thiago_simoes

Best thing about the Games so far has been the gold medal for . Artistic gymnastics will begin tomorrow, but I'm mostly ignoring it. I'm mildly interested in what the Paraguayan girls can do, since it's extremely rare to see any Paraguayan competing in gymnastics -- first time I saw it was this year, and I've been an avid fan since 1997. Also, does Curaçao have any chance of getting a medal?

Brazil in fifth in my favorite sport. I could never imagine this would happen some day, and so, so close to a groundbreaking medal. I'm really happy and I was emotional through the whole competition. What a rollercoaster ride!

A bronze medal for Brazil and a gold medal for Italy! I'm somewhat relieved I didn't jinx anyone this time!

Brazilian fans on Twitter and Brazilian media really hate this coach and very few people had any faith in this team. The fact that this team is currently having a hard time against Slovenia at the beginning of the first set is enough proof that people are right not to expect anything from them.

Really, even being among the top 4 is way more than anyone expected from this Brazilian team. Now I'll root for the two teams with the color green on the flag to win their matches.

I voted on Chechi on rings and Kanaeva in the all-around. No one can beat Chechi's elegance and control. Csollány would have been my second choice. Azaryan would have been my third choice, even though he's from a totally different time and even his namesake skill is not used anymore. But he was decidedly elegant and strong for his time. On the women's side, it's quite shocking that no Olympic champion has really captivated me. I voted on Kanaeva mostly because she has two titles, but my favorite has got to be Marina Lobatch. Lori Fung would have been my third choice.

Half of the problem is thanks to FIG's stupid rules. The highest execution score wins the tie breaks in every apparatus, except vault. On vault, the highest scoring single vault decides who wins the tie break, but the problem is that the lowest scoring vault wins the tie break too. If the rules were solid, and if the execution score on both vaults decided the winner, Davtyan would have won -- as he should have.

Bartolini needs to substantially increase his difficulty score. Execution is important, but one cannot rely on execution alone, or else the risk of walking away without a medal is too big. That being said, I am a little worried about the fact that the judges are trying hard to make Jake Jarman happen at all costs. He's got big skills and high difficulty, but his execution is definitely not great and he's never penalized enough for his mistakes. This has been happening at every single event. It's baffling.

I'm somewhat disappointed with the level of gymnastics here. Petrounias on rings and Davtyan on vault are the only ones that could challenge China or Japan in their best moments. There are some good routines here and there, but I really expected much, much more. The women's championships were even worse. A gold medal in the all-around with a sub 55 score? Really? Sub 14 for vault gold? Yikes.

Sure, the judges know they were all eager to sing "God Save the Queen". Seriously, I'm always baffled that Great Britain, and England, always receive huge scores with okay (but not spectacular) routines when events are hosted in the nation. It was exactly the same in 2015 when GBR won the women's artistic gymnastics team bronze medal. Guess what? The World Championships will be in England this year. I think GBR will comfortably win a team medal again no matter what the other nations do.

What the?! The results in the individual all-around final in rhythmic gymnastics are... I have no words. Ekimova with the gold medal? We've had plenty of weird results in men's artistic gymnastics with gold medals galore for England, so I must have been very naive not to believe this would happen again in rhythmic gymnastics. Even the results when England did not win medals were STILL weird. For example, Rooskrantz had a mostly clean uneven bars routine and she earned a bronze medal with 13.433. The English girl, Achampong, had a very untidy routine with lots and lots of errors and still got the same score. Rooskrantz had a better execution score, so she won the bronze medal and Achampong finished medal-less, but the point is that Achampong should not even score that high to begin with. The scores for the English gymnasts have been ridiculous. And Kallemaa once again was robbed. Unbelievable.

Oh, so THIS is why the Artistic Gymnastics championships has not been staged yet, despite the fact that every other continent in the world has already staged their own continental championships. This "multi-sport" nonsense is the culprit.

I've always known you're a time traveler. But, seriously, I'm not even mad that the Brazilian finished fourth here. A medal for Andorra in a senior world championships, and one that will be an Olympic discipline? Seriously, hell has frozen over!

A hard call... Parallel bars is my least favorite event in gymnastics. I'll go with Verniayev although he's not the most daring gymnast in the world.

