Event Finals Day One: Four Way Bars Tie - Wait, What Was That Again?

The first day of event finals in Glasgow have concluded.  History was made yet again with a four person uneven bar tie for gold.

Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck was that? 

Yes, a FOUR way tie for uneven bars gold.

Viktoria Komova, Daria Spiridonova, Fan Yilin and Madison Kocian, all with the exact same score, 15.366. Go home Glasgow judges,  you're officially DRUNK.

Fan Yilin was the first gold medalist, very nice routine, high difficulty, 6.9 D score.  Starts out with a beautiful in bar piouroette on the low bar, a Komova II to Pak to Chow an in bar piked Gienger, nice turns on one arm in L-grip, very Chinese bar routine, dismounts with a double layout. 6.9 difficulty, 8.466 execution. 

Viktoria Komova was next up. Her routine is beautiful of course, with her beautiful lines and toes. She connects her Komova II to pak to a Van Leeuwen, to pike in bars to toe 1/2, laid out jaeger, pretty, if not slightly piked. Sticks a full in dismount, first of a billion. 6.6 D, 8.766 E.

Madison Kocian had the same E and D scores as Komova and a similar routine composition. She starts with a KCHS to inbar full, to Komova 1/2, with a slight separation of the legs. Huge jaeger, lots of amplitude. Full in dismount.

Daria Spirdonova is after Madison.  Her routine is basically comprised of piked and inbar everything. Inbar full to Komova, piked Jaeger, only thing that's not piked in her routine is her full in dismount (hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it). She received a slightly higher difficulty score, but slightly lower execution than Vika and Madison. (6.7 E, 8.666 E).

I can't stay mad at Vika after her verbal diharrea incident after today. Today, she was everyone's BFF.  If this were NCAA, she'd be fist pumping with UCLA. (Sorry, don't see Vika as a gator chomping kinda girl).  She had the same reaction that we all did when we found out there would be not just a tie but a four way tie. Watch the video below.

Oh yeah, there were other competitiors too.

Gabby Douglas would have gotten a medal if there weren't a billion way tie for first. She wound up in fifth place. She hit a very nice, clean routine. Started with an inbar full on the high bar, to piked tkachev to Pak. then an inbar stalder to an inbar half to Endo half to Chow and a double layout dismount for a 15.133, 6.4 D and 8.733 E.

Shang Chunsong got killed in her execution. She did her crazy eponymous piked Hindorff and between bars Gienger.  14.900 (6.7D, 8.200 E).

Sophie Scheder is beautiful to watch and has her own skill (that won't be named for her because Kelly Simm also successfully competed it) an inbar piked Tkatchev. But she took a big step foward on her dismount and put her knee down. She scored a 14.6 (6.6, 8.0 ).

Ruby Harrold showed up with her crazy routine with a Bhardwaj and a Zuchold. Packed routine. Got a 14.766.

The other finals:

Russia has made up for not medaling in Team finals by bringing home three golds. Already three times more than last year. 

Maria Paseka took home the vault gold. She did a Cheng and an Amanar. I wasn't rooting for her to win, but word on the street was that her vaults were higher than Hongs. Plus, she did have more difficulty than Simone and her Amanar is not so scary anymore. She got teary eyed during the medal ceremony, she was so happy. I couldn't stay mad at her forever after that. Dammit. 

Vault 1 - Cheng is kinda funky, but it's not scary.  Some bent knees and leg separations. Scored a 15.633 (6.4 D, 9.233).

Vault 2 - Amanar - way less scary than I've seen from her. Props, Bee Farm.  15.700 (6.3, 9.4) Total Score 15.666

Silver, Hong Un Jong of North Korea.  Also a Cheng and an Amanar.

 Vault 1 - the Amanar.  Small step on the landing but overall, very nice. 15.666 (6.3, 9.366)

Vault 2 - Cheng - lots of power, maybe a slight knee bend, small step back. 15.6 (6.4, 9.2) Total Score 15.633.

Simone took bronze. Huge Amanar, but not enough D on her second vault to bump her into first, despite her great execution (Whatever!)

Vault 1 - Amanar, super easy for Simone. She had huge height, good form, but took a hop forward, got a 15.9 (6.3, 9.6)

Vault 2 - Her Lopez, round off 1/2 on 1/2 off. Still clean. 15.183. (5.6, 9.583). Total 15.425.

Maria is also the tallest one.

