thiago_simoes

Without her and the Russians, I feel like I'll finally enjoy watching this sport once again... At least until the Russians return to competition.

To be honest, I am a lot more worried about , but we shall see.

Poor . They always get bad draws. got a fairly easy group, I think.

Ooooh, Egypt. But I'm happy for Senegal too. It's just... can't both go to the World Cup? Ah, bummer...

Quite late to report, but first-ever medals for and first gold medal ever for .

First-ever medal for at the Aerobic Gymnastics World Cup series. Source: https://ginnasticando.it/2022/03/27/cantanhede-2022-7th-world-cup-altre-cinque-medaglie-nel-bottino-degli-azzurri/

It's a no brainer for me: I'll root for Macedonia all the way.

This is exactly why the FIFA ranking should matter for more than choosing which teams go to which pot in the final draw. The top 8 teams should have been assured a place in the WC Finals. I want to watch Italy versus Argentina, not Saudi Arabia versus New Zealand.

I hope you will change your mind.

World record for Duplantis!

The US woman lost the medal in the very last moment! I'm sorry, but it was fun to watch, though.

Probably an homage to the Serbians or some sort of folk dance.

Finally a world medal for Braz! And this time the other Lavillenie took fourth place. Needless to say, the Lavillenie family must hate Braz.

TEFERA!!!! That was AMAZING!!!!

Romani!! After so many fourth places he's soooo close to a medal now!!!

Hockey league match between Ska Neftyanik and Moscow Dynamo. It is time people stop believing this has nothing to do with sports.

The first World Cup stage took place after the invasion. The very first event, men's floor, was won by a Belarusian and he was forbidden to hear the anthem and the flag was not displayed. By the time the second stage took place, many international federations had already banned RUS and BLR, but FIG withheld the suspension until March 7th. So, in my opinion, BLR and RUS should not even have participated at the WC stages this year. And do you really think "innocent" gymnasts have nothing to do with it? They represent nations, not themselves, or the FIG, or the IOC. This is not tennis, where athletes couldn't care less about their nations and are trying to make a name for themselves. This is about the nations, and has always been like that. Take Kuliak, for example, making a political statement with a Z on his leotard on the podium. Russia is crazy about gymnastics and even results at the World Cup are widely celebrated in national media, so stripping medals is a slap on the face in a way. You're free to think the athletes have nothing to do with it, but I fail to see things like this.

Many fans are asking for his medal to be stripped and for him to be banned. I support this. Actually, I support stripping every medal earned by Russian and Belarusian gymnasts this year.

I voted for Kexin. The only one who blends high difficulty and clean execution. I'm surprised so many people voted for Mustafina. She was clean, but had the most boring routines in the world and could not perform super hard skills. Her routines were basically "easy" to medium skills connected, while Kexin connected unbelievably hard skills. Even Derwael, someone who I'm really not fond of, tried much harder things. Mustafina's coach explored every breach in the code of points and it's almost unbelievable that she managed to be Olympic champion twice. This almost sounds like a seriously bad joke.

Yes, and that's it. So, don't try to justify this decision by mentioning that India is trying to help avoiding a global war. A neutral reaction right now only shows India defends its own interests and is not worried about Ukraine or peace at all.

Yeah, I'm sure global peace will be within reach because India chose to be neutral here. The "not my problem" approach is everything we need right now to avoid a global war.

Well, I don't see how this is "handling a difficult situation quite well". But everyone is entitled to have an opinion.

Unbelievable. The kind of things we read here...

I suppose there must be someone out there who thinks France should also be banned for keeping troops in Mali for years. You see, almost no nation is safe, so drawing criticism against other nations here to take the focus off of the Russia-Ukraine conflict will take us nowhere.

I'm not sure if this has been reported here, but FIG has taken action: https://www.gymnastics.sport/site/news/displaynews.php?idNews=3439 Not sure if this ban is for the time being or if it affects events in the future; however, it seems likely that the rhythmic gymnastics World Challenge Cups in Russia and Belarus will not take place.