Not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but according to Twitter, the top 5 sports in Brazil with the most mentions during the 2020 Olympics were: Unsurprisingly, football is number 1. Basketball is number 2, what really makes me wonder how people still care about this sport after decades of Brazil failing miserably in every important competition. Gymnastics is number 3, and I'm very happy about that, of course. Despite less than stellar results at the Olympics and World Championships, it's amazing how many people enjoy watching rhythmic gymnastics in Brazil. There was even a press conference recently after our group won the bronze medal at one of the World Cup stages. Artistic gymnastics, of course, is what drives most people's attention, though. Trampoline is almost nonexistent, and the other disciplines are almost unheard of. Volleyball in fourth is surprising. I thought it would comfortably sit at number 2, but I was wrong. Tennis in fifth is also surprising. It's not the kind of sport that is even remotely popular among the young generation. Skateboarding and table tennis are a lot more popular, in my opinion, and even surfing and handball would make more sense. But tennis is shown on paid TV all the time and there should be a strong following among people who are 35 or older, especially because they remember Guga more vividly than the younger crowd.

In a shocking move, one of France's best female artistic gymnasts, Kaylia Nemour, will now represent . She will be allowed to compete again in one year. A number of French girls switched nationality in the past. The best known of the bunch is Farah Boufadene, who was decent enough to qualify for the 2016 Olympics, but not exactly spectacular as a gymnast. Nemour, on the other hand, is very, very good.

I am 10 minutes late and the poll was closed, but I would go with Cassina on the high bar and Korbut on the balance beam. Cassina is stylish and elegant, and his focus on flashy release moves was ahead of his time. I like his form too. Zonderland would be my second choice, but he has very poor form and the deductions for late pirouettes and untidy body shape are very apparent, so Cassina is ahead of him in my book. But Zonderland is fantastic too, especially because he has such high difficulty! Korbut was the first one to perform a back sommersault on beam. This completely changed the way girls performed on beam. Not only they needed to be elegant, they also now had to throw difficult acrobatic skills. Ponor would be my second choice. Very confident on most of her skills, a style of her own, but I just can't choose anyone but Korbut here because that would just feel wrong. And the ones I would definitely say no, I'd never pick them: Wevers and Hashimoto.

It's funny because this also happened with Mexico. I was sure Mexico had qualified in rhythmic gymnastics prior to 2020, but this never happened. Now, I'll read the qualification documents, but I believe that Sol Martinez will be able to qualify easily. She's my favorite gymnast in the Americas nowadays. She's in a league of her own.

Wait, what? So you mean that Anahí Sosa has never qualified to the Olympics? This is shocking! She's the best individual gymnast South America has ever had! I'm sure Sol Martínez will qualify this time.

I'm not a fan of athletics, except for pole vault. Duplantis is just unbelievable to watch. He cannot be a human being. It's impossible!

Wow, this was such a surprise! has a medal at the 2001 Trampoline World Championships. I thought trampoline was supposed to be the biggest gymnastics discipline in the country, but I was wrong!

I only ask this out of ignorance about this sport, but wasn't this supposed to be a much bigger number? What's going on? Take artistic gymnastics, for example: not a cheap sport at all, and Brazil more often than not walks away from the World Championships with a medal. In the last 16 editions, Brazil got 16 medals, with 1 medal per WC in average. Usually, there are 14 events, with WCs the year after the Olympics only supporting 12 events. In athletics, we are nowhere close this number and there are way more events.

I am not completely familiar with all of the changes in the qualification documents, but I have a firm grasp of what the document mentions and what I can say for sure is that it's perfectly possible for her to qualify. She was born in 2008, so she will be able to compete as a senior (adult) in 2024. Of course, this means that she will have no chance to qualify at the 2023 World Championships and she will miss most of the World Cups, but she might still qualify through the events of the 2024 World Cup series, although that will be a considerable more difficult path than her other option. The other option is to qualify through the 2024 Pan American Championships. Two quotas will be awarded to two different nations though the all-around competitions. This time, though, nations that qualified a full team through the World Championships cannot qualify extra gymnasts. So, let's say that USA, CAN and BRA all manage to qualify a women's team (what seems very likely to happen), this would leave Ajalla with a much easier qualification path. I would say that this would probably make her the favorite in the continent to qualify, along with a Mexican gymnast. But since there will be two quotas, she doesn't have to worry.

also has a medal now!

Let's add now. And could be next in a few minutes.