Statement regarding the US abuse cases, following the 132nd IOC session in Pyeongchang Firstly I would like to express my sincere appreciation to IOC President Thomas Bach for his powerful statement about the abuse scandal in US Gymnastics. This statement encourages us to continue our work, ongoing already for many months, towards the necessary action. […]
The dress rehearsal for Gymnastics at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio will take place April 16-22 in the Olympic venue. With 30 days to go before the start of the Test Event, the list of gymnasts expected for this second and final qualification round for August’s Summer Olympic Games has been unveiled.
A select number of gymnasts from nations that have already qualified to Rio will take advantage of invitations to compete at the Test Event in order to test out the equipment and ambiance in the Olympic arena in Barra, including 2012 Olympic Still Rings champion Arthur Zanetti (BRA) and World Balance Beam silver medallist Sanne Wevers (NED); Yana Kudryavtseva and Margarita Mamun, the two Russians who have dominated the quadrennium in Rhythmic Gymnastics; and also Gao Lei and Li Dan (CHN), the reigning World titleholders in Trampoline.
But for the most part, the Aquece Rio Test Event represents the last chance for gymnasts to realise their Olympic dreams come August. In each of the three Olympic disciplines of Gymnastics, the last tickets for the Games are up for grabs. This second qualification round is not open to all, but only to a select number of nations and gymnasts based on their rankings from the 2015 World Championships.
At the request of the organisers, the competition dates were changed last month in order to reduce the length of the event. Artistic Gymnastics will therefore be held April 16-18, Trampoline on April 19 and Rhythmic Gymnastics April 21-22.
Artistic Gymnastics – April 16-18
In the absence of Larisa Iordache, who is recovering from a finger injury, the Romanians are counting on five-time Olympic medallist Catalina Ponor as they attempt to turn the page after a disastrous performance at the Glasgow Worlds in October. Romania, which has had a place on every Olympic podium since 1976, shocked the Gymnastics world by not qualifying its team directly to the Games at the World Championships. Now, they face competition from Brazil and young hope Flavia Saraiva, Germany, with World beam bronze medallist Pauline Schaefer, France, Belgium, Australia, South Korea and European champion Giulia Steingruber’s Switzerland for one of the four team berths still available.
On the men’s side, Germany will lean on its two stars, 2012 Olympic silver medallist Marcel Nguyen and London High Bar silver medallist Fabian Hambuechen, as it aims to return to Rio in August. London High Bar champion Epke Zonderland leads a hungry Dutch men’s team, while the Ukrainian men, behind rising star Oleg Verniaiev, will also mount a serious challenge.
Romania, led by its ageless Floor and Vault king Marian Dragulescu, France, Spain and Canada will also battle with Belgium, which enters the competition after the withdrawal of the Belarussian team. In lieu of a full team, Belarus has opted to send two athletes who hope to qualify as individuals.
Gymnasts whose teams do not advance to Rio can still qualify as individuals. That’s how Oksana Chusovitina (UZB), at 40, will also be trying to qualify for her seventh Olympic Games, which would be an all-time record for longevity in Gymnastics. Chusovitina competed in her first Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 and has not missed a Games since.
Thirty five or 36 individual places are still to be doled out in Women’s Gymnastics, while between 29 and 32 places are in play in Men’s. The final number of places depends on what happens in the team competition: Medallists from the 2015 World Championships are guaranteed a place at the Games, but only if their teams do not qualify. If a World medallist’s team qualifies for the Olympics at the Test Event, the medallist’s place will be reattributed.
Trampoline – April 19
Thirteen men and 13 women whose countries have not yet qualified for the Games will attempt to earn the last Olympic berths up in the air in Trampoline at the Test Event.
2008 OIympic silver medallist Jason Burnett (CAN) as well as gymnasts from Australia, Colombia, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, Ukraine and the USA will aim to win Olympic places in the Men’s competition.
Competitors from France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, the USA and Uzbekistan — one of whose entrants, Ekaterina Khilko, has competed at every Olympic Games since 2000 — will contend for Olympic places in the Women’s competition.
Regardless of the outcome, Brazil’s Rafael Andrade will be accorded one of the eight places left in the Men’s Trampoline competition in Rio, as the host country has the right to enter one male or one female gymnast in the discipline.
Rhythmic Gymnastics – April 21-22
Twenty three individual gymnasts and seven Groups are part of the final race for Olympic berths. One thing is sure: no matter what the results, Brazil is guaranteed a place in both individual and Group competition. Also, as there rests in theory only nine places in individual Rhythmic gymnasts and four for Groups, the safest place to finish is in front of the Brazilians in order to be sure to be able to come back in August for the Games.
