How The Numbers Compare

A few weeks ago, I posted a post, Predicting The 2013 Podiums , where I took the season averages of the favorites in each event to be able to get a picture of how things stacked up prior to the event.  Of course, this isn't a perfect science, as domestic scoring can be a little funny and, it's gymnastics: anything can happen.  Now that World's are over, I'm going to go back to the averages and standings, and compare that to what actually happened!

All Around
Prediction
Gold: Simone Biles 60.32
Silver: Kyla Ross 59.63
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 58.927 
Fourth: Larisa Iordache 58.06
Fifth:  Giulia Steingruber 57.344 

Actual
Gold: Simone Biles 60.216
Silver: Kyla Ross 59.332
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 58.856
Fourth: Larisa Iordache 57.766
Fifth: Yao Jinnan 57.632

Wow, these predictions were actually pretty accurate!  Besides Giulia Steingruber, who placed 7, the results here were spot on, and the scores weren't too far off.  No one really thought that with her difficulty level, Kyla Ross would factor into the medal picture, but the numbers (and the competition itself!) proved those people wrong!

Vault
Prediction
Gold: McKayla Maroney 15.42
Silver: Simone Biles 15.41
Bronze: Giulia Steingruber 14.804 

Actual
Gold: McKayla Maroney 15.725
Silver: Simone Biles 15.595
Bronze: Hong Un Jong 15.483

While the numbers were well off, 2/3 of the podium were correct.  While the Maroney/Biles competition wasn't as close as it was built up to be, but it was just as intense!  With Biles and Maroney the last two to go up, and then for Biles to nail both her vaults as amazing as we've seen from her, to Maroney going up and just hitting her vaults right after Biles, it was intense!  When I ran the numbers, I believe Hong Un Jong had the 4th highest score, so it wasn't too far off, but Giulia was incredible as well, hitting both of her vaults at the beginning of the final, then being knocked out of contention by the last 3 vaulters.

Bars
Prediction 
Gold: Yao Jinnan 15.433
Silver: Kyla Ross 15.389
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 15.211

Actual
Gold: Huang Huidan 15.4
Silver: Kyla Ross 15.266
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 15.033

So many people doubted that Kyla Ross could possibly beat Mustafina on bars when I originally posted it!  However, when the green light went up, Kyla Ross performed better than Aliya Mustafina when it counted.  No one really expected that Huang Huidan would even make make bars finals, as Yao Jinnan and Shang Chunsong were expected to qualify over her.  No one expected Yao Jinnan to fall either, but that's gymnastics.

Beam
Prediction
Gold: Larisa Iordache 15.48
Silver: Kyla Ross 14.836
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 14.633

Actual
Gold: Aliya Mustafina 14.9
Silver: Kyla Ross 14.833
Bronze: Simone Biles 14.333

This podium isn't as exact as the others, which just goes to show how unpredictable gymnastics really is.  No one expected Larisa to fall and no one expected Mustafina to win.  This final will forever been known as the Beam Finals of Inquiries.  I feel bad for Mustafina, because I fell like that's what people are going to remember about this final, not that fact that Mustafina won gold on her weakest, most inconsistent event, beating the favorite by a hefty margin.

Floor
Prediction
Gold: McKayla Maroney
Silver: Simone Biles
Bronze: Larisa Iordache

Actual
Gold: Simone Biles 15.0
Silver: Vanessa Ferrari 14.633
Bronze: Larisa Iordache 14.6

Wow, who would've thought going in that Kyla Ross would beat McKayla Maroney on floor and Maroney wouldn't qualify?  I'm so happy for Vanessa Ferrari, she's been waiting for this medal for SO long!  I totally disagree with Iordache's score, she performed so well and I believe it should've been higher.  Simone has been so amazing during this week, definitely proved herself as the one to beat for the next year with 2 golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze!

There we go!  I'm not going to lie, some of the predictions were closer than I thought they would be!  It's been an amazing week, and I can't wait for next time!

