thiago_simoes

What a day for Albania and Lithuania! First ever medals at the ECh for these nations, and gold for both! Turkey also won their first ever gold medal(s) in artistic gymnastics today. Austria earned their first medal since 1955! Kudos to Ukraine for displaying a nice assortment of routines, and to Croatia for winning three medals (though, shockingly, they lost the gold medal on high bar). Surprisingly, the bronze medalists in the team competition from Hungary did not manage to earn individual medals. Belarus also earned deserved medals with a veteran gymnast. In the junior competition, excellent results for Ukraine and a more success for Turkey and Lithuania. Israel also did well both in the senior and junior competitions. Romania and Bulgaria also earned medals, which is great for these nations which are clearly rebuilding their programs in the right direction.

It's not that bad. I don't support most of the proposals, but few of them have been accepted, anyway. The problem is that many people here are on the verge of being hysterical about any change on the program. How come they are trying to ruin the "older games" while weightlifting and boxing are still part of the program? So, now people pretend to care about the 50 km walk event too? Do you guys really want to watch swimmers from smaller nations clocking times that you guys could probably beat after two or three years of serious training? I understand that many federations lost quotas, but there has to be a limit. I was mad about artistic gymnastics losing quotas at first, but after giving it some thought, I think it's okay. In my opinion, the only federation which might have had it really bad is ICF, but even so it's not like the whole world will riot with changes in such a minor sport. I'm sorry to canoe fans, but that's the way it is. I support gender equality and inclusion of more medal events for women, but I'm not that into mixed events -- still, they comprise only 22 events, while 307 events will remain single-gender. Skate, surfing and breakdancing will coexist with modern pentathlon, badminton and fencing. Wider audiences will enjoy football while a small number of nations will enjoy more field hockey. Bottom line is: it could have been much worse. If they go for a truly global and more urban take on the program, many other sports will be doomed. As it is, there's still room for pretty much everybody to enjoy the program. It's not perfect, of course, but it's not like it was before by any stretch of the imagination.

I love watching the Classic Tetris World Championships. I would support this 100 times more than I support breakdancing.

I agree. I was afraid parkour would make the cut. I'm glad this atrocity was not considered for 2024.

Wait, WHAT? Why give less quotas to men? It's already too few as it is. I agree about women's artistic and I don't care too much about rhythmic because there are very few gymnasts good enough to fight for medals, but decreasing the number of men, even by 2, is absurd.

They could just add medal events for teams in each apparatus in artistic gymnastics. 10 new medal events and lots of medal opportunities for Russia, Japan, Great Britain, United States and China (and also decent chances for France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, South Korea, Ukraine and Canada). The added cost would be zero. Besides, they could create a "mixed" gymnastics event comprising artistic, rhythmic and trampoline gymnastics. Maybe FIG could even get away with gender equality in all disciplines by doing this (I mean, rhythmic gymnastics would compete alongside men from other disciplines, after all). Once again, the added cost would be zero.

I love gymnastics, but this is not the right time to ask for more disciplines to be included in the Olympics. As far as I know, disciplines must have regular continental championships in three continents to justify inclusion. Aerobics and acrobatics follow this rule, but not parkour. I mean, a World Championship event in parkour has not even been competed yet, for God's sake! Also, although there are three continental championships in acrobatics (European, Asian and Pan American), the events are usually so bad that some categories in the Asian championships are competed with less than three competitors. The latest Pan American championships only had competitors from the United States. It should not even qualify as a competition. Bottom line is: FIG is completely out of their collective minds to ask for acrobatics to join the Olympics! Aerobics has even less appeal than breakdancing. It looks kind of antiquated now, and it will suffer when people compare breakdancing and aerobics because of how pretentiously elegant (and a bit tacky) gymnasts look compared to more "urban" breakdancers. And let's be honest: parkour is not even a sport (yet), and no one takes it seriously.

