thiago_simoes

Well, in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2013 Bulgaria was not all that hot. No medals at the 2008 Olympics or at the 2008 World Cup Final, no medals at the 2009 and 2013 World Championships, no medals at the 2012 Olympics. This might have been a sad moment for Bulgarians, but the group came back stronger in 2016 after not winning medals in gymnastics in 2008 and 2012. It's important to break traditions because when countries like Bulgaria don't win medals that they were expected to win, they work hard to remain relevant. Look at what happened to Spain: they spent 20 years without an Olympic medal and they finally got one again in 2016. They never quit, never gave up. Italy has also worked hard and this year the routines are much better than they were in the period from 2013 to 2016. No medal in 2016, but I just can't see Italy not winning a medal in 2020. It's important to break traditions. Other nations joined the top ranks and contributed to a major shift in balance in this sport: Israel has had many big results since 2009, Japan has had huge success since 2015. The world will not stop if smaller nations start winning medals. A good example is the World Cup: when you have countries like Estonia, Switzerland or Brazil winning medals at the World Cup series, this attracts more attention to the sport in these nations. Of course this has only happened once for each of these countries, but the fact that it did happen is amazing, since these are "exotic" nations in a sport that has always been dominated by the same old countries.

Wow, this is mindblowing. Thanks for reminding me of this post. I'm sad that we saw another case of doping, but it would be incredible for this sport in Brazil if Fernando got a medal.

Nikolchenko had a knot in the ribbon during her routine and received a score of 11.700. Dina Averina had the exact same problem last week and she received a score of over 20 points. Now, we know that they applied the correct deductions for Nikolchenko's routine, but my question is why the hell Dina did not have the decency to admit the judges made a mistake with her routine and gave back the gold medal she received last week? It's good that the judges FINALLY got this deduction right, but Dina should not sit with a gold medal for a routine that deserved to finish last place.

The girls had a mistake in the 5 balls routine, but the scores would still have been lower than the US's scores even if they had hit the routine. But of course it's still too early to say. The US had a fantastic first half last year, but their group did not earn any gold medals at the Pan Am Championships. It's all about timing, so the US might be a little bit too far ahead now, but who knows what will happen when Mexico, Brazil and Canada peak?

Oh, this is and old peeve of mine. I don't like her antiquate mind and the way she treats the gymnasts, but this could be a problem with Russian coaches in general, especially very old Russian coaches. Again: I'm cautiously optimistic, but with Rebeca you never know. She is the unluckiest gymnast I've seen. She always gets injured right before Worlds. I hope she can keep her level of performance and stay healthy this year. I've heard rumors of a Cheng and an Amanar for her, but I really doubt this is part of the plan this year. Maybe in 2020.

So, Mexico scored 16.600 (5 balls), 17.200 (3 hoops and 2 pais of clubs) for 33.900 total all-around score with their group. Not terrible scores, but not exactly good scores too. The US scored 20.650 and 18.750 (39.400 in total). Now let's see what Canada and Brazil can do.

I understand why you support Yamilet Peña. I also cheered for her and I always cheer for India and even Iran (even though I have a million reasons to dislike their government) whenever gymnasts from these nations compete. But Paseka comes from Russia, which in my opinion is THE place for gymnastics in the world, and she's clearly a favorite of Rodionenko, so I'm not really impressed when she throws huge difficulty (and when she's forgiven by Rodionenko when she doesn't perform too well). I know nothing about her story, though. Now, we have a long way until the World Championships but I really hope gymnasts start throwing more difficult vaults, or else Paseka is going to get away with poor execution every single time she performs the Cheng. As far as I know, Andrade is not training a second vault and she probably will not upgrade her first vault to an Amanar this year. I hope I'm proven wrong, though, but I'm hopeless for anything but an all-around medal for her (and, even so, not that hopeful, lol).

I got it. All I wanted to say is that I'm not emotionally invested in her story and she does not impress me, even though she goes for high difficulty when nobody else is really messing with huge D vaults. Even so, compared to what the other girls presented, Paseka's first vault should not have scored so high. My rant is more about how biased judges allow this to happen and how the code of points is so bad when it comes to scoring vaults that an atrocity like this could be seen as passable and everybody just kind of played along. Same thing with Chusovitina winning the European vault title in 2008 after counting a fall. Terrible. We should not allow things like this to happen.

There's a difference between "it's fair" and "she can get away with this vault only because she's Russian". With all due respect, when she vaults, I don't care about whether she almost died or not. She should be judged on what she presents, and what she did present was something pathetic that should never EVER have received 8.5 in execution. This is everything but fair.