If "So and So" Made the USA World's Team

Qualifications took place today and The USA has 2 women in every final!  The USA Women had an outstanding day, with Simone Biles qualifying to all the finals, Kyla Ross qualifying into the AA, UB,BB, and FX finals, and McKayla Maroney qualifying into the VT finals (and the AA and the FX....I HATE THE TWO PER COUNTRY RULE!..but I digress,)!  In the weeks prior to the championships, there has been many speculation about who should take the fourth spot, which was ultimately unused, after Marta scratched Brenna Dowell to allow McKayla Maroney to compete in the AA.  So now that we know who qualified into each final, I wanted to take the bars and beam scores of the rest of the National Team to see if they would have skewed the qualifications for the US team, to see if Marta made the right choice.

Brenna Dowell
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 14.7 (City Of Jesolo)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: 13.85 (P&G Championships Day 2)

Kennedy Baker
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 13.55 (Secret Classic)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: 14.65 (P&G Championships Day 2)

Peyton Ernst
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 14.8 (USA-GER-ROM Tri Meet)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: 14.9 (P&G Championships Day 2)

Maggie Nichols
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 14.15 (P&G Championships Day 2)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: 14.5 (P&G Championships Day 2)

Elizabeth Price
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 14.8 (P&G Championships Day 2)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: N/A (I'm not sure how Elizabeth was scoring at camp)

MyKayla Skinner
Highest Score on UB in 2013: 13.55 ( P&G Championships Day 2)
Highest Score on BB in 2013: 14.25 (P&G Championships Day 2)

If Peyton Ernst made the US World's Team, she would've tied Simone Biles for the 2nd American UB finals, but would've won the tiebreaker due to a higher execution.

If Peyton Ernst made the US World's Team, she would've beaten Shang Chunsong for the second qualifying spot.

*All pictures property of usagym.org *

World's Wish List

I woke up this morning and it was World's!  World's started at 4 AM this morning and it's been an eventful morning!  King Kohei seems poised to carry his winning streak into this quad and the men's field is very deep considering the injuries on the women's side.  Much like I did last year, I am writing my World's Wishlist!  Let me know what you agree with!

Getty Images

1. Success for Maroney

Sometimes I feel like the only one that's happy that McKayla is doing AA.  Let me restate that, I'm happy McKayla is getting this opportunity but I hate the way it was executed by Marta.  She shouldn't have strung Brenna along like that and I feel so bad for her, but I'm excited for McKayla.  Marta is looking ahead to Rio, and this year really is the perfect for Maroney to get international experience in the AA.  I want Maroney to hit her sets, and just prove to everyone that she's not a 1 trick pony.

USA Gym and The Examiner

2. An Intense Fight for the AA Title

In sports, blowout wins are fun for about 2 minutes, then it gets boring.  The close competitions are the ones you can watch over and over easier than the blowouts.  I really loved watching the 2011 World All Around Final and I've watched that one more times than the 2010 World All Around Final, just because of how intense it was!  The clear favorites are obviously Simone Biles of the US and Aliya Mustafina of Russia, and here's hoping it's a close race for the top of the podium!

Gym Wiki

3. For Hong Un Jong to NOT to Throw the TTY

I have nothing against Hong Un Jong and I don't really care who gets the TTY named after them, but I hope for Jong's safety that she doesn't throw it!  Her Amanars have really scared me recently because she is not rotating enough and I can not see her getting a extra half twist in that vault.  I see a scary knee injury in her future, and I don't want her to get hurt.

International Gymnast Magazine

4. Larisa Iordache To Rock It

I have a soft spot for Larisa because she reminds me of old-school Romanians that I miss so much!  I feel so bad that she was so hyped up and then had a bad Olympics due to injury.  I really hope she can prove herself this year.  So many people have written her out for the AA podium, and I hope she can prove those of people wrong.