I don't quite follow who coached which teams, but I read that Turkey has a Bulgarian coach, and this certainly makes a difference! Brazil usually hires a Bulgarian coach to touch up the routines after the Brazilian coach creates them, so we're heavily influenced by Bulgarian style here. I like it a lot. Senior individual competition was very surprising today. Ashram and Harnasko had the exact same scores, but Ashram won the tie breaker. I strongly dislike her style, but kudos to her for winning gold. Harnasko had a fantastic competition and I always knew she had enough potential to come close to Ashram, and she finally showed this. I hope she has a spectacular performance at the Olympics.

Estonia with a bronze medal and Turkey with a gold medal. And Hungary for the first time ever with a medal in the junior competition. Take Russia out of the picture and suddenly other programs rise to the occasion. Interesting trivia: 1) This is Turkey's first gold medal in gymnastics at the European Championships in any discipline. Previously, Turkey earned one silver and two bronze medals in artistic gymnastics, and one silver medal in aerobic gymnastics. 2) Estonia's bronze medal was only the second-ever medal in gymnastics at the European Championships for the nation in any discipline. Their first medal was earned in TeamGym in 1996! A 24-year gap between these two medals.

Yikes, what an awful group competition today. Only Israel didn't have major mistakes, and Estonia did pretty well for their level. Turkey had a huge chance of winning a medal, but unfortunately they were very nervous.

Weird. The official website seems to indicate that there will be an all-around competition, after all.

Today the competition was just half of the all-around event. The podiums will only be decided after tomorrow's events.

Sad news. Rest in peace. Respect for him. Mis condolencias a todos los hermanos y hermanas de Argentina.

A lunatic billionaire demanding democracy not to be validated... Who would have guessed, right?

I like it a lot, but there's a catch: FIG stated that from 2024 on, teams in AG will go back to the old format: 5 gymnasts per nation. Nobody likes this system where only 4 are allowed to compete at the Olympics and up to 2 extra gymnasts qualify through the World Cup series or the continental championships. With 5 gymnasts in each team, we would need to lower the numbers of teams to 10, and increase the total number of gymnasts to 4. Not really a tragedy, but this still puts into danger some traditional teams like Ukraine's men's team and Romania's women's team. But this is the best proposal given what the IOC wants for the Olympics, I guess.

I wouldn't be against it, but this means 3 extra quotas in men's artistic gymnastics. I thought this would reduce the number of countries competing, but instead this would increase the number of nations! There are 68 nations that would qualify at the World Championships alone, plus extra quotas for every continent. I'm not even sure there are 80+ nations with active male artistic gymnasts. I'm sure this would be great for nations like Namibia, Kuwait, Qatar and Sri Lanka, though.

On further revision, this system is slightly better than my original proposal: MAG: 40 (8 teams) + 60 individuals WAG: 40 (8 teams) + 34 individuals RG: 16 (8 teams) + 13 individuals TRA: 13 women + 16 men WAG 40 quotas: 8 teams (5 gymnasts) at the World Championships 8 quotas: World Championships - All-Around competition 12 quotas: World Championships - Event Finals (if quotas remain after EFs, give them to AA) 3 quotas: Top 3 gymnasts at the All-Around World Cup series 4 quotas: Overall winners in each apparatus at the World Cup series 1 quota: Host nation 1 quota: Tripartite invitation 1 quota: Asian Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: European Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: Oceania Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: Pan American Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: African Championships - All-Around competition MAG 40 quotas: 8 teams (5 gymnasts) at the World Championships 16 quotas: World Championships - All-Around competition 18 quotas: World Championships - Event Finals (if quotas remain after EFs, give them to AA) 8 quotas: Top 8 gymnasts at the All-Around World Cup series 6 quotas: Overall winners in each apparatus at the World Cup series 1 quota: Host nation 1 quota: Tripartite invitation 2 quotas: Asian Championships - All-Around competition 2 quotas: European Championships - All-Around competition 2 quotas: Oceania Championships - All-Around competition 2 quotas: Pan American Championships - All-Around competition 2 quotas: African Championships - All-Around competition RG 16 quotas: 8 teams (2 gymnasts) at the World Championships 3 quotas: World Championships - All-Around competition 3 quotas: Top 3 gymnasts at the All-Around World Cup series 1 quota: Host nation 1 quota: Tripartite invitation 1 quota: Asian Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: European Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: Oceania Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: Pan American Championships - All-Around competition 1 quota: African Championships - All-Around competition TRA - Women 6 quotas: World Championships 1 quota: Best gymnast at the World Cup series 1 quota: Host nation 1 quota: Asian Championships 1 quota: European Championships 1 quota: Oceania Championships 1 quota: Pan American Championships 1 quota: African Championships TRA - Men 6 quotas: World Championships 3 quotas: Top 3 gymnasts at the World Cup series 1 quota: Host nation 1 quota: Tripartite invitation 1 quota: Asian Championships 1 quota: European Championships 1 quota: Oceania Championships 1 quota: Pan American Championships 1 quota: African Championships

