thiago_simoes

Come one, everyone should have expected this kind of reaction fro him.

Haha, this is fun!

Somehow you have mistaken Acrobatic for Aerobic. It's not Aerobic that was added to the program, it's Acrobatic Gymnastics. Besides, there's the insane combined event. I agree with @heywoodu that this is really unnecessary, but FIG has apparently lost its mind over the past few months.

Acrobatic Gymnastics was also added to the program, as well as a Mixed Team event consisting of combined scores from Artistic, Rhythmic, Trampoline and Acrobatic Gymnastics.

I believe most (if not all) of us are aware of the many difficulties India goes through, and sport -- even for able-bodied persons -- does not seem to be a priority for the government. However, their population is around 1 billion and 300 million people. Based on this absolutely humongous number of people alone, it is puzzling that India's athletes still fall behind at the world stage. It's impossible for me to think that all Indian athletes are absolutely deprived of good facilities and coaches. Also, it's impossible for me to think that no private companies decide to sponsor individual athletes. We have seen some incredible performances from a very poor nation like Kenya, so why does India still struggle so hard? Money is not the only deciding factor, and politics is definitely not the only reason for success.

Yes. Turns, connection of turns and even her acrobatic dismount decreased in value, as far as I could understand.

Reading the new rules carefully, it almost looks like they took a look at Sanne Wevers' gold medal routine on beam and said "Hmmm, how can we completely screw this gymnast up so she will never, ever win gold again?". Everything she performs on beam took a very big hit, and her winning routine at the Olympics is nearly useless now with this new Code of Points. Ouch. On Vault, it might look like they want gymnasts to perform the Produnova more safely, but at the same time the gap between the Produnova and the other vaults is still so big that gymnasts will keep vaulting it, even though the execution is not good. This new Code of Points does not solve the main problem it was supposed to address. What a joke.

There's little time for gymnasts to test new routines in international competition, so it's usually hard for some countries (including Russia and Romania) to have six gymnasts with good routines in time for the World Championships. Even the US girls often have trouble adapting to the new Code of Points. The level of the team competition would be very low. Besides, it is important for gymnasts to take their time and adapt to the Code of Points instead of adding big skills and huge difficulty to their routines without serious thought, what would increase the risk of nasty injuries.

Good question. There are two reasons for that: 1) the Code of Points changes after each Olympic cycle, so the CoP for 2017-2020 is radically different from the one in use now. It is important for countries to take the time to test new possibilities at the world stage; and 2) usually, many gymnasts retire after the Olympics, so it's hard for some countries to form a good and competitive team. Because of that, FIG has decided that the World Championships held immediately after the Olympics are an event for "new" gymnasts to show up and for countries to send specialists in apparatus to compete.

We lost four medals that we had thought it would be impossible to lose: Women's Pole Vault, Women's Handball, Women's Judo (Érika Miranda) and Women's indoor Volleyball. As the Games progressed, we lost huge opportunities in Women's Football, Women's Artistic Gymnastics (two medals) and a bronze medal in Women's Beach Volleyball. Brazilian women had a bad year overall. Only Rafaela and Martine/Kahena were able to get a gold medal. Disappointing.

The artistic gymnastics program will change completely from 2020 on. Each team will be composed of 4 all-arounders and up to 2 extra gymnasts can try to qualify as specialists through the World Cup circuit. Hypólito and Zanetti could easily qualify as specialists, while the team could keep focus on four strong all-arounders. This even gives Daniele Hypólito a chance to qualify for her sixth Olympics, though I pray for the Gods she decides to retire before then. Our best female gymnasts, Flávia and Rebeca, are the top 2 all-arounders of Brazil right now. Thais Fidélis and Fabiane Valentin are promising junior gymnasts, while Lorrane Santos and Julie Kim are young and talented gymnasts who could try to qualify as specialists. Overall, the chance will be very good to the women's team. I'm not so sure about the men's team, though. Mariano could drop all-around entirely and focus on floor, Ângelo Assumpção is a promising gymnast but he's not so good as an all-arounder, Barreto will probably not make it to 2020, and Sasaki will probably not be in his better shape. Besides Ângelo, the best promising gymnast for the future is Caio Souza (bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games), but we need more strong all-arounders if we want to qualify a full team again.

In many National Championships they set all the apparatuses together for men and women. Surely it would be very crowded, but it could work. A more extreme measure would be limiting men to compete on four events, with men and women sharing floor and vault. Then, they could keep Rings and High Bar for men to keep things exciting (very few people actually enjoy watching Pommel Horse and Parallel Bars). The only necessary adjustments would be regulating the height of the vault table for men and women, but this is quick and easy to do. If this is still unacceptable, just combining the best scores from the men's team competition with the women's team competition could provide good results. This could even be done during qualifications so the gymnasts would not need to compete another day. If we take the top 2 scores for each men's and women's apparatus at the 2016 Olympics, we will have this: USA 308.178 CHN 301.243 RUS 300.001 GBR 298.771 JPN 297.394 BRA 297.260 GER 293.685 NED 291.085 FRA 290.244 It would be great to see the US men winning gold after a great moment in Qualifications. China was consistent and would earn silver. Russia, despite some flaws would still earn bronze. Great Britain, Japan and Brazil would not be too far behind. Who knows what might happen if prior to the Olympics the teams decided to focus on two strong events aiming for a mixed team medal instead of three strong scores aiming for men's or women's team finals? This could be exciting, and all the IOC needs to do is to count scores from Qualifications.

