thiago_simoes

There may be a surprising medal in women's artistic gymnastics (Flávia Saraiva on the balance beam, or maybe Rebeca Andrade in the individual all-around), and also in modern pentathlon (Yane Marques). I'm not getting my hopes up, though.

I thought this was Nauru's first ever medal at a World Championships event, but I was wrong. The old version of the thread about nations which have never won a world championships medal states that nauru won a medal as early as 1999. http://web.archive.org/web/20150413205532/http://www.totallympics.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=3970&extra=page%3D1

Olsen and Rose Woo are first year senior gymnasts. They are great.

This is the best possible team for Canada and a shoe-in for a top 6 placement. On paper, only Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain and the USA are ahead of Canada now. Brazil and Germany are roughly on the same level, I think. It will be interesting to see if Italy, the Netherlands, France and Belgium can challenge for the top 8. Maybe the Netherlands can make it ahead of Germany, but I doubt Italy, France and Belgium can make much of an impact at this point.

Since 2014 alternates are awarded team medals at the World Championships, and I'm 99% sure this works for the Olympics as well.

Congratulations, Chile! Once again, the winner!

Who is the alternate? I'm curious because if the US wins a medal at the team event, the alternate will be given a medal as well.

Both Kaya and Kameyama will miss the Olympics! Wow! I didn't see that coming! It makes sense since Japan wants the Olympic gold medal on the team event so bad, and both Kaya and Kameyama are specialists. But still, both had a shot at an individual medal... Oh, well. And I'm so happy to see Teramoto, Murakami and Miyakawa made the team! Best female Japanese team in ages!

Yes, I mostly agree. Individual: * * * * * Russia (Kudryavtseva and Mamun) * * * Belarus (Staniouta) and Ukraine (Rizatdinova) * Georgia (Pazhava) Group * * * * * Russia * * * Belarus * * Israel, Italy, Spain * Blugaria

7-0! As a Brazilian, I can only say that this only proves that no matter how hard life has been on you, there will always be someone who will have it harder.

It's nice that he will have his Olympic chance. I hope Wammes also gets a spot, despite being really troublesome for the federation in 2012.

I don't think Ukraine has a chance of getting a medal at the group event, but we will see. Right now, I would say Russia, Belarus, Israel, Italy and Spain will fight for a place on the podium and Bulgaria is a dark horse. Ukraine and Japan will likely make the finals, but a medal is a bit too much at this point.

Yes! I was really rooting for Italy. This is their first ever gold medal at the Aerobics World Championships. Amazing feat!

So, now Israel is a strong contender for an Olympic medal, and I can't say I'm surprised. They have been very consistent for a number of years now, and they seem to be in their best shape ever, so it will not be a surprise if the group earns an Olympic medal. I'm surprised Russia had two mistake-laden routines. I wonder if Belarus can take advantage of eventual mistakes and finally earn an Olympic gold medal. Time will tell. And what sad news about the Bulgarian girl. I'm happy they got a medal, though. And I hope the girl survives.

There are new versions of the Code of Points for 2017-2020. On the women's side there are many changes and all of them are very substantial. We will usually see lower scores from now on. On vault, Dipa Karmakar will benefit A LOT from the changes.

I've looked into the issue. If machine translations of documents in Slovenian are to be believed, he competed representing club Sokol, a notable club for Slovenian athletes. So, he was decidedly not representing (or not wanting to represent) the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. There has been a notable case of an Austrian gymnast who represented an American club at the early Olympics, and even his individual medals are counted for the United States instead of Austria. So, the focus is on representation rather than nationality. Though I have found absolutely no official confirmation on the subject, some sources claim that FIG transferred the medals from the 1911 Worlds earned by Bohemia to Czechoslovakia, and in every source I could find Vidmar's medal is credited to either Serbia, Slovenia or Yugoslavia. No source at all credits his medal to Austria, Hungary or the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Besides, Vidmar was a Lieutenant and he joined the Serbian rebel army in 1912, so he had much stronger ties with Serbia, an existing territory at the time, rather than Austria-Hungary. This is a complex issue and I've tried my best to find all the information about this. The medal table from the link I've posted is the most complete one I can find (though they credit a bronze medal to Slovenia in 2002 when in fact it was a silver medal, but this is a very minor mistake). I have enough reasons to believe they may have had access to official information. Their medal table in Rhythmics is also the most complete one in the history of the sport. Besides, this is as close to official information as we can ever get and I doubt the FIG could shed a light on this issue. They seem not to care about past results, which is a shame.