From FIG: “The IOC informed in a letter relating Olympic Games 2024/Paris that gender equality will be in all disciplines among the participants. The question arises how gender equality is calculated within the disciplines of the FIG. Each discipline by themselves or all together (MAG/WAG; RG; TRA). WAG does not want to reduce their quota places. WAG wants to have the same quota as MAG.” By the way it's written, it looks like the IOC sees Gymnastics as one sport with several disciplines, pretty much like Aquatics. There's already gender equality when it comes to the number of podiums: 4 in WAG + 2 in RG + 1 in trampoline = 7 6 in MAG + 1 in trampoline = 7 In order to achieve an equal number of individuals across all disciplines, WAG absolutely needs to lose quotas. Also, the following changes would have to occur: 1) RG groups must go. 2) A new RG team event would have to be created, with 2 gymnasts per team 3) Teams in AG would need to be reduced to 8 Then, I see this happening: MAG: 40 (8 teams) + 58 individuals WAG: 40 (8 teams) + 24 individuals RG: 16 (8 teams) + 18 individuals TRA: 16 women + 16 men I don't see how this improves things in any way. In fact, this would drastically reduce the number nations competing. But if they want gender equality, this is what could be done right now. Of course, these are just my ideas, and there's also a chance that men's rhythmic gymnastics will be pushed forward (although, right now, it's almost non-existent around the world). Either way, this could be a huge problem for rhythmic gymnastics.

Today, Latvia earned their first-ever medal in women's artistic gymnastics and Austria got their first-ever gold medal at the World Cup/World Challenge Cup circuit. But I am thoroughly impressed with Serbia. Some of the scores were quite decent, especially on parallel bars and horizontal bar. If they keep up improving like this, in a few years they might be a real threat at the World Championships. Last time Serbian gymnasts performed so well internationally was in 2006, when Milos Paunovic earned a bronze medal on vault at the 2006 Maribor World Cup. No medals this year, but Serbians still left a lasting impression here, no question about it! And, of course, I am very impressed with Matvei Petrov. His only medal at the World Cup was earned in 2010 when he still competed for Russia. He decided to retire and become a coach in Czech Republic, and the owner of the gym where he coaches is Albanian. He was asked to represent Albania and then maybe he could go to the Olympics with a wild card, and not only he's the favorite for the wild card, he got a medal in an official FIG competition representing Albania. Really, this is the best story of 2020 so far. I'm really happy for him.

I was right.

I was confused at first, but the 2021 European Championships might still happen before May, so there's still chance it will serve as the continental qualification for Europe. If the 2021 Championships is held later than May, then Ukraine will officially qualify in the group competition and Ekaterina Vedeneeva will qualify as an individual. This opens up two quotas, one for the US group and one for Salomé Pazhava from Georgia.

I get what you're saying, but there are dozens of other summer sports. Besides, it doesn't look like the guy is even remotely interested in getting an Olympic medal, and he shouldn't be blamed because the country doesn't work toward getting more international recognition in summer sports. If a nation like Trinidad and Tobago can get Olympic medals for 6 straight Summer Games with a population of under 1.5 million people, Austria should be able to achieve this too. They have way more people and way more money to spend. Of course, their focus is on Winter Games, but then again, I don't see how and why Thiem should be blamed for this.

It's not like he has ever cared for the Olympics, so he's not losing sleep over Austria ending up with zero medals. And by the way things look, none of the sports officials in Austria are losing sleep either.