Sam Mikulak

5. Success for the US Men

USA has been known as a women's powerhouse for quite some time, and the men haven't had the same success that the women have.  I hope that they can have a breakthrough year and come home with some hardware.  Also, I hope they start something they can build on for the quad to come!

Getty Images

6. Diversity
The sport has obviously been controlled by the "Big 4" superpowers for some time now and one of the best things about the year after the Olympics is some of the other countries get a share of the medals also!  It's pretty common knowledge that I'm a HUGE Victoria Moors fan, and would love it for her to make the AA final (she was placed in the vault lineup earlier today) and a floor medal!  Her upgraded set included a DDLO and I hope she can find her way onto the floor podium!  Also, Yamilet Pena's vaulting is improved and if she lands it, I hope she can make the posium there!  All in all, it's a great year for some adversity among the medalists, so I hope we see some of that thi year!

International Gymnast Magazine

7. A Safe Healthy Competition For All

The lead up to World's this year has been filled with injuries.  Some of the bests in the world are sitting on the sidelines with injuries, especially on the Russian front.  Here's hoping all of the injuries are out of the way and the gymnasts who have survived to make it to Antwerp all leave in the same number of pieces they came in!

My Opinion on the 2013 US World's Team

They US World's team was announced last night, as everyone knows... (Just a few examples)

The gymnasts selected ( as everyone also knows) was...

Simone Biles

Brenna Dowell

McKayla Maroney 

Kyla Ross

Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney and Kyla Ross were all givens going into the selection camp barring injury, and there were several contenders for the last spot, a UB/BB position, as Simone and Kyla are doing AA and McKayla is competing VT/FX.  I really love Brenna, but her best events are not bars and beam.  She excels on floor, and her amanar isn't as bad as we've seen before.  This year's world team, like every team, is a puzzle, and in my opinion, Brenna doesn't fit into this puzzle.  Maybe this is my bias for Peyton Ernst coming through, but I believe she, Abby Millet or Elizabeth Price would've made a better fit on the team this year, especially Peyton or Abby for experience for a team final setting next year, as both of them have very little international experience.  I believe they fit into this puzzle better than Brenna Dowell.  

Regardless, I think this is a really strong team that'll be really successful in Antwerp.  Congrats to all the girls!

Predicting The 2013 Podiums

If you've been reading my blog a while, you know that I love to use scores to analyze and speculate.  So, I thought it would be fun to use the nominative lists and average the top 3 scores from the this season of the top All Arounders and top 5 for each event, this way placings are not messed up due to an outstanding meet.  *Note: I understand the nominative lists are NOT official, and I will not be using anyone who has been confirmed that they will not compete.*

All Around
Gold: Simone Biles 60.32
Silver: Kyla Ross 59.63
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 58.927
Fourth: Larisa Iordache 58.06
Fifth:  Giulia Steingruber 57.344

This is an interesting podium.  It is interesting to note, however, that scores were used from domestic meets, which skews with the averages as some domestic scores are inflated and others are reduced.  Personally, I wouldn't mind this podium, although I would love to Iordache on the podium.

Vault
Gold: McKayla Maroney 15.42
Silver: Simone Biles 15.41
Bronze: Giulia Steingruber 14.804

I really like this podium honestly.  Also note other medal contenders have not competed 3 times this year, so I could not find 3 scores to average, so this may not be close to how it plays out in Antwerp.  Also, on average, I didn't realize Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney were .1 apart.  The vault final this year should be really interesting.

Bars
Gold: Yao Jinnan 15.389
Silver: Kyla Ross 15.433
Bronze: Aliya Mustafina 15.211

Looking at this podium, it's weird.  Aliya Mustafina, the Olympic Champion in bronze, getting beaten by Kyla Ross?  Not many people would've predicted that.  In fact, many said if Kyla was to place, the favorites would have to make mistakes due to her difficulty, however here she is in silver.  Again, home scoring comes into play, but we'll see come Antwerp.

