How did the apparatus world cup series qualifiers do?

[RAFIKI]

Now that the process is over I thought it would be interesting to reflect on this. Did it work? Did you enjoy it?

WAG
VT: Jade Carey - Made EF and came the flukiest 8th ever.
UB: Fan Yilin (CHN) - Made EF and came 7th after sitting down her dismount.
BB: Urara Ashikawa - Qualified as first reserve, got in to EF via Iordache injury and came 6th.
FX: Jade Carey/Vanessa Ferrari/Lara Mori depending on your POV - the record will show Mori as the winner and she qualified in 19th (13th after 2per). Those who finished above her in the series won gold and silver

MAG
FX: Rayderley Zapata - Made EF and won silver in a tiebreak for first. Dolgopyat (gold) was the series winner but he qualified as an event finalist at 2019 worlds.
PH: Kameyama Kohei - Made EF and came 5th. Lee (silver) was the series winner but he was on the qualifying TPE team.
SR: Eleftherios Petrounias - Made EF and won bronze.
VT: Shin Jae Hwan - Made EF and won gold in a tiebreak for first. Radilov (14th, 12th after 2per) was the series winner but he was on the qualifying UKR team.
PB: You Hao - Made EF and came 4th.
HB: Epke Zonderland - Qualified in 23rd (19th after 2per)

8/10 competed in their respective event final and 3/10 won a medal.

(apologies if there are any mistakes, I was up all night watching athletics and skateboarding)

 

[makam]

I think that shows the world cup series had some value in qualifying people to the Olympics. Not sure what the next Olympics qualifications are other than 5 person teams, but they should definitely look into ways of keeping this route open and possibly expanding it. Top 2 or 3 finishers if they haven’t qualified elsewhere or something.

 

[RAFIKI]

Until I put this together I hadn’t realised that Andrade came second on bars and beam. She is such a balanced AAder.

 

[irichluck21]

I would be ok with some sort of World Cup qualification system for event specialists. However, if it is truly for event specialists, then they should only be able to compete on the event that they qualified for and not the all around.
Also it should be limited to 1 per country if there is a full team qualified and if not then 2 per country.

 

[KristyJ]

I actually loved watching everyone getting to compete all-around if they wished to. I feel like that makes for a more balanced sport in the long run, and you get surprises like Jade.

In the future it would be nice if the World Cup can continue to be a route for qualification but not be as oddly strict about the nominative aspects of the qualification. Perhaps it can serve as a route if your nation has not already maxed out allotments or somesuch, instead of forcing situations like the Jade one.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Limiting them to the qualifying event/s seems like the most pointless thing. They’re at the Olympics anyway, there’s no guarantee you’re even going to save any competition time by doing it and you could easily end up with another Carey situation where someone is also a competitive AAer, but you’re sitting them out on principle. What benefit is there to that?

 

[makam]

Yeah, extra gymnasts competing isn’t the driver of the length of recent competitions, it is how long the judges take to calculate the damn score and resolve any challenges.

 

[ucrgirl]

I actually loved watching everyone getting to compete all-around if they wished to. I feel like that makes for a more balanced sport in the long run, and you get surprises like Jade.

Yes. It felt so much more fair and true to the spirit of the Olympics.

 

[irichluck21]

They did not qualify as an “all arounder” though. They qualified as an “event specialist”. Therefore they shouldn’t be doing the all around, just the event they specialize on.

Carey was literally the only one to do the all around, none of the other specialist MAG or WAG did AA.

At the time Carey went after the specialist route she was not an all arounder and only just started doing bars that same year. She was never going to factor in to a 4 person team back then. Her progress on bars and beam benefitted greatly from the pandemic.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

None of this makes the idea any more sensible. The ‘therefore’ is particularly misplaced.

Everything would already be in place for these athletes to do AA if they wanted to. If most of them won’t bother anyway, the case for a rule gets even weaker. You’re talking about denying people an opportunity, for the sake of some abstract principle?! At absolute best it’s pointless, at worst it’s actively detrimental.

 

[makam]

And if Andrade had only been able to qualify through the WC route due to injury (had gotten enough events in to lockup a spot but still planning on qualifying through World Championships), should she have only competed VT and been like, well, too bad for me? And those who got their spots through the World Championship EFs, should they have only competed their best events even if they are a decent AA gymnast?

 

[Sanzhirovka]

Turkish MAG should have been allowed to compete as a team, too! It’s a loophope, but valid!

 

[irichluck21]

I just fail to see how “event specialist” translates into “just kidding, I will do all around”.

 

[makam]

Maybe it is more “I’ll qualify any way I possibly can” than “I’m only good at one thing so why would I do other things”. Absolutely don’t require they compete AA (like, Chuso, just let the woman vault), but if they want to compete AA, leave the option there. If Andrade had been at 2019 Worlds and gotten the single AA spot ahead of Flavia (assuming that Brazil still didn’t qualify a team), then Flavia still would have been in because of her BB EF. But should she only have done BB at the Olympics or would we be thrilled to see her do FX (uninjured, obvs)? She also made EFs in FX in 2019 but if her qualification passport says “you qualified through BB EFs, you only get to do that” would that be fair?

Jade could have won either the VT or the FX, so should she only be allowed to compete the one she actually won? If you let her do both, why not the other two events if she wants?

Maybe they need to have minimum scores because you aren’t wrong that it is kinda a waste of time to watch someone get a perfect 10 on UB when they qualified through vault EFs or whatever, but currently, you’d harm gymnasts without any mechanism to have exceptions. Benefit to the gymnasts and all that.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I fail to see why that matters in the slightest. You are potentially restricting athletes and causing great disappointment, to achieve absolutely no benefit. Why?

 

[KathySantoni]

I think AA should be encouraged by any means necessary. The more AA’ers the better.

I could only imagine the meltdown on this board (Irichluck21 especially) if they had implemented a no AA rule for Tokyo and Skinner had competed in the AA final.

 

[irichluck21]

I could only imagine the meltdown on this board (Irichluck21 especially) if they had implemented a no AA rule for Tokyo and Skinner had competed in the AA final.

Thank you for being extremely petty and singling me out.

 

[irichluck21]

I fail to see why that matters in the slightest. You are potentially restricting athletes and causing great disappointment, to achieve absolutely no benefit. Why?

Then it really isn’t “event specialist” if they can do all around.

What is the purpose of having a World Cup for Apparatus?

There was also a World Cup for AA purposes.

I guess it won’t matter since it is going back to the old way for Paris.

 

[KristyJ]

I think the purpose of the event WC is there to make sure those best on the event get to go. BUT that doesn’t mean they are bad at the other events. If a true single event specialist wants to qualify, they should need to be able to beat those who may or may not be better than them on the event who are trying to qualify, even if those others are also AAers.

 

[makam]

And the AA world cup was limited in who could participate. Like, Larisa and Rebeca couldn’t have qualified through it despite being generally amazing AA gymnasts.