Fist: I follow the sport quite closely, so I know what I'm writing about. I've followed Chusovitina's carrer for the last ten years, so I have a pretty solid idea about her motivations, and I know about her son and his illness. I was very clear when I said I do not judge her reasons for "changing countries like gloves" (on your words), but I will not turn a blind eye for what she does. I like her, I support her as an athlete, but I don't like it that she changes nationalities all the time. Second: I did not choose culprits. I don't care if this is her problem, FIG's problem, Germany's problem or the IOC's problem. What I'm saying is: the fact that she is allowed to do this is highly questionable and it seems unfair to me that anyone (not only her) can step up and change nationalities so easily. Yes, this is a much bigger problem thanks to countries like Azerbaijan or Turkey, but many countries -- directly or indirectly -- benefit from such a thing. Again, I'm pointing out a fact, and I'm not making any sort of "harsh judgment". I might not approve something like this, but her reasons are hers, not mine, and I don't care why she does that. Still, I can't help but feel like this is not right. Once again, I don't care about who should "solve" this problem. I'm not trying to come up with solutions. I'm just pointing things out. MODERATED PART

I like the idea of gymnastics distributing wild cards, but FIG should be consistent in ensuring more nations get to benefit from the experience at the Olympic Games. This is the third time in the last four editions that the wild card in rhythmics goes to Cape Verde. What's the point? They are not investing in rhythmics at all for a long time, but somehow they are rewarded more often than not. Other than athletics, swimming and gymnastics, I like the idea of handling wildcards in weightlifting, boxing and wrestling. Wild cards in taekwondo seem like an exaggeration. This makes the competition weaker, and the point should be getting the best of the best in sports with few participants. The risk for the wild card athletes of getting a RSC because their opponents are much better than they are is huge.

This is the most mistake-free medal table I could find and they credit the medal to Serbia. The original source of the mistaken information was Sport123, which credited the medal to Yugoslavia. I don't think he represented Austria.

Just a side note about a mistake that had not been corrected for 105 years: in 1911, Stane Vidmar won a medal at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The medal is credited to Yugoslavia almost everywhere in the internet. Some sources credit it to Slovenia. But Vidmar represented the Kingdom of Serbia, since there was neither Yugoslavia nor Slovenia in 1911. Now we know that Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia all have at least one medal at the World Gymnastics Championships. The world seems fair now.

I promised I would never reply to you ever again, but this comment is just so awful that I have to say you are an ignorant person for mocking a serious case of leukemia. Being sarcastic about a devastating illness is absolutely disgusting, and I don't care if I get banned for saying this. I was talking about Chusovitina as an athlete. The whole ordeal with her son has nothing to do with this. Chusovitina won a medal at the 2006 World Championships, so she was NOWHERE near retirement or in bad shape when she moved to Germany. She has never really been loyal to any country, so I wouldn't be surprised if she decides to compete for, say, Azerbaijan at this point, even though she said she will retire this year. In 2008, earning a medal for Germany would give her a lot more money than earning a medal for Uzbekistan. She knew that and she needed the money, so she switched countries. I don't judge her reasons, but the fact that she could just go back to Uzbekistan now that she is nowhere near the medal stand anymore makes it rough to see naturalized athletes as "normal citizens". They are citizens as long as they pay their taxes, but once they decide to move back to their country of birth, they are not "normal citizens" anymore.

I can't find the dates of the King's Cup Sepak Takraw World Championships. The championships are usually held in the first half of the year, but the Sepak Takraw federation is a joke when it comes to communicating about their events. Any news about the dates?

It baffles me that Qatar and Azerbaijan (and now Bahrain) are easily attacked for having many naturalized athletes, but still people turn a blind eye to countries like Germany, Great Britain and even Israel and the United States. If you take Oksana Chusovitina (artistic gymnastics) as an example: she competed for Germany in 2008 and earned a silver medal, but now she's back to Uzbekistan. It does look to me that she was paid to compete and earn a medal for Germany, and now that her job is done and she can't earn medals anymore, she's back to her country of birth. I know there is an "official" version of her competing for Germany because she decided to, with no money involved at all, but this is hard to believe in. Things like this make me think that it doesn't really matter why an athlete decided to compete for another country; they are still foreigners competing for another nation and it will always kind of look like cheating to me, especially because they can always represent their country of birth once they become too old or not good enough to earn medals anymore. I'm still upset that some people are always pointing fingers to Azerbaijan or Qatar, but still they are so laid back on this issue when it comes to a select number of countries. I'm aware that Azerbaijan and Qatar blatantly buy athletes, but some other countries also do this, just not in a blatant way, and still get away with it.

It's nice to have Panama in gymnastics. Isabella Amado is a good gymnast and she will represent her country in the best possible way. Valentina Brostella is also quite decent. I hope they decide to invest some money now because Brostella has what it takes to qualify on her own in 2020 if she improves on the Uneven Bars. Crovetto is a nice choice as well. Cape Verde in Rhythmics again? It's not that they don't deserve it. It's just that Angola could benefit a lot more from this quota if they were given it...

Just a random fact that I've just noticed: if my calculations are right, Evgenia Kanaeva was awarded the 1,000th Olympic medal in gymnastics at the 2012 edition in London.