Beam
Gold: Larisa Iordache 15.480
Silver: Kyla Ross 14.867
Bronze:  Aliya Mustafina 14.633

There is no surprise here that Larisa Iordache is on top of the podium here.  As the two Chinese Olympic medallists here have both sadly moved on, she currently holds the second highest beam score of the year, behind only Katelyn Ohashi, who has been out most of this year with a shoulder injury.  Again, we see Kyla Ross on top of Aliya Mustafina, a recurring theme here based off of yearly averages.  Again, home scoring is involved, and may be a little skewed, but it all depends on who hits their set that day.

Floor
Gold: McKayla Maroney 15.12
Silver: Simone Biles 14.97
Bronze: Larisa Iordache 14.9

Wow podium is SO close!  Of course, the obvious question is "Where's Sandra?"  We haven't seen her much this season, and I couldn't find scores for her.  It is SO close between Simone Biles and Larisa Iordache, while Maroney holds a .2 lead over them, which is equivalent to 2 minor landing deductions.  This is going to be a REALLY close and interesting final!

So there are season averages for the top rated athletes in the world.  Of course, this is only top 3 scores and anything can happen, so take these averages with a grain of salt.  It will all depend on who hits her sets on the day it all matters.  I would like to give a HUGE thank you to Uncle Tim who has a great list of top scores, where I got a lot of my information from, so thank you Uncle Tim!

Using the Rejected Vault Code

The 2013-2016 Code was supposed to include big changes to the Vault Final scoring.  As opposed to Vault 1 Difficulty and Execution + Vault 2 Difficulty and Execution, scores were supposed to be determined using the formula, Difficulty of Vault 1/2 + Difficulty of Vault 2/2+ [10- (Deductions of Vault 1 + Deductions of Vault 2)].  This equation puts a greater emphasis on execution, so I decided to use this equation to alter the 2012 Olympic Vault Final and 2011 Worlds Vault Final.

2012 Olympic Vault Final
 Sandra Izbasa: Original Average 15.191
6.1/2+5.8/2+[10-(.717+.8)]
3.05+2.9+(10-1.517)
5.95+8.483
New Score- 14.433
Place
Old: 1
New:1

McKayla Maroney: Original Average 15.083
6.5/2+6.1/2+[10-(.334+1.8)]
3.25=3.05+(10-2.134)
6.3+7.866
14.166-.3
New Score- 13.866
Place
Old: 2
New: 4

Maria Paseka: Original Average 15.050
6.5/2+5.6/2+[10-(1.1+.9)]
3.25+2.8+(10-2)
6.05+8
New Score- 14.05
Place
Old: 3
New: 2

Janine Berger: Original Average 15.016
6.3/2+6/2+[10-(1.167+1.1)]
3.15+3+(10-2.267)
6.15+7.733
New Score- 13.883
Place
Old: 4
New 3

Oksana Chusovitina: Original Average 14.783
6.3/2+5.5/2+[10-(1.2+1.034)]
3.15+2.75+(10-2.234)
5.9+7.66
New Score- 13.666
Place
Old: 5
New 5

Yamilet Pena: Original Average 14.516
7.1/2+5.8+[10-(2.434+1.334)]
3.55+2.9+(10-3.768)
6.45+6.232
12.686-.1
New Score- 12.586
Place
Old: 6
New: 7

Brittany Rodgers: Original Average 14.483
5.8/2+5.6/2+[10-(1.034+1.4)]
2.9+2.8+(10-2.434)
5.7+7.566
New Score- 13.266
Place
Old: 7
New: 6

I did not do Ellie Black's average, for obvious, sad reasons.
New Placings
Izbasa
Paseka
Berger
Maroney
Chusovitina
Rodgers
Pena
Black

As you can see here, the biggest change is Maroney dropping from a silver medal to fourth.  Also, Pena dropped only one spot, the result of sitting down her Produnova.  This system, as you can clearly see here, shows that if you go for the difficulty, you better be able to do it well.

