Predictions, schmedictions

It's always fun to see how these pan out. Predictions post is here and was written almost exactly a month ago.

First, the all-around.

Prediction

1. Simone Biles
2. Aliya Mustafina
3. Kyla Ross
4. Larisa Iordache
5. Vanessa Ferrari

Actual

1. Simone Biles DING
2. Larisa Iordache. Up two
3. Kyla Ross DING
4. Aliya Mustafina. Down two
5. Yao Jinnan

2/5 placements, 4/5 names.

Team Final

Prediction

1. USA
2. China
3. Russia
4. GB
5. Romania

Actual

1. USA DING
2. China DING
3. Russia DING
4. Romania Up 1
5. Italy

Overestimated GB, underestimated Italy. Podium correct! 3/5 placements, 4/5 names.

Vault Qualifiers

Prediction

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Giulia Steingruber
Oksana Chusovitina
Hong un Jong
Phan Thi Ha Thanh
Ellie Black
Maria Paseka

Actual

Simone Biles DING
Mykayla Skinner DING
Giulia Steingruber DING
Hong un Jong DING
Phan Thi Ha Thanh DING
Alla Sosnitskaya
Claudia Fragapane
Alexa Moreno

5/8 for names. Oksana and Maria would have qualified had they been there, I feel.

Vault podium

Prediction

1. Simone Biles
2. Mykayla Skinner
3. Giulia Steingruber

Actual

1. Hong un Jong
2. Simone Biles
3. Mykayla Skinner

2/3 for names, 0/3 placements. This was before it was known that Giulia developed a twisting block and Hong un Jong showed significant improvement at Asian Games.

Bars Qualifiers

Prediction

Ashton Locklear
Kyla Ross
Aliya Mustafina
Daria Spiridonova
Ruby Harrold
Becky Downie
Huang Huidan
Yao Jinnan

Actual

Ashton Locklear DING
Lisa Katherina Hill
Huang Huidan DING
Yao Jinnan DING
Ruby Harrold DING
Daria Spiridonova DING
Aliya Mustafina DING
Becky Downie DING

7/8 names! Just Kyla Ross who was surpassed in qualifications late on.

Bars Podium

Prediction

1. Yao Jinnan
2. Huang Huidan
3. Becky Downie

Actual

1. Yao Jinnan DING
2. Huang Huidan DING
3. Daria Spiridonova

2/3 for placement and names. Becky didn't have the best routine, unfortunately.

Beam Qualifiers

Prediction

Larisa Iordache
Simone Biles
Kyla Ross
Aliya Mustafina
Bai Yawen
Shang Chunsong
Maria Kharenkova
Andreea Munteanu

Actual

Larisa Iordache DING
Simone Biles DING
Kyla Ross DING
Aliya Mustafina DING
Bai Yawen DING
Yao Jinnan
Asuka Teramoto
Ellie Black

5/8 for names is respectable. Andreea, Maria and Shang all massively underperformed in prelims.

Beam Podium

Prediction

1. Larisa Iordache
2. Maria Kharenkova
3. Bai Yawen

Actual

1. Simone Biles
2. Bai Yawen
3. Aliya Mustafina

Lol. 1/3 for names, 0/3 for placement.

Floor Qualifiers

Prediction

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Vanessa Ferrari
Claudia Fragapane
Shang Chunsong
Larisa Iordache
Roxana Popa
Giulia Steingruber

Actual

Simone Biles DING
Mykayla Skinner DING
Vanessa Ferrari DING
Claudia Fragapane DING
Larisa Iordache DING
Larissa Miller
Aliya Mustafina
Erika Fasana

5/8 for names

Floor Podium

Prediction

1. Simone Biles
2. Larisa Iordache
3. Vanessa Ferrari

Actual

1. Simone Biles DING
2. Larisa Iordache DING
3. Aliya Mustafina

Close! 2/3 for placement and names.

Overall, out of a grand total of 54 I had 37 names right and out of 22 podium places I got 9 correct. So I suppose that proves that it's relatively easy to predict the dominance of the big 4, but that competition is wildly unpredictable?

Good effort, and a lot of fun.

Tomorrow I'll post about today's finals and soon after a big post about worlds in general, reflections and such.

Worlds Predictions

Ahhh, that time of year :D I have a massive advantage on the last one as worlds are actually in a few weeks instead of a year.

