thiago_simoes

Parkour? The disaster is complete.

Yes. And silver for Russia should also be a given. The real battle will be for the bronze medal, but China is one step ahead thanks to their awesome beam and bars routines (and they're trying hard to improve vault and floor). All around gold should be easy for Biles. She adds more than one point on floor alone, and her vault should also be 0.5 to 1.0 higher than what anybody else does. No one right now can challenge her for the gold medal.

You're absolutely right. I apologize for being overdramatic (I always am, though). Her coach was very clever exploring the possibilities within the Code of Points, and it's not his fault if the CoP allows 8 dance moves to be counted, but forbids 8 acrobatic moves to be counted. Besides, she made the most out of her routine and some of her dance skills are not easy at all. I just think it takes a bit of the excitement when there are just turns after turns with few acrobatic elements. And massive respect for you not relying on your nationality to cheer for an athlete. This is mostly how I think we should approach sports: I never cheer for Zanetti, for example, and I was really happy when Molinari (from Argentina) won a medal at the Pan Ams, even though he knocked a Brazilian off the podium.

Wait, no rhythmic gymnastics? What the hell?

I only expect girls to match Biles' difficulty on floor in 10 years, maybe even more. She could easily come back for 2024 if she wants, but she said she won't. Time will tell. Personally, I think she's both the best and the worst thing to happen to artistic gymnastics since Comaneci. It's amazing how far she pushes herself on floor even though nobody else can really come close to what she does, but at the same time it's terrible that she has no competition on this apparatus. Sae Miyakawa was trying some crazy stuff too, but she only hit her floor routine at World once and her execution is so bad she didn't even win a medal. On vault maybe someone will be able to beat her, but it will be really, really hard. Yeo Seo-jeong is the only one with a minimal chance of beating Biles, but I still can't see it happen unless the upgrades her second vault to an Amanar (and even then it will be close). On bars I don't think Biles can really win gold, and no one should be able to beat the Chinese girls on beam.

Oh, please. No. With all due respect, it's enough of a tragedy for the sport she was the champion once. Not again. EDIT: I'll explain why I don't like the fact she won gold in 2016. First, I need to explain how scores work. The difficulty score for the balance beam is counted with the 8 most difficult skills + bonuses + connections. The skills are divided in two parts: 1) acrobatic skills (somersaults, dismount) and dance skills (jumps, leaps, turns). The bonuses are divided in 4 items: 1) two dance elements connected, 2) two acrobatic skills connected, 3) acrobatic elements in different connections, 4) at least one turn. In 2016 there was an extra bonus for the dismount: if the dismount was worth 0.4 or more, the added bonus was 0.5; if it was worth 0.3 the bonus was 0.3; if it was 0.2 or 0.1, no bonus at all. The connections are extra points if two (or more) moderately difficult skills are connected. In short: the Code of Points was created so that beam routines have lots of acrobatic elements (because they are, in theory, riskier than dance elements). Not only that: acrobatic skills must be difficult and preferably linked together. What Sanne Wevers did was completely the opposite of what was expected. She focused on dance skills, linked them together and performed very few acrobatic skills. It was very clear that she cannot do acrobatic skills very well, including the dismount. To be honest, even her leaps were not really that good. She could only perform turns really well. She had awesome turns, performed them like nobody else, but she clearly couldn't do anything else really well (acrobatic skills, leaps, dismount). It was the opposite of what everybody else did at the time, and completely subverted the logic of the code of points. The genius thing is that it worked. Olympic champion. In the end, it's all a matter of preference. I prefer acrobatic skills over dance skills. If you're not a fan and you can't tell the difference between an acrobatic skill and a dance skill, there's nothing to complain. For me, though, it was not what I wanted to watch.

US and Russia will be untouchable in 2020. China is in a very comfortable position for a bronze medal, even with subpar floor routines and less than stellar vaults. But let's see where Romania gets if they qualify a full team. Nothing is impossible, especially with a pool of such talented gymnasts.

I see Romania as a coin toss for the Olympic qualification: 50-50 chance of qualifying a full team. I don't really think the current girls can do it, but deep down I hope they surprise me because the current juniors (who will turn senior next year) deserve to compete at the Olympics. Still, I predict uneven bars will be a disaster for Romania this year, so I hope Iordache helps the team as much as she can. I believe and are direct competitors against for the final women's team quotas for the Olympics. are already qualified and unless a disaster occurs should qualify easily. and could qualify too if they have a perfect day, but I wouldn't hold my breath. and are the dark horses.

