thiago_simoes

They don't actually speak Portuguese there, but somehow the government added Portuguese as an official language so they could have be part of better economic deals with Brazil and other Portuguese-speaking nations, as far as I know. Weird.

I wonder why it was translated to Portuguese instead of French.

This is fantastic. Thanks for sharing. And we can actually get results since 2004, not just the last 5 years. Of course I had to search for gymnastics disciplines. As I suspected: 1) Artistic gymnastics is by far the most popular discipline; 2) Interest in artistic gymnastics has grown steadily, especially in the last 5 years; 3) Rhythmic gymnastics is the second most popular discipline; 4) Interest spikes to the roof around the time of the Olympic games; 5) Virtually no one cares about trampoline gymnastics. Now, the world map: I'm honestly surprising at how popular rhythmic gymnastic is in some parts of the world, especially countries with zero tradition in the discipline such as Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, DR Congo, South Africa, Angola, Namibia and Algeria. Trampolining (yellow) is the most popular discipline in Great Britain and, surprisingly, Hungary. Aerobics (green) is the most popular discipline in Indonesia. Acrobatic gymnastics (purple) is the most popular discipline in Portugal, Morocco, Mozambique and Madagascar. All the rest is either blue (artistic gymnastics) or red (rhythmic gymnastics). Finally, the places of the world where the search interest reaches the maximum value (100) per discipline are: Artistic gymnastics: Rhythmic gymnastics: Trampolining: Aerobic gymnastics: Acrobatic gymnastics:

These are some slow times, ffs. I'm not one to complain and I don't expect much from these Games, but this is... wow. The winner here would have placed 9th at the 2019 Pan American Games.

This forum keeps updated results for every World Cup and Grand Prix event and they publish official results even before the websites of the national federations sometimes. It's a good place to look for information when the events occur. It's all in Russian, though.

You complained about the venues before, so it should be a clue that the budget is low. Organizers would rather invest on the venues than the website. This website shows that there are not many internet users in Africa, so once again I'm surprised they even care about updating the website. Anyway, I cannot force you to see things the way I see them, and I don't want to do it anyway (everybody is different, and this is great).

This is pure gold. You deserve money for this comment alone. Let's begin a fundraiser.

You expect too much from the African Games. They can barely put it together every single edition. It's impossible to expect any serious work on the website, since the organizers probably have no significant budget for keeping it updated. I'm surprised they are even trying. I don't mean to be rude and I apologize if I sound obnoxious, but complaining about the website is a little bit childish. It only shows total lack of awareness about the many challenges Africa needs to face as a continent. Just take the Games for what they are and let's celebrate what the organizers are able to achieve, instead of focusing on what they were not.

What the hell happened with my previous reply? It's not showing properly and I can't edit it either. Anyway, I'll write it again: regarding the ball final, Ashram took bronze, not Kaleyn. The individual gymnasts from Bulgaria will walk back home empty-handed this time.

Wikipedia says they did. I blindly trusted them.

Second medal ever for

I mean Belarus only performs "well" at home. This group has been extremely inconsistent all year, but home scores are usually exorbitant for them and they didn't waste their chance, so, yeah. This worries me because the World Championships are very close and there's a serious risk Japan and Italy could end up without medals now that they seem more inconsistent while Belarus is getting steady.

Ashram is considerably far behind Dina Averina. She was a strong contender for the gold medal, but now it looks like she barely can challenge for the bronze medal. The prospects are not so great for the Olympics. And the Belarusian group got their first medal in all-around competition this year in Minsk. What a joke. All the scores are ridiculous and this is the lowest point of the World Cup series this year. It looks like FIG is completely lost with this Code of Points.

Yes, I know. It's just I personally hate it, but I know it's not going to be removed from the program. Triathlon is probably the least exciting event at the Olympics, in my opinion. I can see the reason for Modern Pentathlon (even though the perfect soldier thing is a little corny) but I absolutely can't stand triathlon or even think about a good reason for it to exist as a sport.

I would ok with fencing, swimming, cycling and laser run. The equestrian events in MP would finally be gone, and we could even get rid of triathlon (hate it).

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.