Among the individuals, Armenia, Austria, Germany, Canada, China, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Romania, Slovenia and Uzbekistan all have a chance to qualify.
In Group competition, the battle will be between Uzbekistan, Germany, Azerbaijan, Greece, Finland and South Korea, the latter having benefitted from the withdrawal of the French team late last year.
Russia’s VTB Bank, a major sponsor of Gymnastics since 2009, has renewed its contract with the FIG for 2016. Bruno Grandi, President of the FIG, and Vasily Titov, First Deputy Chairman of VTB and Vice President of the FIG, sealed the agreement during a meeting at FIG Headquarters Friday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The contract includes a donation of one million U.S. dollars, a large part of which will be used as developmental funds for the continental unions.
“As I begin my final year as head of the FIG, I am delighted to see our loyal partner confirm its support,” Grandi said. “This contribution is targeted toward the development of sport on all five continents, which is excellent news for our continental unions.”
“VTB has the pleasure of once more renewing our sponsorship with the FIG and thereby supporting Gymnastics, one of the three major Olympic sports,” Titov added. “We are very happy to be able to contribute to the development of this beautiful sport around the world.”
Unprecedented: A 4-way tie for gold on Uneven Bars
It was an Uneven Bars final worth its weight in gold: For the first time in the history of the sport, four gymnasts — China’s Fan Yilin, Russians Viktoria Komova and Daria Spiridonova and American Madison Kocian — tied for the World title. Each of the four scored 15.366, setting the SSE Hydro crowd buzzing and tripling the duration of the awards ceremony.
Fan, Komova, Spiridonova and Kocian will forever be linked in the annals of Women’s Gymnastics, which has never seen anything like this. Ties for gold at Worlds have been more frequent in Men’s Gymnastics, including three-way splits on Pommel Horse in 1903 and 1992, and on High Bar in 1922. Five gymnasts tied for silver on Parallel Bars in 1922.
The first king of Britain
Since Beth Tweddle became the British women’s first World champion in 2006, the British men have been waiting for the gymnast who would win them a world crown as well. It came to an end Saturday as Max Whitlock spun his way to the Pommel Horse title, besting teammate Louis Smith by a mere tenth of the point. The two 2012 Olympic Pommel Horse medallists thus combined to produce their country’s best ever result in Gymnastics: British gymnasts on the first and second steps of the podium.
If anything helped Whitlock and Smith on Pommel Horse, it was the absence of reigning World and Olympic champion Krisztian Berki of Hungary, who did not qualify for the medal round. With a gold, three silvers and a bronze already in their pockets, Glasgow 2015 has is already Great Britain’s most successful World Championships. It’s not over yet, either: The British will have three more chances to medal tomorrow on the second day of finals.
Russia returns to the top
After failing to earn medals in team finals and the All-around competition, 2012 Olympic Vault bronze medallist Maria Paseka revived the Russian women with gold on Vault, her country’s first on the event since 2002. Paseka also deprived 2008 Olympic Vault champion Hong Un Jong of a second consecutive World title: the two competed the same vaults, though Paseka’s superior execution made the difference. Minutes later, during the incredible Uneven Bars final, Komova and Spiridonova earned Russia another two golds.
The rebound of Mr. Twist
Even in the absence of Kohei Uchimura, the Japanese hit parade continued Saturday, with twisting sensation Kenzo Shirai regaining the World Floor title he won in 2013. As Shirai slayed the audience and judges by nailing his quadruple twist final pass to win his second gold of this championships, Great Britain’s Max Whitlock was no less happy in silver, while Spain’s Rayderley Zapata won bronze.
In the name of the father
Greece’s Eleftherios Petrounias came to the World Championships with one mission: win a medal on Rings to honor his father, who recently passed away. By relegating China’s You Hao and 2014 World champion Liu Yang silver and bronze, respectively, Petrounias delivered a fitting memorial.
One more for Biles
Already golden in the team and All-around finals, American Simone Biles gave herself one more reason to smile, adding the bronze on Vault to her growing medal collection. The medal is Biles’s 12th at a World Championships, breaking the American record she set earlier this week.
Olympic qualifiers
Medallists from individual apparatus event finals in Glasgow advance directly to the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, provided their teams do not qualify. Ergo, Eleftherios Petrounias (GRE, gold on Still Rings), Hong Un Jong (PRK, silver on Women’s Vault) and Harutyun Merdinyan (ARM, bronze on Pommel Horse), all gymnasts whose teams did not compete at this World Championships, have qualified as individuals to next summer’s Olympics.
