It’s that time of year again! The World Championships have begun, and the best gymnastics from around the world is on display in Antwerp, Belgium. After watching the qualifying rounds, it is evident that the competitive field is so much stronger for the men than for the women in this post-Olympic year, and it’s just not the same without top contenders Viktoria Komova (RUS), Ksenia Afanasyeva (RUS) and Diana Bulimar (ROU). But the show must go on!

As usual, one of the highlights was the All Around domination of Kohei Uchimura (JPN), 2.392 ahead of American Sam Mikulak. Uchimura managed to qualify to the finals on floor, parallel bars and high bar as well, the most of any male gymnast. He is looking to win his fourth consecutive World Championship, a record he surely deserves. I love rooting for the underdog, but I just can’t this time. With his exceptional technique, form and level of difficulty across all six events, King Kohei deserves to go down in the books as the undisputed best gymnast ever. On the women’s side, Simone Biles (USA) led the field by 0.935 and made it to all four apparatus finals! I am most impressed by her double double followed by a double layout half-out on floor.

Here are some of the most exciting and upsetting moments of prelims:

I really wanted Victoria Moors (CAN) to make it to the floor finals. She has great music, great dance, and a laid out double double! It’s a bummer she put her hands down. Fortunately she has another chance to have this tremendously difficult skill named after her during the All Around finals on Friday.

Zeng Siqi (CHN) was a breath of fresh air on the balance beam. Her routine began with an effortless press to handstand, and she was so solid on everything until a simple aerial cartwheel left her standing next to the apparatus. Add a point to her score, and she would have qualified in second place behind Larisa Iordache (ROU).

Wow! Kenzo Shirai (JPN) can really twist! Not only does he perform a Yurchenko triple twist on vault, but he finishes his floor routine with a quadruple twist…STUCK, for a 0.633 lead on this event.

I’m so disappointed that Japanese native Naoya Tsukahara just missed out on qualifying to the All Around. The son of legend Mitsuo Tsukahara is quickly becoming a legend himself, having won medals in the 1990s and 2000s including the 1999 World All Around Silver and the 2004 Olympic Team Gold. Now at age 36, he represents Australia.

Darn it! Too bad Sanne Wevers (NED) fell off the beam on her full-twisting backhandspring mount and later put her hands on the beam after an intricate pirouette sequence. She has completely mastered the pirouetting skills on this event, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that she would make the beam final. How about we have a look at her routine in Osijek a few weeks ago instead?!

Mai Murakami (JPN) will finally have the chance to showcase her exciting floor routine in the event finals this weekend. She begins with a double layout and a double double, performs a controlled quadruple turn, and ends with a triple twist. Check out her reaction at the end!

Oh no! I was really looking forward to a Korean North vs South showdown on vault, but that will have to wait for next year. Poor Ri Se Gwang (PRK) had to miss the 2012 Olympics when his federation was banned, and he just barely missed the final after falling on his piked Dragulescu first vault (D=6.4). He did a great job on his half-on, full-in back out (Tsukahara-Tsukahara?!) second vault (D=6.4), though, and ended up only 0.479 from first place. If only he had held back a bit on the difficulty in order to ensure a spot in the final….

At age 29, Vasiliki Millousi (GRE) is still going strong. Her stylish beam routine seemed a little underscored at 13.833 (D=5.9, E=7.933), and she just missed out on qualifying to the All Around by 0.098. Hmm….

Perhaps the worst time was had by Igor Radivilov (UKR), as he was injured on his Tsukahara piked double back vault after sticking a Dragulescu. He will be missed in the vault finals.

McKayla Maroney (USA) proved once again that she is the one to beat on vault. Both her Amanar and Mustafina vaults were fantastic in the air and she qualified in first place despite the large steps forward. Look for her atop the medal podium in finals.

Stay tuned for the All Around and Apparatus Finals!

It’s always interesting to see how things pan out in a post-Olympic year. Sometimes the stars lose their brilliance, while the new kids on the block step up to prove their mettle. It’s always sad to see favourites retire, and sometimes you don’t even realize how much you like a gymnast until they’re gone.