Coming in fourth was Ellie Downie of Great Britain. She's a very powerful girl. She did a huge DTY and Lopez in event finals. very clean,  She's a talented vaulter and has the potential to upgrade to an Amanar if she so desires. Total score of 14.899

Poor Giulia Steingruber hit her Rudi  only to bust her knee on what was supposed to be a DTY. She looked like she was only going for a Yurchenko 1.5, but then she had a scary landing and had to have her knee checked out on the podium. The latest update we heard was that she did NOT tear a ligament, (that's a relief).  She's still on the floor start list for tomorrow. Total score of 14.566

Dipa Karmakar of India, she won the Commonwealth Games Gold with that Produnova (handspring double front). She did the Produnova in event finals in Glasgow again. It wasn't scary, like many of those Produnovas have been.  But she still sat it down. Ugh. According to the FIG CoP proposals for 2017-2020, that vault is being downgraded to 6.8, but it's not enough in my opinion.  Second vault was a much cleaner Tsukahara double full. She had too much power and stepped off the matt. Total score of 14.683

Repping Mexico, Alexa Moreno. Did a handspring Rudi, landed with her chest down and took a step foward and out of bounds. Second vault, Tsuk double full. Took a step to the side, SUUPER out of bounds.  Total score of 14.566

The men's floor final, aka, "Kenzo Shirai does a billion and one twists and we'll just give him the medal and y'all can fight for gold and silver, nerds."

Manrique of Cuba was up first. I missed his floor sadly (ugh). He started the competition off with a 14.800.

Kim Hansol of South Korea was up next. First pass, a 3 1/2 to front full. Double double. Front tuck full to a 2 1/2. Thomas roll out skill, finished with a triple full. 14.933.

Zapata of Spain  - I can't remember his whole first name or all of his first names, so I'm calling him Zapata.  He starts with a 1 1/2 to a front double pike. Then he does a front full into a Shushunova, makes him look like a dolphin. I love it.  Makes him stand out.  He took the bronze with a 15.200.

Daniel Purvis of Great Britain, representing Scotland and the redheads. A lot of guys seemed to want to go the Kenzo route and have ten million twists, but Danny had way more tucked skills, his first pass was a tucked double double and he ends with a very standard women's floor pass, a whip into a double arabian, tucked. Remember, the dudes like the twisty skills and prefer to half all their double arabians out and pike them or lay them out. 15.100

Deng Shudi of China, Mr. Cheekbones and Mr. Bond Villian scar.  Lots and lots of twisting, but threw some Russians in there (MAG pommel horse skill, turn around in a circle on your hands with your ass and legs behind you). Dismounted with a triple full. Seems to be the standard MAG floor dismount, like WAG floor dismounts are usually a double pike. 15.166

Then it's the man of the hour, Mr. Kenzo Shirai, the King of the Many Twists. I'm not kidding when I say many twists, in fact I may be understating the twists. First pass, 3 1/2 to front double full.  Next, a double double. He can't just sit there and twist, so he has to do a handstand. But then does a front half to front full, a  2 1/2 to another two and a half and the grand finale, a freaking quad twist. 16.233. 

Max Whitlock of Great Britain took silver. Lots of twisting. But, Max pulled out some bad ass flares and busted out some air flares, making it officially, the most interesting routine of the final. 15.566

Last. Mr. Pornstache, Tomas Gonzales of Chile.  He put his knees down on his first pasa and was taken out of the medals. Boo. We need some Pornstached Hipsters with eyebrow piercings, ala Kyle Shewfelt in the early 2000's with his Justin Timberlake frosted curls and that eyebrow piercing. That artistry was amazing. That's all. 14.733.

Pommel Horse and Rings had finals too. Rings, boring. My dog was getting in the trash, so I had to attend to that during rings final, sorry.

Pommel Horse. Max Whitlock won the gold medal.  I'm heavily biased to think his was the best, because his was the only routine that I wasn't tempted to check my Twitter during. I miss the days of Kurt Thomas and his flares. I'm just not interested in pommels unless the men can get 180 degree splits. Louis Smith got the silver. Damn, he's a sexy man.  I don't care what he does, he's just hot.  Japan's Kazuma Kaya tied with the Armenian, Harutyun Medinyan for bronze. Finally, Armenia does not have to be synonymous with the Kardashians anymore.  FYI - little Seda of Russia is also of Armenian descent. 

Here are the rings medalists:

1 226 PETROUNIAS Eleftherios GRE 6.800 9.000 15.800 1 4 

2 158 YOU Hao CHN 7.000 8.733 15.733 7 3 

3 156 LIU Yang CHN 6.900 8.800 15.700 2 6

Tomorrow: Women's beam and floor, Men's vault, parallel bars and high bar.  Expect Afan resting bitchface and a beam showdown between Simone, Vika and everyone else.