Rayderley Zapata (ESP, bronze on Men’s Floor) can also sleep easily, knowing that his place at the Games is secure as well, even if the Spanish men don’t qualify a team to Rio at April’s Olympic Test Event
Since being crowned World champion for the first time in 2009, no one has been able to impede the royal march of Kohei Uchimura. Nobody did Friday night in Glasgow either, as the Japanese gymnast many call the greatest ever won his sixth consecutive World All-around title. Including the Olympic title he won in 2012, Uchimura has now dominated World competition for seven straight years.
Liberated by the Japanese men’s victory in the team competition for the first time in 37 years Wednesday night, Uchimura sailed through the Men’s All-around final, smiling and pumping his fists after each hit routine. Overall, he accumulated 92.332 points, a comfortable 1.634 ahead of the rest of the pack.
With his unique mix of power, elegance, fluidity and catlike stuck landings on his dismounts, Uchimura at times seemed to come close to the thing he seeks above all: perfection. With his high-flying performance on High Bar — and stuck landing on his dismount — he broke his own record for consecutive wins at Worlds. Normally reserved, he acknowledged the occasion by counting to six with his fingers in front of the camera.
“Throughout the competition I felt very strong emotions,” Uchimura said. “I have not been thinking about the number of medals. I just thought about the quality of my performance. In competition, I think about how I can move the audience with my gymnastics.”
In the same manner that he crushed the competition in the runup to the London Olympics, the 26-year-old has dominated the pre-Rio cycle. If all continues to go well, he will arrive in Brazil nine months from now the favorite to defend the Olympic title he won in 2012.
Uchimura already has 18 World medals, including nine gold. But before he can start thinking about another Olympics, there is still a small business matter to attend to: the High Bar final, to be held Sunday afternoon in Glasgow.
Seven years of domination
In 2009, Uchimura won his first World title, beating Britain’s Daniel Keatings by 2.575 points (91.500-88.925).
In 2010, Uchimura won his second World title, beating Germany’s Philipp Boy by 2.283 points (92.331-90.048).
In 2011, Uchimura won his third World title, beating Boy again by 3.101 (93.631-90.530).
In 2012, Uchimura won his first Olympic All-around title, beating Germany’s Marcel Nguyen by 1.659 points (92.690-91.031).
In 2013, Uchimura won his fourth World title, beating Japan’s Ryohei Kato by 1.958 points (91.990-90.032).
In 2014, Uchimura won his fifth World title, beating Britain’s Max Whitlock by 1.492 points (91.965-90.473).
In 2015, Uchimura won his sixth World title, defeating Cuba’s Manrique Larduret by 1.634 points (92.332-90.698).
Manrique Larduet, the Cuban surprise
After several years’ absence, Cuba made a big return to the World stage with the talented Manrique Larduet. Just 19 years old and with few international competitions under his belt, Larduet proved himself stronger than every other gymnast save Uchimura Friday night. In clinching the silver, the powerful Larduet showed the form and sangfroid of a champion, calmly hitting every routine. If anything, the Pan American Games silver medallist was too powerful — during his Floor routine, he seemed to be landing on a trampoline. With a stronger exercise on Pommel Horse, he might have challenged Uchimura more. “I am really proud to represent my country and to be with these amazing gymnasts,” Larduet said. “I’m also really proud to win this medal for my country.” Fourteen years after Cuba’s first World medals in Men’s Gymnastics, the country has a new star.
China’s Deng pops in for bronze
If Larduet’s silver was unexpected, so too was Deng Shudi’s bronze, which made him the first Chinese man to mount the podium in World All-around competition since 2007. Though solid everywhere, Deng was spectacular only on Parallel Bars, where he attained the second highest score of any competitor. In a competition where steadiness over six pieces serves a gymnast better than flash on a few, the fact that Deng didn’t fall and others did helped him clinch a medal when all was said and done. “I have made my aims come true,” said Deng, who also won bronze with the Chinese team. “But I still have a lot of work to do in order to increase my skills. We want to have better results in the team finals.”
