thiago_simoes

The Mexican group scored 36.300 today and I'm super excited because Mexico is getting closer and closer to a World Cup medal! This is the highest any country from the Americas has scored under the current code, and for this specific competition, it was just .300 less than Israel and .550 less than Belarus. I can't stress how important this is. There's a real chance for an all-around medal here; currently, Mexico is sitting in fourth place. I really hope Mexico wins a medal here; in fact, more than one. This looks like it will be a fantastic year for the Mexicans and Olympic qualification should not be too hard. This is excellent for this sport, and any serious fan knows how much we need more diversity on the podium.

He's not going to the Olympics for sure, but Valentina Rodionenko still stated that he's being considered for the team. The Rodionenkos are completely insane, we all know it, but ValRod has now shown how out of touch with reality she is. What an irresponsible, dangerous person. Dalaloyan needs to recover. Period. He should only be back to full training in six months.

Yes, the point is that it all comes down to personal taste. I just can't enjoy it no matter what. It's either over too fast or slow and boring. This sport almost makes me like Parkour for kind of fitting in the middle: it's not over too fast, but it's also not so slow that I would be bored watching.

I'm surprised with how much you guys seem to like sports climbing. For me, it's the worst sport in the current Olympic program. I could even pick breakdancing over sports climbing, to be honest.

Jennifer Gadirova will miss the European Championships. At this point, it's more and more likely that one of the Russians and Larissa Iordache will be the ones qualified to Tokyo. Last year I thought Iordache had no chance of qualifying at all, but now that Great Britain, Italy and France either lost or are not allowed to use their best gymnasts, the path is wide open for Iordache.

I mentioned that there's a chance for a medal in the All-Around, but that does not mean that one of the Brazilians is absolutely going to take it. You see, the thing with gymnastics is that you have to keep an eye on what everyone has been training and which upgrades they are planning. All-Around is a very open event, and seriously six or seven countries can achieve medals, including the US, Russia, China, Brazil, Japan, France and Great Britain. Rebeca Andrade currently has the second highest difficulty on vault, only behind Biles, and her execution has been fantastic in training. Biles has a new, more difficult vault, and she's hands down the favorite for the gold medal. But Carey, Rebeca and Ellie Downie will have a great battle for silver and bronze. Of course we have vaulters like Shallon Olsen, Giulia Steingruber, Corine Devillard, Oksana Chusovitina and Alexa Moreno still going strong, but at this point, they are one step behind Biles and the other three I mentioned, both in difficulty and execution. Now, predicting medals in men's gymnastics is a lot harder because there are many serious contenders. For example, most people who are hopeful for a medal in the horizontal bar for their fellow countrymen are probably not aware of what Uchimura and Miyachi have been training. On paper, their routines should easily give them gold and silver on this apparatus, especially because they'll receive slightly boosted scores thanks to home advantage. The same goes for Nina Derwael on the uneven bars, but Sunisa Lee now has an even more difficult and clean routine, which should put a hard fight against Derwael. It all comes down to how they will perform on that particular day, of course, but results from 2019 and especially 2018 should not be taken seriously when predicting medals in 2021.

It's always amusing to see the predictions in gymnastics. You guys quickly go from pondered and rational in other sports to completely out of your minds in gymnastics. I kind of love seeing it lol.

Interesting. I thought you would pick Ellie Downie instead of Taeja James. Does she has some crazy major upgrades?

LOL, you're right. I predicted 15 medals, which would be 4 less than in 2016, but I believe that no one who follows the sport in the country would be happy with anything other than 20 medals or more this time. If our judokas and volleyball teams had been in better shape, I would have predicted over 20 medals for sure. Also, on paper, Brazil can challenge for 6 medals in artistic gymnastics, and if we manage to get 4 or more, I would go crazy. Our chances are: men's rings, men's horizontal bar, women's all-around, women's vault, women's balance beam and women's floor. I believe women's vault is our "safest" medal with Rebeca Andrade. Of course, she has to qualify first, but she's in excellent shape in training, maybe the best she has ever been.

Who would you pick for these three medals? I'm just curious.

Brazil: Athletics - 0-2 Boxing - 1 Canoeing Slalom - 0-1 Canoeing Sprint - 1-2 Cycling - 0-1 Fencing - 0-1 Football - 0-2 Artistic Gymnastics - 1-3 Judo - 1-2 Sailing - 1 Shooting - 0-1 Skateboarding - 2-3 Surfing - 2-3 Swimming - 1-2 Open water swimming - 1 Taekwondo - 0-1 Tennis - 0-1 Volleyball and Beach Volleyball - 0-2 Weightlifting - 0-1 So, worst case scenario is 10, best case scenario is around 30. Judo, volleyball and artistic gymnastics could realistically provide more medals, but it would be far too optimistic to expect more than what I'm already expecting from these sports. There are also very long shots in table tennis and archery; chances are like 5% in these sports. I'd say 15 is a solid number -- a little bit conservative, but solid nevertheless.

Oh, I totally forgot about Alexa Moreno! It will be interesting to see what she can do.

