thiago_simoes

He's currently in sixth place with Zanetti, Molinari, Dang Nam, Ng Kiu Chung and all of the Chinese gymnasts still to go. It will be really hard for him to make it.

Japan five points behind Russia, Uchimora not in all-around finals, Shirai in second place on floor, Armenia with real chances on rings and vault, Turkey probably not earning any medals, Ireland completely blew their chances, Larduet with abysmal scores and not making any finals, Chinese Taipei missing both pommel horse and rings final... It's 7:30 AM in Brazil but I need a cold beer right now.

Jesus Christ, what the hell happened? Çolak and Rhys will not make the finals? I'm in utter shock!

Pommel horse was a complete disaster. The performances on the other apparatus ranged from average to good. 8th place as a team is a nice result. There's hope for Cournoyer to qualify to the all-around final, and I don't think the team set other goals besides an eventual all-around final (and placing in the top 24 as a team, which has been achieved already).

https://live.fig-gymnastics.com/news.php?idevent=13335

Rings and pommel horse are the easiest apparatus to predict the medalists, in my opinion. Three gymnasts in the world are ahead of the pack in each apparatus, so there's a big chance they will be the medalists: Rhys, Whitlock and Chih-kai on the pommel horse, Zanetti, Çolak and Radivilov on rings. Of course there's always a Chinese or a Japanese who could come in and spoil our party, though.

This is the point. It's okay to send specialists, but when specialists like Ude and Seligman score so low on pommel horse, you have to wonder how unlucky the team is.

You realize outdoor winter sports cannot be played at all in tropical nations, still there's a whole Olympic event around them, don't you? As absurd as it may seem for some people, it kind of makes sense to me to have indoor Olympics and outdoor Olympics. Ice skating needs an indoor facility built only for the purpose of competing this sport. It's not like you can go outside to a frozen lake and expect people to compete at the Olympics there. Now we have even snow volleyball, ffs! Winter sports get weirder and weirder to me, and if we have beach volleyball in summer and snow volleyball in winter, where does indoor volleyball fit?

Team Netherlands ahead of Switzerland is a massive shock. And Croatia had probably their worst meet ever.

This is exactly why I think the "summer" in Summer Olympic Games is a farce. Not only indoor sports (volleyball, gymnastics) do not depend on the weather, even sports that were supposed to be played on the beach can be replicated in an indoor environment.

Important information for those who posted predictions for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships: 1) Boglarka Devai is injured and will not compete at the WC. Please do not predict medals for her. 2) I completely forgot about Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev. He is going to compete. Please consider this fact before predicting medals in all of the men's event.

Now Simakova is injured and Russia will have less options in team finals because she will only perform on two events.

Now Simakova is injured and Russia will have less options in team finals because she will only perform on two events.

It's disgusting that this was leaked. The guy and the prostitutes have the right to have some privacy. To be honest, I'm not really worried about his image. I'm worried about the prostitutes, because this country is so misogynistic that they will be the ones to blame, and God knows what enraged people will do with them. Dória defends conservative values (including the family as the basis for morality) and I'm sure a bunch of dumb and hypocritical people will say that the prostitutes are the ones who "tempted" him. As I said, this country has no limits when it comes to dumbness. The funny thing is that he's married and he recorded a video with his wife by his side claiming the leaked video to be fake. His wife looked really disheartened, though, and on the verge of tears. Then, he accused his political adversary of editing the video with his picture on it. WHAT THE HELL?

In a quite disgusting turn of events, the leading candidate for the government of the state of São Paulo was recorded on tape having sex with five prostitutes. Brazil truly has no limits.

This is not how things work. Only the top 24 teams qualify to the next World Championships, regardless of what continents they are from. Individual gymnasts are supposed to be qualify through continental quotas, or through the World Cup series, or through the next world championships. There are no continental quotas for the teams.

Mustafina is not in good shape, but Biles is better than ever. I've given up doubting what this woman can do. She knows no limits.

Disaster for Australia. Two gymnasts are injured, so they will have to use the alternate and every score will count. They need to be among the top 24 teams in order to try to qualify a team for the 2020 Olympics, and I believe this will be very hard now.

Wait, what? What are "subjective sports"? The only sport with completely subjective scoring is diving, and one can argue that part of the score in artistic swimming can be subjective (technical merit is okay, but the artistic impression is totally subjective). Now, when referees make bad calls this is not because the sport is subjective, it's because they are bad refs.

Fixed.

After learning that his daughter had reached the final match at the Para World Championships, Catia Oliveira's father had a heart attack and passed away. May he rest in peace. Original news in Portuguese here.