For Verniaiev and Whitlock, disappointment
Much to the disappointment of the pro-British crowd that had hoped to see one of their gymnasts mount the podium again, 2014 World silver medallist Max Whitlock took himself out of contention with a fall from the High Bar on his penultimate event. Billed as the only man with the potential to knock Uchimura from the top place on the podium, a stumble on Floor and a fall on Pommel Horse put Oleg Verniaiev in a deep hole from the beginning. The pressure off, the Ukrainian seemed to relax and delivered good scores everywhere else, particularly on Parallel Bars, where he will defend his World title this weekend. Verniaiev ended fourth, Whitlock fifth.
Biles the Magnificent
American star Simone Biles captured an unprecedented third consecutive World All-around gold Thursday evening in Glasgow, becoming at 18 the first female gymnast in history to win three in a row.
Biles joins Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina (1997, 2001, 2003) as the only other gymnast to have won three World All-around titles. As the only woman to have done it in consecutive years, she stands alone.
In competition, Biles took the lead with her Vault in the first rotation and never relinquished it. Even a stumble forward after a front flip on Balance Beam and bounding out of bounds on her signature element on Floor wasn’t enough to stop her: With big tricks and crowd pleasing razzle-dazzle, the smiley Texan accumulated 60.399 points, more than a point ahead of 2012 Olympic champion Gabrielle Douglas, who completed a clean competition to win the silver.
“I kind of overthought it tonight, because everyone was talking about the three-peat,” Biles said. “What keeps me going is the amazing teammates, National Team coordinator Martha Karolyi in the gym and the friends and family guiding me along the way. I just never get tired of it.”
With 11 World medals, eight of them gold, in the bank, Biles now holds the American record for most medals won at the World Championships, and she’ll have three more chances to add to that total in event finals on Vault, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise this weekend. While a place on the U.S. Olympic team next summer is not guarenteed for anyone, Biles’s three-year domination nonetheless makes her one of the early favorites for gold in Rio.
Silver-plated return for an Olympic gold medallist
If anyone had a chance to challenge Biles, it was Douglas, who earned silver at her first Worlds since returning to international competition in March following a two-year hiatus. Though miles behind Biles, Douglas impressed as she put on a calm display of flight and precision on Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise, showing that she has the mettle to possibly become the first woman to defend her Olympic title since 1968. Good as she was, Douglas estimated herself to be only at about “80 percent” of her capabilities as she gears up for a second Olympic Games. “There’s more to come, and I’m so excited for the road ahead,” she said.
The revenge of Larisa Iordache
Following the Romanian women’s meltdown in team qualification, it was up to reigning All-around silver medallist Larisa Iordache to salvage something from this World Championships. In a performance that included the top score of the night on Balance Beam, Iordache was on point to earn bronze, which will be Romania’s only medal in the women’s competition. “I tried to take revenge. I had goals in my head and I did it for myself and my teammates,” Iordache said. Bronze is not the Romanian standard, but it still beats the country’s dismal 13th place finish in the team competition.
Gravitating around the podium
Shang Chunsong did what the Chinese don’t always do in finals: hit her routines. The 19-year-old veteran of the Chinese team mastered her complicated exercises on Uneven Bars, Balance Beam and Floor Exercise but just missed the podium due to a poor score on Vault.
Second All-around in the qualification round, Switzerland’s Giulia Steingruber’s chances at an All-around medal were swept away when she slipped off the Balance Beam. She finished fifth, followed by Japanese standout Mai Murakami. After setting a record with her ninth-place finish in 2014, Pan American Games heroine Elsabeth Black bettered her ranking by two places this year, giving the Canadian women a new best-ever finish at Worlds.
Uchimura leads Japan on its day of glory
After silver at four straight World Championships — including a 0.1 heartbreaker last year in Nanning — the Japanese men finally reversed their fortunes to take gold Wednesday night in Glasgow.
Team gold for the first time since 1978 is the realisation of a dream for star Kohei Uchimura, who contributed heavily to his team’s victory, scoring 91.531 of Japan’s 270.818 points. The gymnast many believe is the best who ever lived has already won the past five consecutive World All-around titles in his own right but said before the competition that he would rather win gold with his team than a sixth consecutive individual title. The heavy favorite for Friday’s Men’s All-around final, he may well get to have both.
The anticipated Japan-China team showdown never materialized. Guided by master twister Kenzo Shirai, who slayed the competition on Floor with his quadruple twist, Japan distanced themselves by 2.7 points from the beginning and had extended their lead to 6.3 over China by the halfway point of the competition.
But falls from Yusuke Tanaka and Uchimura on the High Bar in the final rotation brought the team brutally back down to earth. By a margin of less than half a point, they held on following a late charge from Great Britain, which finished their competition on a high note on Floor before an adoring public.