There's a chance. He can still qualify through the Apparatus World Cup series. Currently, Liu Yang from China is ahead of Petrounias, but there's a chance Petrounias can still beat him on average points. Highly unlikely at this point, but I believe it's not impossible. China could also try to earn an extra quota through the Asian Championships. Now, this quota would be open to any Chinese gymnast, so it's a lot more interesting for China to earn this quota than accept the one from the World Cup series, which would be restricted to Liu Yang. Let's suppose he gets injured before the Olympics, for example; China would lose this quota this way. But if they refuse the quota from the World Cup series and accept the quota from the Asian Championships, instead, they can take whoever they want. In this case, Petrounias would be second best, and would receive the quota instead. This is a lot more likely to happen. That being said, Petrounias has been absent from competition for over one year now, and the other competitors are very fierce. China could realistically send both Liu Yang and You Hao to the Olympics, and other nations have their own specialists already qualified -- Turkey has Çolak, Ukraine has Radivilov, France has Said, Italy has Lodadio, Brazil has Zanetti. It could be anyone's game.

Poor Ziaziulin. He always finishes fourth, even when it comes to small medals. I believe he's secretly Brazilian.

Thank you. Somehow, I failed to realize how weird the rules are for such a simple sport. It's like they were bored with the way things were and decided to change everything based on arbitrary decisions. I wonder why some federations act like this. Stupid rules that prevent the best athletes from competing should not exist. Period. It's pretty much like artistic gymnastics where we'll have a very limited girl from Singapore competing at the Olympics, while extra gymnasts from Ukraine, Brazil and Australia will have to stay home, even though their level is miles ahead of what the Singaporean girl can reach. At this point, in artistic gymnastics I don't feel like the best will compete at the Olympics, but instead we'll see lots of smaller nations with very poor displays of gymnastics simply because the IOC wants "diversity". I'm all in for diversity, but if a gymnast can't reach a bare minimum level compared to the top guns, so leave this person home.

I don't quite understand how ties are broken. Here, both lifters had the same best weight in C&J, 206. Then, their second best result was also the same, 200. Then, one lifted 195 and the other lifted 194. How come the one with the third best lift got silver? I'll have a wild guess here and say that body weight is what matters, but then again the lighter of the two lifted the heaviest weight, and still got silver in C&J. Why?

The Asian Championships are scheduled to take place from May 29 to June 1. And the qualification system in artistic gymnastics is insane. I've lost count of how many times I read the documents, and sometimes I wonder if I understood everything. FIG made things overly complicated by splitting the quotas for teams and individuals. Thankfully, this nonsense will not be repeated in 2024 and it seems like we'll go back to the 5-per-team standard with no extra gymnasts from a nation which qualifies a full team.

There's also a chance that Japan formally declines a quota from the apparatus World Cup series and go instead for a quota at the Asian Championships. Since Japan has qualified a full team, if they earn a quota through the Asian Championships, they can pick any gymnast they want. If they accept the quota from the WC series, they would be stuck with either Kameyama or Miyachi. It would be a lot wiser to pick a quota for the nation through the Asian Championships instead. Keikha has a decent chance of qualifying, in the end.

Japan is really dumb on their selection procedures, but even with their cluelessness, it would be a huge mistake to leave Miyachi out of the next World Cup stage. He has a fantastic routine. Kameyama, on the other hand, has no chance of even getting a medal, unless five or six gymnasts fall. This, of course, if he even qualifies for the event finals, which I doubt, to be honest.

Let's say that Zonderland has a tendency to screw things up, while Miyachi could very well be the next Olympic champion in the horizontal bar thanks to his insanely difficult and clean routine. Of course, Zonderland is a two-time world champion and an Olympic champion, but he's far from his best and Miyachi has been consistent with his routine. Let's see how this goes.

Ohh, this makes things a lot more interesting now. Now, if Hidetaka Miyachi qualifies on the horizontal bar -- it's not impossible -- then this means that the quota on the pommel horse will go to Saeedreza Keikha! Harutyun Merdinyan has an outside chance too, provided he wins the gold medal in Doha and Keikha finishes third or lower.

There's still one event to go in the World Cup series, but we have a small list of gymnasts who have already qualified no matter what. Men's floor: Rayderley Zapata Women's vault: Jade Carey Women's uneven bars: Fan Yilin Women's balance beam: Urara Ashikawa Women's floor: Either Lara Mori or Vanessa Ferrari China has three men qualified on individual apparatus and, if I'm not mistaken, according to the tie breaking rule, Weng Hao will get the quota on the pommel horse. This is, honestly, the worst that could happen to China. They have virtually no chance of a medal on the pommel horse with the level of the competition as it is. China's best chance would be on the still rings with Liu Yang, and to top it off, Yang qualifying means that Petrounias would not qualify -- what would make a medal for Yang even "easier" to achieve. According to rumors, the Doha World Cup will be staged in early June, so we'll see how China will deal with their quotas.

Only one of the girls who went to Sofia took part at the 2019 Pan American Games, so it's natural that they were anxious and a little bit nervous here. Even so, their performance was fantastic. Of course there's room for improvement, but it's only a matter of time before Mexico and Turkey earn medals at the World Cup series. The last time that two countries earned medals for the first time at the WC series in one year was 2013, when and earned their first -- and, so far, only -- medals. After that, joined the club in 2015, in 2016, in 2018 and in 2019. Let's hope that in 2021 it will be and .

Mexico needed only 0.2 more to get a medal. It's the first time they finished fourth place in a World Cup event. Previously, they finished fourth in a World Challenge Cup event. I hope they eventually earn a medal this year.

Obrigado! Sim, a medalha foi conquistada na edição de 1968. EDIT: Ih, rapaz, a medalha foi no ciclismo de estrada, e não o de pista. Errei feio aí. Obrigado pelo toque.