Azerbaijan is looking strong in the junior division at the moment. And if you take a look at one Azeri gymnast who was actually born in Azerbaijan, Eldar Safarov, you will see that his level is extremely low. Also, Azerbaijan does not seem to be ashamed to get gymnasts from Russia in trampoline, or even from Turkey in rhythmic gymnastics. Really weird decision if this the motivation behind keeping Stepko out of the team.

He did. Azerbaijan was apparently not willing to fund his training anymore. Stepko was also affected by this, but he decided not to go back to Ukraine. Word of mouth says Stepko will join the Russian team.

In Men's Artistic: Muntean (ROU), Kardos (HUN), Georgiou (CYP), Davtyan (ARM), Arican (TUR), Tuuha (FIN), Phan (VIE), Kim (KOR), Kamoto and Nonomura (JPN), Verniaiev (UKR), and Kazachov (RUS) are the ones to watch. In Women's Artistic, Rogers and Black (CAN), Bui (GER), Sasada and Teramoto (JPN), Iordache (ROU), Boczogo (HUN), Simm (GBR) and all the Russian girls (except maybe Akhaimova) will fight for individual medals. The field is not very deep this year, so maybe Martins (POR), Sajn (SLO), Eum (KOR), Cummins (RSA), Pena (DOM), and Urvikko (FIN) might land on the podium somehow, but I still doubt it.

Dear Lord, just when I think people will finally get it, things get worse. Transgender people are not an aberration so that they need their own category. They have to completely "reprogram" their bodies through hormone treatment. I know a transgender woman who said the hormones "ate" her muscles and she feels like her body is much weaker now. It's not like at the Olympics an 100+ kg weightlifter could ever put on a wig and compete among women because he thinks this will be okay. Besides, hyperandrogenism is a condition that still needs to be studied deeply. Not even scientists know for sure the effects of this condition for the sport, but this still doesn't stop people like Jozwik and Sharp to be stupid and harmful in interviews speaking about what they know nothing of. Take Dutee Chand for example. If high testosterone levels had been enough, she would have been among the best in the world by now.

To me it sounds like, by this logic, it would be fair for a Japanese person to say "I am frustrated because Usain Bolt is 1.95 m tall while the average Japanese man is 1.70 m tall and Bolt always ends up finishing ahead of a Japanese person". People are different and no two bodies are the same. Some people will be genetically more able to perform well than other people. The problem with Semenya is that people are hostile towards her simply because she was born the way she is. As far as I know, no scientific paper has ever proved that her condition gives any kind of advantage to her (I'm open to being proven wrong).

The main problem to me was when people misgender women just because they feel like it. Someone (I guess it was a Polish user) even said the athlete from his country was the third among women. Bullshit. She was sixth among all women, like it or not. Five other women -- again: WOMEN -- be it African or not, were faster than the Polish girl. Also, I remember someone writing that it is hard to differentiate Kenyan women because they have the same haircut. It might have been you who wrote this, I'm not sure. Not all African women look the same. This might not have been intended as racist, but as I said, it MIGHT come off as racist. It's not that it will, but it might. Golden rule: if a person might be offended by something you say or write, there is a huge, huge chance you are being rude. And no amount of "people are overreacting" will ever change that. And if you think that there is a "huge amount of 'everything is racist'-feel on the internet", I believe you must be a white person living in a country where being white is a privilege, or, at least, where you are not questioned for being white, or do not feel like your life is severely limited by it. Why is it so hard for white people to just keep their mouths shut (or their fingers still) when no one asked their opinions about other people's ethnicity or color of skin or whatever?

I'm not so sure she will be discarded that easily. She's good, but she's not been doing as good as she can lately. Maybe she will be given a second chance? I mean, Mamun was disgusting to watch, but Viner insisted on making her a star and she improved a lot. But Soldatova definitely gives me Kapranova vibes, and this is never a good thing. The worst thing this year is knowing Bravikova will not be at the World Championships. She could be world champion on one or two apparatus, but the Averinas will get the job done all the same to Russia, and Bravikova will have to sit home for the rest of the year.

So, the FIG World Cup Series is over. I've closely followed it since April, and now that it's over, the only major event left this year is the World Championships (and the Grand Prix Final, though this is not an official FIG event and I've never been very enthusiastic about it). About the World Cup Series, unsurprisingly the Russians dominated the season. Not only Dina and Arina Averina, but especially Soldatova and, to a certain degree, Bravikova and Selezneva. Even Khonina and Lugovskikh who came out of nowhere managed to win gold medals for Russia. Amazing. The real surprises here are the Bulgarian gymnasts. Vladinova finally managed to win medals easily, and I'm glad Taseva, Kaleyn and Zafirova also got medals. Belarus also has some amazing gymnasts, especially Harnasko (my favorite) and Halkina. Kudos to Evchik for getting a medal as well. The performances of individual gymnasts from Ukraine are the biggest disappointment of the season. Diachenko is not bad, but she's not on par with the likes of Bessonova or Rizatdinova. Still, I'm glad Diachenko got a medal, and even Mazur also managed to earn one. But Ukraine has a long way to go. Israel did pretty well with many medals earned by Victoria Filanovsky and Linoy Ashram. I'm surprised their group was absent all year, though. Not sure about what's going on. The United States earned medals with Zeng and, surprisingly, Generalova. I believe Generalova is the first person of African descent to ever win an individual medal at the World Cup series ever (Francielly Pereira from Brazil was the first one, as far as I can remember, in 2013; but she was part of the group event). The World Cup exists since 1983 and I might be mistaken, but still it goes on to show how difficult it is for a non-white person to earn medals in this sport, so kudos to Generalova all the same. Also, first ever medals for Kaho Minagawa (Japan) and Sabina Ashirbayeva (Kazakhstan). Both are amazingly talented, and I'm happy for them. Speaking of Japan, they have become one of the top contenders for a group all-around medal at the World Championships, and I'm rooting for them. Spain is going through some serious renovation, but the group still got a bronze medal somehow. They have some work to do, but I hope they are ready for 2020. Italy is probably stronger than ever in the group event, and they even have a talented individual gymnast who earned many medals this season. Looking good. Salome Pazhava from Georgia has just recovered from injury, and I reeeeally hope she looks confident at the World Championships. My favorite gymnast, ever. I know she will not challenge for a medal at Worlds, but all I want is for her to go back on track. Finally, Brazil was a late show at the World Cup, with only one participation, but still enough to make it to a final. Hoping for a top 12 finish at the World Championships in the group all-around. This would be great at this point for us.

