Monday, October 7, 2013

2013 World Gymnastics Championships -- All Around

Gold - Simone Biles USA
Silver - Kyla Ross USA
Bronze - Aliya Mustafina RUS

The women's All-Around was definitely very exciting to watch!! My ideal podium prior to the competition was definitely Simone, Kyla, and Aliya in any order. I was almost positive that Simone and Kyla would go 1-2. I definitely believed that Aliya could take the bronze if she had a better day than she did in Prelims. However, I was worried about Yao Jinnan and also Larisa Iordache, both who also very well could've took the bronze medal spot on the podium.


Simone Biles had a wonderful competition. Simone has massive D scores, so I knew that if she went out and simply hit all of her routines with no falls, she would be World Champion. Simone scored over 15 on both Vault and Floor, and also scored in mid to high 14's on Bars and Floor. Her floor routine is my absolute favorite, her huge smile, powerful tumbling, and playful dancing totally reminds me of Shawn Johnson. I am so happy for Simone, she totally deserved the gold.


I am so so proud of Kyla and the way she kept it so close between her and Simone up until the very end. Going into floor and the last rotation, she was actually ahead of Simone, but her low D score on floor and Simone's huge D score meant that unless Simone fell, Kyla wouldn't have a high enough score to maintain her lead. Nonetheless, her beautiful routines were amazing to watch and she competed to the best of her ability on everything. My favorite was her 15.366 on vault, which is I think the highest E score I've ever seen for a DTY. I hope that for next year she upgrades her beam and floor just a little!! That will put her in contention for the top spot.


I'm so so proud of Aliya and happy that she was able to make it onto the podium. Aliya is getting older, and I know that she still feels that she should be first in everything, but just the fact that she was able to medal in every competition she was in at Worlds is just amazing!!! Despite a slow start on the vault, Aliya had a great bars routine and hit her floor exercise and her new whip whip to double Arabian pass. I really really enjoy her new routine and music!!


Lari had me super nervous for how close it would be between her and Aliya until her fall off of beam in the 3rd rotation. I really thought this was going to be Larisa's chance to win a lot of medals, and I feel so bad that she was injured in London. I felt so badly that she fell but I was happy that she was able to finish 4th!


Yao Jinnan also had me worried, I definitely thought she could end up on the podium. She turned in an amazing performance on bars, but also unfortunately fell on beam. She also had a very low DoD on floor exercise. Her bars routine was amazing to watch though, and she still finished respectably in 5th place.

Also impressive was that the former World Champion from 2006, Vanessa Ferrari, finished in 6th place!!! We all know how big of a factor age is for gymnasts. The fact that she was able to be 6th in the All Around after 7 years is just remarkable. Good for her.





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