“I would have liked to have had a perfect competition, so I feel bad about my fall on High Bar,” said Uchimura. “As the last competitor, I wanted to perfect all the way through.”
Still, after nearly four decades of waiting for a World title, Uchimura, Tanaka, Ryohei Kato, Kazuma Kaya, Kenzo Shirai and Naoto Hayasaka are guaranteed to return to Japan as heroes of the archipelago. If nothing else, they have made their mothers, who watched the competition waving Japanese flags from the stands, very proud.
Great Britain tumbles to new heights
Three years after their historic Olympic bronze in London, the British men’s team remained steady to finish on the podium for the first time ever at a World Championships, less than half a point behind Japan to boot. Inspired by the British women’s bronze a day ago, Louis Smith, Daniel Purvis, Kristian Thomas, Max Whitlock, Nile Wilson and Brinn Bevan took care to write a new chapter in British Gymnastics history themselves with their silver. For some team members, Glasgow 2015 had shades of London 2012: “We looked at the scoreboard and we didn’t know what color medal we would have,” Smith recounted. Competitions at home obviously agree with them.
China’s fall from grace
For the Chinese, 12 years of domination at the World level came to an end Wednesday night. From the beginning, Lin Chaopan, Deng Shudi, Zhang Chenglong, Xiao Ruoteng, Liu Yang and You Hao looked less precise than usual. China never held the lead, getting lost in the classification early before rebounding to take bronze on the strength of strong performances on Parallel Bars and High Bar. To challenge for the title, however, it was too little, too late. Less than a year before the Rio Olympics, the Chinese have accomplished little other than signalling to the rest of the world that their Olympic title is by no means assured. “China has a great history in gymnastics. For us, this is a warning,” said Zhang Chenglong. “We didn’t win this year, but we know that we are still one of the strongest nations.”
Russia off the podium again
Lost in the crowd in qualification, the Russian team of Nikita Nagornyy, Ivan Stretovich, Denis Ablyazin, Nikolai Kuksenkov and David Belyavskiy did not let themselves be forgotten in the final. After a quiet beginning on Pommel Horse and Rings, the team took off during the second half of the competition with exceptional performances on Vault and Parallel Bars. But they could not seal the deal on Floor Exercise, and like the Russian women the night before, watched the medal ceremony without taking part.
The United States had a dream
If the anticipated battle between Japan and China never quite got off the ground, the U.S. men happily stepped into the role of potential spoilers to Japan, if only for a moment. Paul Ruggeri, Donnell Whittenburg, Danell Leyva, Chris Brooks, Brandon Wynn and Alex Naddour trailed the Japanese by a mere 0.1 with two events to go. Unfortunately for the Americans, one of those events was their nemesis Pommel Horse. With a weak average of just over 14 points per gymnast, they too dropped out of the podium race to fifth overall.
Ever more daring, ever higher — gymnasts have always been innovators, striving to nourish their sport with new moves and greater difficulty. Beyond medals and records, the supreme honor for a gymnast is to introduce a skill that comes to bear his or her name, allowing them to leave their mark on history.
While there are dozens of elements in the code of points named after the gymnast who first performed them, here are six things that could make a difference in the men’s competition.
High Bar: Connecting Kovacs release moves
For all the eye-catching skills in Gymnastics, nothing slays the crowd (or the judges) more than consecutive release moves on High Bar, in which the gymnast releases the bar, sails over it while performing flips or twists, and regrasps it on the way back down. The gymnast that connects these releases wins valuable bonus points. The best example is done by Dutchman Epke Zonderland, whose consecutive release skills contain both flips and twists, all variations of the basic “Kovacs” skill in which a gymnast flips twice over the bar before regrasping it. Zonderland’s smooth moves shot him to Olympic gold and the past two World titles on High Bar.
Parallel Bars: Mind the dismount
A lot hinges on a gymnast’s dismount from the Parallel Bars. While most opt for a standard double back flip with the body piked, those who attemptsomething more original often get rewarded. Germany’s Marcel Nguyen added a full twist to his dismount and earned an Olympic silver medal in 2012, while several potential finalists have begun doing forward-flipping dismounts to stand out.
Floor Exercise: The quadruple twist
When the long-anticipated back flip with four twists was finally performed on Men’s Floor exercise, notably by Japan’s Kenzo Shirai in 2013, it was all the more stunning because the teenage tumbling sensation did it at the end of his routine, a time when most gymnasts are too winded to attempt something so difficult. Shirai, obviously, is not most gymnasts: he dines out on twisting skills, and already has two that bear his name on Floor, among them the quad full.
