2021 World Championships Women’s Qualification Recap

After the first day of qualification Angelina Melnikova showed she’s still in Olympic shape by easily clenching the top all-around spot with a 57.065 and qualifying to all four event finals. Finishing in second is Leanne Wong who went 55.749 after a solid day. Trailing Wong by less than a tenth is her teammate Kayla DiCello who went 55.700 for her World Championships debut.

Notably in fourth is Japan’s Hatakeda Hitomi, who showed great consistency across all four event, allowing her to surpass gymnasts who, although may have higher scoring potential, did not hit when it counted; one such gymnast being Vladislava Urazova who crashed her double-twisting Yurchenko (DTY) attempt after her hand slipped on the table, but recovered for the rest of the meet and still finished fifth.

To get the bad news out of the way first, vault final contenders Qi Qi and Colline Devillard won’t be in vault finals after struggling with their Rudi -DTY duos. Rebeca Andrade, defending Olympic vault champion, casually leads the standings with a 14.800 average. Unexpectedly trailing Andrade is one Elze Guerts, making her World Championships debut at 26. Guertz vaulted a clean DTY and handspring front-full combination to average 14.350.

In addition to vault, Rebeca Andrade also qualified first into the bars finals with a colossal 15.1 with an impressive 8.8 E-score. Following her is Wei Xiaoyuan and newcomer Luo Rui, scoring 14.733 and 14.5 respectively. Moving on to controversy, Maria Minaeva missed the bar final after being two-per countried by teammates Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova who qualified in fourth and sixth respectively. Kayla DiCello was able to hit a cold bar routine after missing the one-touch warmup due to negligence from the coaches who underestimated the warm up times.

Continuing the legacy of Chinese beam excellence, Luo Rui topped the beam standings with a 14.566 and salvaged a disastrous beam rotation where her teammates, Wei Xiaoyuan and Li Shijia had falls. Behind Luo is Melnikova, who showed up with one of the most confident routines I’ve ever seen her compete. In third is 2017 World Champion, Pauline Schäfer who competed her gravity-defying eponymous element, the Schäfer.

Murakami Mai snuck into the hearts of every audience member and bedazzled the judges with her floor routine, clenching the top spot with a 14.166. Murakami has stated this may be her last World Championships ever, so to see her enjoying every last moment and performing to her maximum in front of a home crowd was really beautiful to see. Following closely behind is Angelina Melnikova, 14.100, and Leanne Wong who stuck her third and fourth passes cold. Excitingly we will also see Maria Ceplinschi and Anastasiia Bachynska, World Challenge Cup regulars, make the floor final.

Full results can be found here

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