I won't do teams as they are all largely in place or with very little room to manouevre, even the US. I will say that I don't see Brenna Dowell on the team. In my mind it's Simone Biles, Kyla Ross, Mykayla Skinner, Alyssa Baumann, Madison Kocian and Ashton Locklear.

Moving on to the fun

The All-Around

1. Simone Biles

Woah, unorthodox choice I know! She hasn't raised the roof on her difficulty level since Antwerp..bars and beam changes probably cancel each other out. What she has done is clean up, she's technically better than ever AND her landings are so much more precise. It will all help. I think she would need to fall and have a significant other error for someone to have a shot at catching up to her.

2. Aliya Mustafina

3. Kyla Ross

I'm not overly confident in the order of these two. Aliya looked super strong at Russian Cup, better overall than last year. Kyla meanwhile has downgraded further. It's hard to know. Larisa HAS upgraded her floor and beam and her bars look stronger than ever...so she could of course feature here. The reason why she doesn't is because she has never gotten it together in the AA when it really counts while the other two are absolute beasts in competition.

4.(th again) Larisa Iordache

5. Vanessa Ferrari

Vanessa still looks very strong. Larisa will fall off beam I think. 

Team Final

1. USA

SHOCKER. It won't be easy as we all would have imagined at the beginning of the year. Losing Ebee, McKayla Maroney and injuries to Peyton Ernst, Maggie Nichols, Lexie Priessman with no Fierce 5 comebacks...it's definitely not a glorious pool of depth. But they still have the goods..even though China technically has higher potential d-scores.

2. China

3. Russia

4. Great Britain

5. Romania

Now I'm really not confident in this..but at the moment it makes the most sense. China have killer, and I mean killer, bar routines. Their lowest d-score out of 4 is 6.7-8. If they all hit then it's a major boost. Likewise with beam, strong potential there as usual. Russia are just...not really a strong team. And just today they have lost Ekaterina Kramarenko. Viktoria Komova will almost surely be on the team now, but they'll still be weak. As ever, Aliya Mustafina does not a team make and she'll be carrying them. The second strongest team member is Maria Kharenkova. Together I can see them dragging the team above the twin onslaught of GB and Romania.

Romania recently spectacularly lost to Germany. It makes me very unsure of how equipped they are to deal with GB. GB are lacking depth in some areas but may still be able to surpass a greatly weakened Romania who didn't even choose a team as there was nobody to leave behind.

GB..hmmm, mystery. I'm not sure what the story is with Raer Theaker and Rebecca Tunney but I got the impression they're not going to be in contention? Gabby Jupp on the other hand is back! This could go either way for them. 4th would be an enormous achievement even with their new strength. 5th is just as likely. Romania veer from 3rd to 5th to me, they don't have 'it' for 2nd this year at least I don't think.

Vault Qualifiers

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Giulia Steingruber
Oksana Chusovitina
Hong un Jong
Phan Thi Ha Thanh
Ellie Black 
Maria Paseka

I'm a little stumped here, I feel a bit out of the loop. Hmmm. *Added Maria Paseka! We could see a suicidal Prod though of course. Perhaps Mahmoud as the last I saw of Pena she didn't look particularly strong and crashed a layout front if I remember correctly.

Bars Qualifiers

Ashton Locklear
Becky Downie
Ruby Harrold
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan
Aliya Mustafina
Daria Spiridonova
Kyla Ross

Madison has more difficulty than Kyla, but not as clean.

Floor Qualifiers

Simone Biles
Mykayla Skinner
Larisa Iordache
Shang Chunsong
Claudia Frangapane
Giulia Steingruber
Vanessa Ferrari
Roxana Popa

I haven't seen a huge amount of great floors this year. Mai Murakami is struggling at the moment, I don't see her getting her tumbles back and into this final, sadly.

Beam Final

Larisa Iordache
Kyla Ross
Simone Biles
Aliya Mustafina
Maria Kharenkova
Shang Chunsong
Bai Yawen
Andreea Munteanu 

I'm very confident in this finals line-up, out of all the EF ones.

Vault podium

1. Simone Biles
2. Mykayla Skinner
3. Giulia Steingruber

Ta-dah! So that was straightforward enough.


Bars Podium

1. Yao Jinnan
2. Huang Huidan
3. Becky Downie

Yeah so this is impossible! The Russians have lesser difficulty which could get Becky into the medals if she hits everything for hers. Much like Euros. This is one of those predictions that feels right, but so many variables involved..