Pommel Horse: The Busnari
Swinging to a handstand just before a dismount was standard on Pommel Horse for years before Italy’s Alberto Busnari had the original idea of continuing afterward, thereby creating the single hardest element on the event. The mechanics of the Busnari — where a gymnast swings to handstand, executes a pirouette and then swings down and continues circling his legs around the horse, demands an enormous amount of control, says Steve Butcher, President of the FIG Men’s Technical Committee: “Many people want to do it, and many people fall.”
Still Rings: A string of crosses
The iron cross, one of the classic symbols of strength in Gymnastics, has been turned on its head by gymnasts striving to produce new variations on an old feat of strength. Cross combinations, which earn bonus points from the judges, have been in vogue for the past few years. A few will attempt a Maltese cross, where the body and arms are completely parallel to the floor below, then hold the position and push their legs and trunk above their head, all without bending their arms or body to create a position known as an inverted cross. “Only the strongest guys in the world are capable of doing that type of combination,” says Butcher.
Vault: The Dragulescu
The Dragulescu vault in Men’s Gymnastics is like the Amanar in Women’s: Master it and you’re a top contender at any competition, anywhere. Romania’s Marian Dragulescu began performing his namesake skill, essentially two front flips with a half twist at the end, in the early 2000s. The vault brought him four World titles on the event and made him the favorite at two Olympic Games. But Vault finals are a two-jump affair, and in spite of nailing his signature skill in the Olympic finals in 2004 and 2008, Dragulescu left both Games empty-handed. Dragulescu’s rivals have also worked hard to master his vault, and today strive to use it to beat him in competition.
Turns out the “Superman” of Gymnastics is a mortal after all.
With a single six event performance, reigning Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura confirmed his status as both human being and top gymnast in the world on the first day of Men’s qualification Sunday in Glasgow.
After a successful start to the competition on Vault, Parallel Bars and High Bar, Uchimura had a long wait to perform on Floor Exercise while the judges deliberated over a teammate’s score. Though his routine began well, the gymnast many consider the greatest ever crashed a tumbling pass in the middle of his exercise and left the mat rubbing his neck and looking perturbed.
“I waited a long time and my body cooled down,” explained Uchimura, whose extensive gold medal collection includes a World title on Floor from 2011. “So I couldn’t move as I wanted to. At the beginning of the exercise it was fine, but at the end, I couldn’t perform as I had wished.”
The storm passed quickly. After Floor, Uchimura moved on to the Pommel Horse, where he delivered a routine up to his usual standard. On Still Rings, an event not considered one of his many strengths, he still posted the highest score of any Japanese gymnast. Crisis? What crisis?
The fall on Floor was Uchimura’s most blatant error in international competition since the 2012 Olympic Games. Small problems in London three years ago didn’t keep him from winning the big Olympic prize, and his fall Sunday didn’t keep him from cumulating the highest score of any athlete over all six events with 90.654 points.
“Now, I have a different mindset when I go into competitions,” Uchimura explained. “I calculate what I need to do, how much I need to do. With the experience I have, I know the amount of strength I need in order to succeed in competition.”
If he can repeat his performance in the Men’s All-around final Friday night, Uchimura is likely to win an unprecedented sixth consecutive World All-around title. Still, asked whether he’d rather have that or team gold for Japan, Uchimura didn’t hesitate in confirming the latter.
Having finished second to China at the past four World Championships, Japan is hypermotivated to win one for themselves this year. With one day of Men’s qualification still to come, the Japanese hold a nearly two point lead over China, good for morale perhaps but not a significant margin. In addition, scores from qualifications do not carry over to Wednesday’s team final, meaning both nations will start with clean slates.
“It’s hard to say what we need to do to beat the Chinese in the team competition, because it’s never happened to me,” Uchimura said. “If we knew what we needed to do, we would do it.”
Competition in Glasgow continues Monday with the final day of Men’s qualification.
Ever more daring, ever higher — gymnasts have always been innovators, striving to nourish their sport with new moves and greater difficulty. Beyond medals and records, the supreme honor for a gymnast is to introduce a skill that comes to bear his or her name, allowing them to leave their mark on history.