[hide] Event & Date Athletes Gold Silver Bronze Men's Team Day 1 October 29th 2018 Brazil China x France Germany Great Britain Japan x Russia x South Korea Switzerland United States Any Other Nation Women's Team Day 2 October 30th 2018 Belgium Brazil Canada China x France Great Britain Japan Netherlands Russia x United States x Any Other Nation Men's All Around Day 3 October 31st 2018 Lin Chaopan x Sun Wei Xiao Ruoteng x Kakeru Tanigawa Kenzo Shirai Kohei Uchimura x Artur Dalaloyan Nikita Nagornyy Sam Mikulak Yul Moldauer Any Other Athlete Women's All-Around Day 4 November 1st 2018 Ellie Black Chen Yile Mel. de Jesus dos Santos Mai Murakami x Aliya Mustafina Angelina Melnikova Simone Biles x Morgan Hurd Riley McCusker x Grace McCallum Any Other Athlete Men's Floor Day 5 November 2nd 2018 Tomas Gonzalez Rayderley Zapata Dominick Cunningham x Frank Baines Max Whitlock Artem Dolgopyat Kenzo Shirai x Kohei Uchimura Artur Dalaloyan Dmitrii Lankin x Any Other Athlete Women's Vault Day 5 November 2nd 2018 Shallon Olsen Liu Jinru Coline Devillard Ellie Downie Boglarka Devai Pyon Rye-yong Yeo Seo-jeong x Angelina Melnikova Simone Biles x Oksana Chusovitina x Any Other Athlete Men's Pommel Horse Day 5 November 2nd 2018 Max Whitlock x Rhys McClenaghan x Lee Chih-kai x Alec Yoder Sun Wei Zou Jingyuan Sam Mikulak Robert Seligman Saso Bertoncelj Harutyun Merdinyan Any Other Athlete Women's Uneven Bars Day 5 November 2nd 2018 Nina Derwael x Chen Yile Liu Tingting x Luo Huan Becky Downie Elizabeth Seitz Aliya Mustafina Angelina Melnikova Daria Spiridonova Riley McCusker x Any Other Athlete Men's Rings Day 5 November 2nd 2018 Vahagn Davtyan Dennis Goossens Arthur Zanetti x Manrique Larduet Courtney Tulloch Kohei Uchimura Fabian de Luna Nikita Nagornyy Ibrahim Colak x Igor Radivilov x Any Other Athlete Men's Vault Day 6 November 3rd 2018 Christopher Remkes Manrique Larduet Loris Frasca Courtney Tulloch Dominick Cunningham x Andrey Medvedev Artur Dalaloyan x Dmitrii Lankin Igor Radivilov x Thanh Tung Le Any Other Athlete Women's Balance Beam Day 6 November 3rd 2018 Flavia Saraiva x Chen Yile x Luo Huan Marine Boyer Mel. de Jesus dos Santos Sanne Wevers Grace McCallum Kara Eaker Morgan Hurd Simone Biles x Any Other Athlete Men's Parallel Bars Day 6 November 3rd 2018 Xiao Ruoteng Zou Jingyuan x Jossimar Calvo Manrique Larduet Kohei Uchimura David Belyavskiy x Artur Dalaloyan Nikita Nagornyy Oliver Hegi Sam Mikulak Any Other Athlete x Women's Floor Day 6 November 3rd 2018 Flavia Saraiva Brooklyn Moors Mel. de Jesus dos Santos Lara Mori Mai Murakami x Denisa Golgota Angelina Melnikova Grace McCallum x Morgan Hurd Simone Biles x Any Other Athlete Men's Horizontal Bar Day 6 November 3rd 2018 Deng Shudi Xiao Ruoteng x Tin Srbic Manrique Larduet Marios Georgiou Andreas Toba Kohei Uchimura x Epke Zonderland Oliver Hegi x Sam Mikulak Any Other Athlete [/hide]

Calderano being eliminated so early is the saddest moment in sport this year for me. I had such high hopes that he could reach at least top 8... But nope.

In badminton, yes, but not in table tennis. Since the mixed team in table tennis is actually a pair, both of them have to be pretty good in order to advance. Only once a questionable player got a medal: a guy from Tunisia in 2010 because he was paired with the Chinese girl, but I still consider him to be a decent player. In smaller teams there's practically no way a low level athlete would earn a medal. But in big teams (6 to 13 people) it's very likely that a bad athlete will eventually win a medal somehow.

Now that the YOG are over, I want to comment about the team event. It was terrible. I mean, it's a good idea to have a team event, but the fact that gymnasts were randomly assigned to teams made things unfair. For example, first and second place in qualifications in rhythmic gymnastics were occupied by Russia and Italy, and then both gymnasts ended up together in the same team (Team Simone Biles). The leader (and gold medal winner) in women's trampoline and the eventual gold medalists in acrobatic gymnastics were also part of the team. The problem is: the team also had one male artistic gymnast from South Africa who finished 33rd among 34 gymnasts. It also had one female artistic gymnast from Singapore who finished 27th out of 32 gymnasts. And, yes, they were awarded gold with the team. Teams should have been smaller, and gymnasts should have been given the choice to add who they wanted to their teams. At the very least, they should have created teams based on continents (North America, Europe 1, South America, Africa and so on) in order to guarantee everybody was on the same level. While it's great for South Africa and Singapore to have a gymnast who is now an Olympic medalist in gymnastics, I ask myself if they really deserved to be there. Now, not everything was problematic, though. The mixed pairs in acrobatics from Portugal and Belarus earned team medals. So did Adam Tobin from Great Britain and Robert Vilarasau of Spain. None of them won medals when competing alone, and they did all great, so they deserved a medal and they got it through the team event. The problem is that a bunch of people who did not deserve medals also earned them.