Take Sandra Izbasa (ROM), for example. Unless Bellu and Bitang can lure her back, it looks as though she is finished with international competition. I feel like she’s been on the scene forever, but she’s really only 22 years old. She won floor at the 2008 Olympics with near-perfect tumbling runs and overcame serious injuries before grabbing gold on vault and placing 5th all around at the 2012 Olympics. Her floor routine was one of the most captivating in London, and it made me realize just how much I appreciate her presence.

Sandra Izbasa (ROM), 2012 Olympic Games, Floor Exercise Apparatus Final

Aw man, if only she hadn’t fallen on the last skill of her career!

Other stars are continuing on in the sport, and it remains to be seen how they will fare against the new crop of gymnasts. Viktoria Komova (RUS) displays what I think is the best combination of grace, form, difficulty and power the world has ever seen. I hope she’ll be able to maintain the same level of magic in the coming years.

Viktoria Komova (RUS), 2010 Youth Olympic Games, Floor Exercise

Kohei Uchimura (JPN) was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and didn’t seem to be in peak form at the 2012 Olympic Games. Of course, despite putting his hands down on floor, he still managed to win the all around by a whopping 1.659, the same margin that separated gymnasts 2 through 13. Usually I find myself rooting for the underdog, but I know I’ll always hope for King Kohei to maintain his throne. Looks like there are some new tricks up his sleeve:

Kohei Uchimura (JPN), Kovacs-Kolman-Kolman Combo

Now that Nikolai Kuksenkov has left the Ukrainian team in favour of Team Russia, it will be interesting to see how that shakes up standings on the international scene. Coach Igor Korobchinsky may deny it, but that is quite a blow to Ukraine.

Nikolai Kuksenkov (UKR), 2011 World Championships, High Bar

One gymnast I’ve been excited to see on the senior international stage is Katelyn Ohashi (USA) and she’s finally old enough!

Katelyn Ohashi (USA), 2011 National Championships, Balance Beam

Mykayla Skinner (USA) recently busted out a laid out double-double on floor. It’s been over a quarter of a century since a woman first showcased a full-twisting double layout, so this was a long time coming. Skinner may be selected for the 2013 Worlds team based on her floor tumbling alone!

Should be another great quadrennium. I hope it’s as exciting as the last!

Poor Youna. She has had such bad luck on the uneven bars lately! First she lost a medal at the 2010 European Championships after French National Coach Eric Demay accidentally touched her while spotting her on the Def, incurring a 0.5 deduction. You can catch a clear view of this incident at 1:15.

Youna Dufournet, Uneven Bars, 2010 European Championships

That was a mistake. Demay is not Dufournet’s personal coach, and he probably just erred on the side of caution and ended up mistiming his spotting.

What gets me is the turn of events just a few weeks later at the French National Championships. This time it’s Dufournet’s personal coach in charge: Marc Chirilcenco. Never before have I seen a coach spot a gymnast in such a fashion. Could it be that he was sticking it to Demay and making a show of not touching his gymnast? Well that plan sure backfired; Dufournet slipped off the bar and landed awkwardly, injuring her meniscus.

Youna Dufournet, Uneven Bars, 2010 French National Championships

Athlete safety should be paramount. Dufournet showed some lovely gymnastics at the 2009 World Championships and at the 2010 European Championships, but before that she was inconsistent as all get out and an accident waiting to happen. One of the most alarming examples of this is her floor routine from the 2009 European Championships. The scary crashes at 0:17 and 0.58 prove that she was not ready to perform a double layout or a 1.5-twist through to double back.

Youna Dufournet, Floor Exercise, 2009 European Championships

Why push her? She is such a clean gymnast that she will still score well with easier routines. Case in point: Dufournet won the bronze medal on vault at the 2009 World Championships with a near-perfect Yurchenko-1.5 and a clean layout Podkopayeva. I hope Dufournet recovers in time to make a run for the 2012 Olympic Games. And maybe a change of coach wouldn’t hurt….

I was pleased to read that the FIG has decided to allow all three World apparatus medalists in a pre-Olympic year to be automatically guaranteed a spot in the Games. In the most recent Olympic cycle, Krizstian Berki (HUN), Yuri van Gelder (NED), and Aljaz Pegan (SLO) all had the “misfortune” of winning the silver medals on their specialties at the 2007 World Championships. Clearly contenders for Olympic gold, they were denied the opportunity to attend the Games in Beijing simply because they had not won the event and because they were not so fortunate as to represent a Top 12 team that automatically qualified 6 gymnasts.