While there are dozens of elements in the code of points named after the gymnast who first performed them, here are four that could make a difference in the women’s competition:
Balance Beam: The full twisting back flip
Gymnasts have been doing backflips on the Balance Beam since 1972, when Olga Korbut dared one at the Munich Olympics and won a gold medal as a result. In recent years, women have made the skill more complicated by adding a full twist to the element. Flipping and twisting makes trying to land on a four-inch piece of wood exponentially more difficult, but certain gymnasts are nevertheless known for their mastery of the skill. When done well, this element is magical, handsomely rewarded by the judges and equally appreciated by the audience.
Vault: The Amanar
When Simona Amanar debuted the Vault that came to bear her name at the 2000 Olympics, she could not have imagined that her element would become one of most potent weapons of the American team at the London Games 12 years later. The Amanar vault (roundoff onto the springboard, back handspring onto the table and a flip done with two and a half twists in the layout position before landing) is so difficult that it carries a 6.3 point difficulty score, half a point higher than most other vaults in the code of points.
In a sport where hundredths of a point can make the difference between gold and nothing, the Amanar’s difficulty is therefore an indispensable weapon. In the team final at the 2012 Olympic Games, all three U.S. women landed the vault successfully, allowing them to pull away from the rest of the field from the beginning. American McKayla Maroney did the Amanar so well that some have even suggested that it be renamed after her!
Uneven Bars: The Tkatchev and friends
The Tkatchev, one of the classic release skills on Uneven Bars, was originally an element performed by men on the High Bar. The Tkatchev is named for Alexander Tkatchev, became the first gymnast to soar backward over the bar, splitting his legs in the air and regrasping the bar on the way down. In recent years, innovators have begun doing more difficult variations of Tkatchev’s move, keeping their legs straight in flight, putting their toes on the bar before letting go or combining it with another release move to earn bonus points. When the Tkatchev is done well, it transforms a routine into an aerial showcase. But look out: if a gymnast falls, the backward momentum can lead to a thudding belly flop onto the mat below.
Floor: The Biles
It didn’t take Simone Biles long to mark her territory on Floor — big tumbling has been the two-time World All-around champion’s calling card since she was a child. Still, it was still a surprise when she unleashed her unique skill — a double back flip done in a layout position with a half twist at the end — in 2013. Biles lands the skill facing forward, meaning she loses sight of the Floor before her feet hit, which is one reason the element is considered among the most difficult on women’s Floor. It’s one reason that for the moment, Simone stands alone as the only female gymnast to tempt the Biles.
With 14 World titles and 2016 Olympic berths on the line, the 46th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Glasgow (GBR) promise to be a first-rate showcase of Olympic stars in the making, FIG authorities said Thursday during a press conference at the SSE Hydro.
In the Men’s competition, the name on everyone’s lips is London Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura, the Japanese superstar who will be attempting to rewrite the record books with an unprecedented sixth consecutive World All-around title.
“I don’t usually like to talk about one sole gymnast, but it’s history,” said FIG Men’s Technical Committee President Steve Butcher. “He holds the current record for World All-around Championships won, by a lot, and obviously he’d like to extend that.”
Uchimura will also be striving to help lift his team past longstanding World champion China. Japan has finished second as a team at the past four World Championships, while the Chinese men have lost only one team title in the last 20 years.
For the women, Simone Biles (USA) and the American team have arrived in Glasgow as reigning World champions. Though yet to reach Uchimura-like levels of prestige, Biles is nevertheless chasing her own piece of history: if she defends her title from 2013 and 2014, she will become the first woman ever to win three consecutive World All-around titles.
The Glasgow Worlds are unique in that they are the first where the judges will evaluate exercises seated inconspicuously off the field of play. This provides a stage-like competition space the gymnasts, a win-win for everyone, said Nellie Kim, five-time Olympic gold medallist and President of the FIG Women’s Technical Committee. “Gymnastics is an artistic sport, and it should be a show,” she added.
While gymnasts are scored based on what judges see in the moment, they do have the option of video replay in case of a scoring inquiry concerning the level of difficulty in an exercise. “The one thing we do not return to the video for is for execution deductions,” Butcher said.
The elusive perfect 10, made famous by Nadia Comaneci and Kim at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, still exists in a routine’s execution score and remains the ultimate goal of every gymnast. “My dream is to see a 10 in execution one day,” Kim said. “I had hoped to see one at the London Olympics. One gymnast was very close. Perhaps we will see one at this competition.”
The city of Glasgow is no stranger to Gymnastics, being a longtime organiser of a World Cup in addition to welcoming the sport’s elite in the SSE Hydro at last summer’s Commonwealth Games. After the success of the London Olympics and Commonwealths, Glasgow is eager to re-embrace the sport, said Councillor Frank McAveety, leader of Glasgow City Council.