I like this idea very much. It fits the Olympics well, and since Equestrian does this flawlessly, I can see mixed gender team events in Archery, Table Tennis and Fencing working out. I've always thought a mixed gender Artistic Gymnastics team event would be insanely fun to watch. Or maybe a huge Gymnastics team event, pretty much like they did with Figure Skating in 2014, where countries would earn points for placements in Men's Artistic, Women's Artistic, Rhythmics and Trampoline. The problem is that only Russia, China, USA, Japan, Ukraine, the host nation and probably Belarus and Canada would consistently qualify athletes for all four disciplines.

This would be a good idea. Tumbling is exciting and has a wow factor that individual trampoline lacks, somehow. Maybe they could keep individual trampoline with slightly modified rules. Compulsories are very boring to watch and unnapealing. Removing compulsory routines would improve things considerably.

Seriously, I would remove Trampoline (boring and unattractive), Synchro Swimming, Boxing and Taekwondo. I would drip Dressage and Cross Country in Equestrian, and expand Show Jumping to separate men and women, as well as men's team and women's team. Table Tennis also needs to change. More options like doubles and mixed doubles (with one pair per country) would help a lot. Athletics has way too many events. Drop 200 m, 3000 steeplechase and 10,000 events. Also, drop 800 and 1,500 in swimming, as well as 4x200 m relay. Unnecessarily long and boring.

I believe no one has explicitly announced retirement. Some possible announcements might come soon from Margarita Mamun (Russia), Fabian Hambuechen (Germany) and Vanessa Ferrari (Italy). I'll keep an eye out for news about Vasiliki Millousi (Greece) and Jessica López (Venezuela), both of whom might retire as well. Aly Raisman and Gabby Doulgas (US) will most likely take some time off. Has Ellie Black said anything about retirement? I hope she continues until 2017. She has a real chance at a world championships medal and I want her to win one! Mustafina, Paseka, Barbosa and Daniele Hypólito said they will continue. Surprisingly, Chusovitina has said she will compete at the World Championships in Canada, in 2017. I really admire her.

Sad news is that Daniele Hypólito has said she will keep training in hopes to join the 2020 Olympic team, as if we haven't had enough of her falls and failed routines at the Olympics...

Russia got a gold medal with very suspicious scores once again. I'm not surprised. Italy and Belarus had mistakes, so Spain got silver and surprisingly Bulgaria earned the bronze medal. I'm soooo happy for Bulgaria! It's sad to see France and Italy without medals in Gymnastics, but Bulgaria on the podium is certainly heartwarming.

Nah, I only sent greetings to them, but I think someone thought this was offensive enough to get it deleted. Not a big deal, though. Now, about football, it's funny because I remember that in 2012 not many people cared about the final match against Mexico. Now the football gold medal has become big news all over the place.

The players are different, the scope of the tournament is also very different, so I believe there's not really much to compare other than the teams being Brazil and Germany. So, everybody is celebrating the gold medal for what it is, while the loss to Germany will remain what it is, as well. Very few people, if any, take the 7-1 seriously in Brazil. It has become a huge joke and everybody laughs at it. Here in Brazil we make fun of everything, including ourselves.

That was really unexpected. I'm not complaining, though. It's nice to have a real chance to reach a total of 18 medals (our record is 17 in London). We've now tied the record with 17 medals (15 as of today, and finals in men's volleyball and men's football), but we might break the record tomorrow with a medal in canoeing. Fingers crossed.

So far, so good in beach volleyball. I hope this becomes a 2-0 win. I can't suffer anymore watching Brazilian athletes failing under pressure.

I'm getting nervous now that the competition is about to start. There are so many countries I'm rooting for... Pazhava from Georgia is by far my favorite gymnast in individual competition, but she is a dark horse for the podium. I can't see her winning a medal if both Russians hit their routines, and if Rizatdinova and Staniouta have a great day. Still, a top 5 finish would be amazing for her. In group competition, Belarus and Russia are a strong contenders for a gold medal. Russia is not as dominant as it once was, so it will be interesting to see if they can still win gold. Italy has the best routines of the group competition in my opinion, but it looks like Israel might surprise Italy and get a medal. Israel is the group I dislike the most in this event, but they seem to always get high scores, what baffles me. I wish Bulgaria could challenge for a medal too, but I don't see this happening right now.

Thanks! Forza, Italia on the women's group competition in Rhythmic Gymnastics. I'm rooting for the gold medal!

Ahhh! Another gold medal! What a great moment!!