Beam Podium

1. Larisa Iordache
2. Maria Kharenkova
3. Bai Yawen

BOOM, Larisa has to hit beam in a final when it actually matters, just once. Maria is quite steady with a lot of difficulty...but I have big issues with silver and bronze. Where is Kyla, how will Bai Yawen be scored, what about Simone's higher difficulty now...all legit concerns. It's a tough one.

Floor Podium

1. Simone Biles
2. Larisa Iordache
3. Vanessa Ferrari

All 3 of these routines have 6.5 difficulty. Gold is obvious. Not so much the others. I dumped Mykayla Skinner after comments made me look harder at Vanessa Ferrari who I initially forgot about for floor finals altogether and needed reminding from Cordelia Price! Mykayla does have a good shot though at this podium.

Even when we're this close, there's still a huge amount of 'what if'. What's right here, what's definitely wrong? What's downright bizarre? 

Nanning Predictions

By anon request, though these are a lot of fun to think about. You can read my hilariously wrong Antwerp predictions here, mostly written in November 2012. This gives us a view already of how ridiculous (nonetheless entertaining) it is to predict anything in gymnastics, much less 9 months or more out. But check it out: I said Viktoria Komova would not do the AA (and got criticised for that) and she didn't. Bow down before my omniscience.


TEAMS

(prelims events in brackets)

USA

Simone Biles VT, FX, UB, BB
Kyla Ross UB, BB, (VT), (FX)
Elizabeth Price UB, VT, FX, (BB)
Madison Kocian (UB), BB
McKayla Maroney VT, (FX)
Lexie Priessman (UB), (BB), (VT), FX

Alt: Brenna Dowell, Sarah Finnegan, Peyton Ernst (Nica Hults replaced)

This team is so strong on vault and floor that it's a bit of a joke. Some issues here with beam as you can see. Sticking Madison Kocian up in TF on the nerviest event is not exactly ideal, but I believe she's consistent when healthy. 4 vying for the AA would be a lot of fun. Maroney is my backup floor worker for TF. They can absorb not-so-strong bars/beam and possibly more than one fall and still win...interesting. I wanted to stick Finnegan on the team but this is predictions not 'want' and I can't really see her on it..yet. Likewise no returning Olympians who haven't competed since, we have seen even less of what stage they're at.

ROMANIA

Larisa Iordache VT, FX, UB, BB
Diana Bulimar VT, FX, UB, BB
Andreea Munteanu VT, FX, UB, BB
Silvia Zarzu (VT), (FX)
Paula Tudorache (BB), (UB)
Stefania Alina Stanila (VT), (UB), (FX), (BB)

Alt: Ana Maria Ocolisan, Diana Teodoru, Ioana Nicoara

I'm thinking Larisa Iordache and Diana Bulimar will gain a spectacular new team-carrier in Andreea Munteanu. Yes, Sandra Izbasa is not appearing as I just don't see it? It's fairly weird to have three bench-warmers during team finals, but really they aren't good enough or specialist enough to knock the other three off an event, and they all need experience.

RUSSIA

Aliya Mustafina VT, FX, UB, BB
Viktoria Komova VT, FX, UB, BB
Ksenia Afanasyeva (VT), FX, (UB)
Maria Kharenkova (FX), BB
Maria Paseka VT, (UB)
Anastasia Grishina UB, (BB), (FX), (VT)

Alt: Alla Sosnitskaya, Evgeniya Zhukova, Ekaterina Kramarenko (Alla replaces Viktoria Kuzmina)

Viktoria Komova can't be so unlucky as to miss another year, right? I do not think she will be at her 2012 or pre-2012 level again, but still obviously an extremely valuable asset and threat in the AA. This would be a strong team but Russia seem to be going down the tubes as a programme so it's very hard to predict this lot.

CHINA

Yao Jinnan VT, FX, UB, BB
Shang Chunsong VT, FX, UB, BB
Huang Huidan UB, (BB)
Wang Wei VT, FX
Tan Sixin BB, (FX), (UB), (VT)
Chen Siyi (FX), (VT), (BB), (UB)

Alt: Tan Jiaxin, Xie Yufen, Zeng Siqi

This is not a team destined for home glory. Next year and the year after will hopefully be a different story, but Nanning...um. Bars is fine of course but there's no backups, beam is quite fluid. It's hard to assess Chen Siyi and Huang Huidan could knock Shang Chunsong out of the beam lineup. This team is snookered with vault I think. I have actually left a DTY off the team...Tan Jiaxin. But, it's really bad and her bars or other events do not warrant inclusion. This will be an off year as a team at least, hopefully not individually too.