The fact that Paseka won the gold medal with the ugliest first vault I have seen in my life speaks a lot about how poor the state of women's artistic gymnastics in Europe is right now. I know it's all about difficulty with her, but her first vault is beyond ugly. It was pathetic.

Is there a streaming or live scores anywhere?

To be honest, I'm somewhat disappointed with the overall level of performance of the girls. Only three gymnasts fighting for medals in the all-around, and none of them scored even remotely close to what I expected. The top 3 all-around scores of the year are: Simone Biles (USA) - 58.800 (Stuttgart World Cup) Rebeca Andrade (BRA) - 56.932 (DTB Pokal) Leanne Wong (USA) - 56.765 (American Cup) Now, Melanie de Jesus dos Santos posted the best score for an European gymnast this year, 55.433, only 0.001 better than Melnikova at the DTB Pokal, but still more than one point behind Wong. And, surprise, Biles is nearly two points ahead of her best rival so far. She will be unbeatable this year once again.

What a historic moment for Cyprus! This is the first medal ever for the nation at the European Championships. It was about time! Most surprising medal since Vladimir Cojoc (Moldova) won a medal at the 2000 Trampoline European Championships.

Of course, because if you ask politely maybe the leaders of the country that invaded your territory could change their minds and return it to you as if nothing happened, right? Look at how Great Britain responded so nicely when asked to return the Falkland Islands to Argentina. I mean, I don't want to be sarcastic, but I cannot help it. This whole situation with Israel and Palestine is insane. I don't support the Hezbollah, but I'm utterly disgusted (and have always been) by Israel and the Zionists, so I don't judge the Palestinians for getting tired of being tortured, killed and expelled from their territory, so they had to choose a radical approach to combat the fascist state that invaded their territory. Nobody wins, of course.

Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Canada and the United States will send groups to the Baku World Cup. Now, this will be very interesting! All of the medal contenders at the upcoming Pan Am Games up against one another.

And this is exactly the reason why, though it is my favorite sport right now, rhythmic gymnastics cannot be taken seriously. We all know this sport is not known for diversity among medalists, but when Russian gymnasts receive scores that should never be awarded to them, this is outrageous. The Code of Points implemented since 2017 increases the dominance of individual gymnasts from powerhouse nations (Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus and, in recent years, Israel). It's like FIG wants the sport never to grow beyond the same old group of nations. It's still Bulgaria and former Soviet nations against the rest of the world, and this is frustrating. In group events, the only real surprises since 2017 were Mexico and Estonia, but surprise: Estonia is still a former Soviet nation. Lithuania has improved a lot in junior events as well, but then again, another former Soviet nation.

I'm completely disgusted with Israel. But, I mean, should I be surprised? What can you expect from them other than supporting a fascist leader again?

So, it looks like Dina Averina had a knot in her ribbon throughout her routine. According to FIG's guidelines, she should have been evaluated only through her throws and risks, what would severely limit her score to something around 12 or 13, instead of over 20 points. Let's see how FIG will handle the situation. The right thing to do would be promoting Taseva to gold, Harnasko to silver and Pazhava to bronze.

I have no idea how she is performing right now. Maybe she will lose some of her prestige after the doping sanction, I guess. Either way, in the all around, Griskenas and Uchida (Canada) outscored Feinberg in Pesaro, and both Mizuno and Gaudio (Brazil) came close. If Zeng is not up to the task, Griskenas and Generalova could easily win gold and silver without major mistakes at the Pan Ams. Add the Mexican gymnasts to the mix and we'll have a very interesting competition.

I wouldn't be surprised if FIG decides to remove trampoline from the Olympic program and replace it with Parkour. This is not gymnastics. FIG should be ashamed.

Pazhava in second warms my heart a little. She has a real chance of a medal, because I can only see both Averinas outscoring her if she doesn't have any serious mistake. The last time she won a World Cup medal was in 2016.

What the hell happened with Argentina? Their gymnasts scored 11 or 12 until last year, but now they have a gymnast scoring 17.9 on hoop and 68.650 in the all-around. This is absolutely insane! She is going to medal in every single event at the Pan Am Games if she repeats this performance! @konig, do you know where Sol Fainberg trains?

Yes. Jamaica qualified three girls, and she's by far the best in the team. She didn't have much success when she represented Great Britain, but I hope she still has some juice left to represent Jamaica for a couple more years.

So, we're doomed, and it's all basically thanks to the scumbag that was elected as the president.

I know that she's just having fun, but some elements are quite difficult. I like it a lot.