Berki, van Gelder and Pegan were unsuccessful in obtaining the Wild Card despite their best efforts to secure one. They had the disadvantage of hailing from gymnast-rich Europe, knowing that the Wild Card would most likely be given to a gymnast from an underrepresented continent. Pegan had the additional disadvantage of Slovenia having already claimed an individual spot when Mitja Petkovsek won on Parallel Bars at the 2007 World Championships.

In the end, the Wild Card was awarded to a gymnast from…Yemen. Now don’t get me wrong; I am all for the participation of a variety of gymnasts from around the world, and I’m happy for Nashwan Al-Harazi in what must have been one of the most exciting moments of his life. It’s interesting (and usually very impressive) to see what sorts of skills the gymnasts from countries like Yemen can do, but surely not at the expense of three gold medal contenders.

I hope in the future we will be able to see gymnasts like Al-Harazi compete alongside gymnasts like Berki, van Gelder and Pegan. Of course, even with the new rule, there will always be the fourth-place gymnast who might not earn a spot to the Olympic Games, but at least this is a step in the right direction.

Krisztian Berki (HUN), 2007 World Championships, Pommel Horse

Yuri van Gelder (NED), 2007 World Championships, Still Rings

Aljaz Pegan (SLO), 2007 World Championships, High Bar

And just for fun, here are Nashwan Al-Harazi’s floor routine and his Rudi vault. He’s a great twister!

Nashwan Al-Harazi (YEM), 2010 MAC Open, Floor Exercise

Nashwan Al-Harazi (YEM), 2010 MAC Open, Vault

Russia reigned supreme at the European Championships held this week in Birmingham, England. Junior gymnasts from this country won every single gold available, with Larisa Iordache of Romania tying for top honours on the floor exercise. Viktoria Komova and Anastasia Grishina packed a 1-2 punch in the all-around, and they even managed to split apparatus golds between them. Both have loads of difficulty and a style very much reminiscent of the Soviet greats that came before. Indeed, Komova is the daughter of 1986 Goodwill Games champion Vera Kolesnikova.

Viktoria Komova (RUS), 2010 European Championships, Balance Beam

The Russians all entered their beginning poses on floor exercise with a flourish. Grishina’s superior technique is evident at 0:27 with her floaty leg-up double turn to double stag jump and at 0:35 with her triple twist.

Anastasia Grishina (RUS), 2010 European Championships, Floor Exercise

Sometimes I ask myself why I love it so much when the Russian gymnasts succeed. I think the main reason is that the Soviets from years past are the very epitome of what gymnastics should be, and I want that tradition to be passed along to the new crop of gymnasts. Unfortunately, the other former Soviet republics are struggling; former powerhouses such as Belarus have fallen off the gymnastics map. The results of the Ukrainian gymnasts at these European Championships are particularly upsetting given their rich legacy in the sport. They managed just one bronze from senior Natalia Kononenko on the uneven bars, and no junior gymnasts qualified to event finals at all. (Is it true that two of the Ukrainian junior gymnasts come from gyms where they still train on wooden balance beams?!).

Natalia Kononenko (UKR), 2010 European Championships, Uneven Bars

What a tricky routine, performed with fantastic form! It was lucky for Kononenko that she hung on to the bronze, as Youna Dufournet (FRA) would have bumped her to fourth place had her coach not accidentally touched her following her Def.

Another reason I want the Russians to achieve great results is that the routines they display show the winning combination of artistry and difficulty in a time when many gymnasts simply forgo choreography.

Viktoria Komova (RUS), 2010 European Championships, Floor Exercise

I really appreciate all that Beth Tweddle has done for British gymnastics, but she should have to show more than just spectacular tumbling to earn gold medals on floor exercise (2009 Worlds and now 2010 Europeans). Anyway, there’s no disputing that her uneven bars are among the best in the world. Unbelievable!

Beth Tweddle (GBR), 2010 European Championships, Uneven Bars

I hope these European Championships mark the start of an upward trend in Russian gymnastics. Komova and Grishina have proven they have what it takes to lead Russia to great success in the future. Davai!