BRITAIN

Ruby Harrold VT, (FX), UB, (BB)
Gabby Jupp (VT), FX, UB, BB
Hannah Whelan VT, FX, BB, (UB)
Rebecca Tunney VT, FX, UB, BB
Raer Theaker (VT), (FX)
Becky Downie UB, (BB)

They are not getting any new seniors of note, and Gabby Jupp recovering to her early 2013 self is essential here..though not strictly devastating to the team if she drops VT, FX. Quite a glut of usable all-arounders, should be interesting.

JAPAN

Asuka Teramoto VT, FX, UB, BB
Mai Murakami VT, FX, (UB)
Yuki Uchiyama FX, UB, (BB), (VT)
Natsumi Sasada BB, (FX), (VT), (UB)
Koko Tsurumi (FX), UB, (BB), VT
Yu Minobe BB

Alt: Wakana Inoue, Risa Konishi

Some glorious routines amongst this lot, but this isn't a team with much depth. Interesting to see how it will play out. They will be as always the definition of artistic gymnastics however.

CANADA

Victoria Moors VT, FX, UB, BB
Ellie Black VT, FX, UB, BB
Heaven Latimer BB, FX, (VT)
Meagan Chant VT, (FX), (BB), (UB)
Sabrina Gill UB
Aleeza Yu (BB), (FX), (VT)

Moors and Black doing a lot of the work in TF but some really nice backups here and I hope a good test for newcomers Yu and Latimer.

I cannot do Italy because of the unknown status of Enus Mariani..it makes it too difficult, and I don't know enough about Germany and other possible teams.

EVENT FINAL QUALIFIERS (in random order)

VAULT

Simone Biles
McKayla Maroney
Giulia Steingruber
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Hong un Jong
Ellie Black
Phan Thi Ha Thanh
Yamilet Pena

I am too unsure about the level of Mariana Oliveira's and Wang Wei's vaults for them to usurp anybody here. Nothing has changed for Yamilet Pena to not make this final, and Maria Paseka is a question mark as far as consistency is concerned.

FLOOR

Simone Biles
Lexie Priessman
Victoria Moors
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Larisa Iordache
Diana Bulimar
Mai Murakami
Ellie Black

HUGE depth here.

BEAM

Kyla Ross
Simone Biles
Aliya Mustafina
Viktoria Komova
Yao Jinnan
Tan Sixin
Larisa Iordache
Andreea Munteanu

How very big 4..

BARS

Kyla Ross
Elizabeth Price
Yao Jinnan
Huang Huidan
Viktoria Komova
Aliya Mustafina
Ruby Harrold
Roxana Popa

Niiice.

PODIUMS 

TF

1. USA
2. ROMANIA
3. RUSSIA

China in 4th makes me so sad but I just don't see them any higher. Russia are a strong team here in this, but since their programme is a mess and they have injured/recovering gymnasts a-plenty, I think consistency will be the issue.

AA

1. Simone Biles
2. Viktoria Komova
3. Larisa Iordache

Where is the second American?? Second and third also switched a bunch of times when typing (and thinking). Hmmmmm.

VAULT

1. Simone Biles
2. McKayla Maroney
3. Giulia Steingruber

Yes, I WENT THERE. Biles was so close last year and now has 0.8 extra..Maroney has deteriorated form-wise and seems as injury prone as ever also.

FLOOR

1. Simone Biles
2. Ksenia Afanasyeva
3. Larisa Iordache

Really, really difficult to choose silver and bronze. I am also a monster for leaving Murakami out..

BEAM

1. Larisa Iordache
2. Andreea Munteanu
3. Tan Sixin

Stiff competition here too.

BARS

1. Yao Jinnan
2. Huang Huidan
3. Aliya Mustafina

Where's Komova? I think her growth is going to mess with those bars. Another tough decision.

I did go over teams making sure 5 were on each event, so hopefully I haven't overlooked any errors. Some of the above, particularly qualifiers and team members are (almost..so close) to being a certainty but many of the podiums while very likely, are still very fluid and could go either way...without even factoring the inevitable injury list in.

So, how much crack am I on?