I don't really follow athletics, but as a reminder to myself in case I decide to follow it someday, I should never come close to some people discussing the results here. I've seen some sexist, LGBT-phobic, and apparently racist comments, and I'm surprised some of you just let that slip as if it's nothing. It's one thing when you are not a huge fan of such and such athlete. It's a different thing altogether when you purposely misgender people or when your remarks about someone might come off as racist.

Best: 1 - Zanetti winning the gold medal on Rings in 2012. Everybody knows I love artistic gymnastics, and this made me cry with joy the whole day. 2 - The men's volleyball team winning gold in 1992. I was 8 at the time and this is the first Olympic memory I have in my life. 3 - Yane Marques' bronze medal in modern pentathlon at the 2012 Olympics. She is such a humble person and she comes from one of the poorest parts of the country, and she was in a sport that virtually no one knew about. Even the Brazilian Olympic Committee had already held a press conference about the performance of the Brazilian athletes at the 2012 Olympics before Marques even got to compete, so not even the national committee believed she could win a medal. A magical moment. Worst: 1 - Rodrigo Pessoa's horse refusing to jump at the 2000 Olympics, and then we all knew he had lost the chance to win a gold medal. This meant that we got no gold medal at all in Sydney and I was really sad for the rest of the year. 2 - Flávia Saraiva losing balance on the Balance Beam final in 2016. Prior to her performance, everything was going her way: Biles touched the beam (losing 0.5), Ponor performed badly, no Russians qualified for the final, so Flávia had a real shot at earning bronze. She performed around 10 times on beam in different competitions the whole year and her lowest score was 14.833. But when she lost balance her score went down by 0.5, and in the end she scored 14.533. Biles earned the bronze medal with 14.733. I am still heartbroken. 3 - Daiane dos Santos stepping out of bounds on the Floor Exercise in 2004. She was the reigning world champion, but we all knew she was a headcase and she usually got extremely nervous when competing. She cracked under pressure, but at least she is still known as the only female artistic gymnast from Brazil to date to be a world champion.

1 - Artistic gymnastics 2 - Swimming 3 - Judo 4 - Rhythmic gymnastics 5 - Volleyball

But technically Brazil withdrew from the tournament, and we still get the quota anyway? If this is the case, fantastic news.

This is great! Considering Romania finished 10th, this is not so far behind. Slovakia even finished ahead of Belarus, which hired the former head coach of team Brazil (Ukrainian Oleg Ostapenko). Very good result.

So it was something within Brazil itself? Wow. Just goes on to show how dirty things still are around here. What a shame. I thought the whole thing was about 17 other national federations, not state federations. Nice to know I was wrong. Thanks, Vini.

www.uol.com.br and www.bestswim.com.br The commentator who said this on live TV runs the Best Swim website.

I think it was because of the corruption scandals in Brazilian Aquatics Federation, and the very questionable process which led to the election of the new president of the federation. But trying to ban athletes from competing because there are problems not related to their performances is a low blow. It's nice to finish in the top 10 among the medal winning nations after this.

What the hell? France got six gold medals! Sure, they were far from great in the pool, but the championships was nearly perfect for them otherwise: first ever medal in diving (and a gold one), four gold medals in open water swimming, they advanced to the finals in 4 of their 5 attempted routines in synchronized swimming, and the women's team advanced to playoffs in water polo. Not bad at all.

Brazilian TV has just informed that 17 countries sent a letter to FINA (it is unclear if it was a joint letter or if each country sent a letter of their own) demanding Brazil to be banned from the World Championships before the competition started. I found nothing about it online. Does anybody know if this is really true?

This made me laugh so hard!

Why do the dancers have such ridiculous, shiny, Playmobil-like hair?

Japan... I was rooting for Ikee to finally get a medal, but no luck today...

Dressel is fantastic. Wow. But Schooling deserves kudos for getting a medal. I thought he was totally out of contention after the first half, but he still managed to get a bronze medal somehow.

Sure. Not the smartest people, lol. Was that woman who asked this question to Fratus the same person who extended her hand for a handshake with a blind person on live TV?

When he performs badly, what else can you ask besides "How do you feel?" He can be angry at himself all he wants, but being a jerk with other people because he is frustrated with his own performance is unacceptable. He's not always kind in Brazilian TV. He was nice today, but this is not always the case.