“Already we’ve had ticket sales that are as good as can be possibly imagined,” McAveety said.
The 46th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships begin October 23 with women’s team and individual qualifications.
King Kohei
In Men’s Artistic Gymnastics, he’s the man: Since winning his first World All-around title in London in 2009, Kohei Uchimura has added another golden chapter to his stellar career with every passing year. With five consecutive World titles and the Olympic gold in 2012, Uchimura holds the record for All-around victories at the World Championships. Though his brilliance has brought him five Olympic medals (one gold and four silver) and 16 World medals (seven gold and five silver among them), the 26-year-old from Japan strives for one thing only: perfection.
Imperial China
For more than two decades, one nation has almost singlehandedly dominated the Men’s team competition at the World Championships. Since Dortmund in 1994, the Chinese men have won 10 of 11 World team titles, in addition to three of the five Olympic titles up for grabs along the way. For the past eight years, the team competition has been a ferocious battle between China, which deploys a solid legion of event specialists, and Japan, led by its star Kohei Uchimura. The competition is so tight that of the 273 points earned by both teams last year in Nanning, the gold medal was decided by one tenth of a point!
A Dutchman in flight
In a sport filled with daredevils, Epke Zonderland (NED) does combinations on High Bar even the most envelope-pushing gymnasts only dream of. The 29-year-old’s ability to do consecutive flipping release skills — letting go of the bar, flipping and twisting over it, regrabbing it and letting go again immediately to do still more flips and twists — has catapulted him to Olympic gold, two World titles and immeasurable Youtube stardom. Video footage of his winning Horizontal Bar routine in London in 2012 has received more than 1.8 million views to date, and earned him the nickname “The Flying Dutchman.”
The incredible Japanese twisting sensation
An adolescent upstart with an aptitude for twisting like a top, Kenzo Shirai’s prodigious talent first led him to become the youngest man ever to make the Japanese National team, and in 2013, one of the youngest-ever World champions on Floor. Shirai has two signature skills on Floor — a triple twisting forward somersault and a quadruple twisting back somersault, which he performs at the end of his routine — as well as a triple-twisting Vault, all of which are named after him. This year he plans to unveil a new tumbling run, which he hopes will help him regain the World Floor title.
Man of the year
2015 has been a golden year for Oleg Verniaiev: Since last November, the determined Ukrainian has won every competition he’s entered, racking up All-around titles at the European Championships, European Games, World University Games and American Cup, the last of which earned him the FIG World Cup series title for the second consecutive year. While Verniaiev is considered Uchimura’s most serious rival, the two have yet to meet in competition in 2015. The last time the two competed in the same arena was in 2014 in Nanning, where Verniaiev finished fourth All-around. Uchimura, of course, won the gold.
Great Britain awaits its first king
Beth Tweddle was the pioneer on the women’s side, but no British man has yet won a World title in Men’s Gymnastics. Nevertheless, before and since the London Olympic Games, the sport has experienced unprecedented growth and popularity on the island. During the London Games, Louis Smith (silver on Pommel Horse), Max Whitlock (bronze on Pommel Horse), Kristian Thomas, Daniel Purvis and Sam Oldham made history by taking bronze in the team competition. Those first four, aided by Nile Wilson and Brinn Bevan this year, hope to do as well in Glasgow, the first stop on the road to Rio.
38 gold medals
With the exception of Jake Dalton (USA), all medallists from the 2014 Worlds in Nanning are expected to compete in Glasgow. Additionally, no fewer than 15 former World champions will be present, including Marian Dragulescu (ROU/9 World medals), Kohei Uchimura (JPN/7), Zhang Chenglong (CHN/4), Krisztian Berki (HUN/3), Epke Zonderland (NED/2), Diego Hypolito (BRA/2), Lin Chaopan (CHN/2), Liu Yang (CHN/2), Yuri Van Gelder (NED/1), Arthur Zanetti (BRA/1), Oleg Verniaiev (UKR/1), Kenzo Shirai (JPN/1), Danell Leyva (USA/1), Fabian Hambüchen (GER/1), Vlasios Maras (GRE/1).
Lords of the Rings
Five Olympic gold medallists from London 2012 will also be present in Glasgow to continue the grand adventure that all hope will lead them to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. These are Kohei Uchimura (JPN/All-around), Epke Zonderland (NED/Horizontal Bar), Arthur Zanetti (BRA/Still Rings), Krisztian Berki (HUN/Pommel Horse) and Zhang Chenglong (CHN/Team competition).
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