China will probably be 1-2 at the Olympics, and I wouldn't rule out Eaker either (but I think she will ultimately not be chosen for the US team thanks to her severe lack of consistency). And we might as well see a surprising medalist too, especially from Russia or Romania.

Not really surprised. As we say in Brazil, "bonitinho mas ordinário" (cute but stinker).

I wouldn't count on it. Unless we have terrible Games, with disaster after disaster from the Russians, Chinese and Derwael, there's absolutely no way she can take uneven bars gold. Her routine has lots of technical problems. Even though most judges turn a blind eye for her mistakes, I strongly believe this extra help won't be enough for her to challenge for the top spot. Beam is very unpredictable, but even with a difficult dismount, I can't see her taking balance beam gold either. She's not the most consistent on this apparatus and not the cleanest in execution. In fact, her new dismount is somewhat sloppy when it comes to execution, with up to 0.6 in deductions. Team (if everyone performs well), all-around, vault and floor should be easy for her, though.

Exactly. This kind of awareness is hard to expect from Argentinians, but what surprises me is how fast Canadians here point things out and act all holier-than-thou. Canadians are known for being considerate and nice, but I wouldn't always say that based on some of the examples we have here. Is it so hard to try to understand where this gesture comes from? I might not agree with it, but it's the way Argentinians celebrated and they probably meant no harm. This will hopefully serve as a lesson for them. It's really bothersome when people say things like "this is a lame excuse" when they have contact with a completely different culture. It's not a lame excuse, it's an explanation; you either take it for what it is or you act the fool yourself, instead.

This is very interesting because it shows clearly how countries like Paraguay, British Virgin Islands and Aruba are clearly concerned about improving their chances for an Olympic medal, while Bolivia only cares about racquetball. Their silver medal in tennis is more the result of a lucky competition than any serious work on improving their chances of an Olympic medal.

A lesbian black woman carrying our flag. This is a political message of resistance and I'm very proud of Brazil today.

What was it? The link doesn't open anymore. She has two new skills yet to be validated: a double somersault with three twists on floor, and a double somersault with two twists off the balance beam.

Well, everything happened so fast! Let's see if this works again: I've lost all hope in becoming millionaire by tomorrow.

Gold for Paraguay!

It's only practiced in the Southern region of Brazil, and even so it's not even slightly popular (I live in the South and no one here knows anything about it).

Oh...

3 way tie for the first place in men's golf. Does it mean Paraguay finally has a gold medal or is there some sort of tie breaking system?

Paraguay can win their first gold medal ever in men's golf today.

This is our second national sport. We have 200 million people. It's impossible that our B or even C players are this bad.

Congratulations, Argentina for winning the bronze medal on volleyball. It's unbelievable how volleyball is our second national sport but we can't assemble a half decent team to play at the Pan Ams. Two bronze medals in volleyball and beach volleyball is a joke. Thanks for nothing, Brazilian Volleyball Confederation.

Whoever was responsible for creating the schedule should be forced to watch a bodybuilding competition for 72 hours straight.

This opens up an interesting discussion: what's the point of adding a sport to the program of the Pan Am Games? In rhythmic gymnastics, Brazil has benefited greatly from the experience at the Pan Ams and has managed to qualify a group for many editions of the Olympics since 2000. Canada, the United States and quite possibly Mexico (in 2020) also managed to do so (or, in the case of Mexico, is expected to do so). The US almost qualified for an individual final in 2016 and is expected to do so in 2020. What countries benefited from the experience at the Pan Ams in trampoline other than Canada and the US? None. Brazil, Mexico and Colombia won medals at the Pan Ams, but they are not even close to reaching a final at the World Championships (in individual trampoline) or the Olympics. Venezuela also won a medal in trampoline in 1955, but they never reached the finals at the World Championships (but to be fair the first WC in trampoline only happened in 1964). Argentina won a medal in tumbling in 1955 but never qualified for the tumbling finals at the World Championships (again, to be fair, tumbling was part of acrobatic gymnastics at the time and only had the first World Championships in 1974).