What a day

Just a short one because I only have my phone and blogging on it is a bit painful in terms of long posts. Having a brilliant time at worlds and I have a LOT to write about but today gets a special mention.


First of all, I was invited to breakfast by none other than Ron and Nellie Biles, Simone's parents! They are fans of my blog. I am a big Simone fan so it was a great experience to meet such lovely people, I feel very grateful and honoured. Worlds is even more fun when something completely unexpected like that happens.


Secondly, what a competition! I don't even know what to say and I'm really looking forward to watching the broadcasts. It was obvious vault would be close, but I'm not sure what to think about the podium order. Both Hong un Jong and Maria Paseka had excellent vaults, but I thought Hong would have just edged it. Not quite as dead centre as Paseka perhaps (I'm a need the stream to verify that) and she did have deep hips on one vault, but they were overall much neater as Paseka's vaults are definitely marred by the huge straddle-like leg split she has on blocking. One of those results that could go either way I suppose, but a tie if not an outright win for Hong sits better than me. It was great to see Maria's emotion though after a so-far worse than mediocre showing for Russia.


Simone was always going to have her work cut out for her for gold, given that she has 0.8 less difficulty than either of the other two, so she would really have needed sticks for both vaults, or almost sticks. Although she managed it in qualifying, I think her ranking was fair this time around given her landings.


And bars. LOL bars. On the one hand, this was another that was always going to be close so a tie was not hugely surprising. However, a record-breaking tie like that is beyond bizarre. To me, Viktoria Komova seemed to be just that bit slightly ahead of the pack. Most of the rest had more tiny errors, less dynamic, flattish releases, flexed feet, shallow inbars, bent elbows. Madison Kocian is a fabulous bars worker, very zippy and precise but I do think she has more of these tiny flaws than the rest and falls slightly below their level. I don't think too many would have pegged her for gold. Not that anyone would peg 4 girls for gold anyway.


On the one hand, ties are fun. Gold for everyone! All of the amazing routines are world champion routines! But it does scream of inadequacies in the judging system that so many couldn't be separated. The debate about that will rage for quite a while I think..