2011 Worlds Vault Final
McKayla Maroney: Original Average 15.3
6.5/2+5.6/2+[10-(.7+.8)]
3.25+2.8+(10-1.5)
6.05+8.5
New Score- 14.55
Place
Old: 1
New:

Oksana Chusovitina: Original Average 14.733
6.3/2+5.5/2+[10-(1.234+1.1)]
3.15+2.75+(10-2.334)
5.9+7.666
New Score- 13.566
Place
Old: 2
New:

Phan Thi Ha Thanh: Original Average 14.666
5.9/2+5.8/2+[10-(1.3+1.067)]
2.95+2.9+(10-2.367)
5.85+7.633
New Score- 13.483
Place
Old: 3
New:

Jade Barbosa: Original Average 14.566
5.8/2+5.6/2+[10-(.934+1.334)]
2.9+2.8+(10-2.268)
5.7+7.731
New Score- 13.432
Place
Old: 4
New:

Gulia Steingruber: Original Average 14.450
6.3/2+5.2/2+[10-(1.4+1.2)]
3.15+2.6+(10-2.6)
5.75+7.4
New Score- 13.15
Place
Old: 5
New:

Tatiana Nabieva: Original Average: 14.349
5.8/2+5.2/2+[10-(1.234+1.067)]
2.9+2.6+(10-2.301)
5.5+7.699
New Score- 13.199
Place
Old: 6
New:

Alexa Moreno: Original Average 14.216
6.3/2+5.2/2+[10-(1.567+1.5)]
3.15+2.6+(10-3.067)
5.75+6.933
New Score- 12.683
Place
Old: 8
New:

I also did not include Pena because she scored a 0 on her second vault.
Placings
Maroney
Chusovitina
Phan
Barbosa
Nabieva
Steingruber
Moreno
Pena

There is only one change here, which surprised me.  Tatiana Nabieva scored higher here than Gulia Steingruber.  Once again, this goes to show that in this system, execution is weighted higher than difficulty.

 Personally, I think while it looks confusing, this system is better than simple averages.  I like the way it weighs safe, clean gymnastics higher than terrifying high difficulty vaults.  If this system was implemented, we would see less chucked vaults, make the vault final MUCH more aesthetically pleasing.

My Current US World Championships Team

With the National Championships come and gone (I missed day 2 and just watched it yesterday) and World Championship selection camps coming up soon, I wanted to share who I believe will be competing in Antwerp.  I am basing this off of performance at Classics, Nationals, as well as what the selection committee is looking at, "results from the P&G; Championships; hit consistency and results from past international and national; competitions; D-scores for difficulty, and E-scores for execution; consistency; medal; potential; composition of individual strengths among the team members; readiness to; compete; etc." (via. USA Gymnastics) 

Simone Biles (AA):  I feel as though this is kinda obvious.  2013 US National Champion.  She has shown that she can come back from a bad meet and posted above the magical 60 in all around competition this year and has improved with every competition.  A lot of people have high expectations for her first major international competition, myself included, and will be one to watch come Worlds.

Peyton Ernst (UB/BB):  Peyton is the only member of my team that other people disagree with.  Although she struggled at nationals, I believed she has proved herself during her previous international assignments earlier this year (she was a part of the European tour team and competed at the Tokyo World Cup, making her relatively experienced compared to the rest of those invited to the Selection Camp.  when she hits, she has a stellar beam routine, and a above average bar routine, with beautiful lines that stand out in domestic competitions.  I believe she fills a hole in this team better than anyone else in the selection process.               

McKayla Maroney (VT/FX):  Another who is potentially a lock.  Her vaulting is superior to everyone in the world, and while I always thought she was a great floor worker, I really LOVE her routine this year and all of her upgrades.  She is the big favorite in the vault EF, and I think she really can factor in on floor.

Kyla Ross (AA):  Another lock, Kyla is in the running for the AA title.  Although she doesn't have huge difficulty, her picture perfect execution makes up for it 100%.  I personally can't wait to see her in her first World Championships!