2016 Olympic alternate Luo Huan surprised in Wuhan this week when she became the national champion for China in the all-around and on the uneven bars.

Luo, 17, led the all-around qualifications and then repeated that performance to hit all four events in finals to take the title a point ahead of junior Chen Yile, who won the silver with a 53.200, while first-year senior Liu Jingxing won the bronze with a 52.700.

In addition to her two steady days of all-around competition, Luo hit an excellent bars set in that final, earning a 14.533 to win the gold over several talented bars gymnasts, and she then placed sixth on beam with some mistakes, and fourth on floor with her simple but solid performance.

Chen wasn’t at her best today, but the majority of her skills looked super polished, and given her young age and lack of experience, she showed a tremendous performance to come in as second best in the country, while her Guangdong teammate Liu was solid across all four events in her own bronze-winning performance while also getting the bronze for a steady set on floor. With some difficulty boosts, Liu could be a good alternate option, especially with so many retirements coming this year, so I’m hoping we get to see more from her soon.

Liu Tingting, originally named to the 2016 Olympic team before she was forced to withdraw due to injury, finished third in qualifications and was the favorite to win the all-around title this year, but she ended up not competing in the all-around final due to a lingering injury that prevented her from doing as well as she hoped. She was a favorite to win this competition, but instead is focusing on getting healthy for worlds, a smart decision with bigger goals in mind.

Even though she skipped out on the all-around, Liu performed in the floor final, getting the silver medal with a 13.1 for a performance that was very clean despite not being all that difficult. There’s definitely more she can do on this event, so her lower difficulty level was clearly a result of her holding back a bit, though she showed that in the future when at full strength, she’ll be someone who can absolutely contribute on what has sometimes been a tricky event for Team China.

Rounding out the top eight were junior Tang Xijing in fourth with a 52.500, Lu Yufei in fifth with a 51.850, Wang Cenyu in sixth with a 51.650, junior Du Siyu in seventh with a 51.600, and Zhang Jin in eighth with a 51.250. Du has an excellent bars set, and got the silver medal on the event with a 14.3, so while the rest of her events are a little behind at the moment, she’s still able to do well enough in an all-around competition thanks to this routine.

We also saw Mao Yi in her first performance back since the 2016 Olympic Games, but unfortunately she looked a little rough around the edges, placing 15th with a 47.200. She’s not at full difficulty and struggled through pretty much all of her routines, so hopefully she’s able to come back later this year with a little more oomph, but based on what we saw in Wuhan, she definitely won’t be in contention for any international spots this year.

Her Olympic teammate Shang Chunsong came back at a world cup a couple of months ago, but a scary fall on bars forced her to withdraw, and unfortunately, the same thing happened here. Shang qualified in eighth all-around with a 51.550 after a mostly rough day, though she showed glimpses of her old self with good work on beam and floor. But then in the final, she had a similar bars fall and wasn’t able to get back up and keep competing.

It wasn’t so serious that she couldn’t come back for the beam and floor finals, though! And she did a fantastic job in both, looking just a little off on beam, where she placed fifth with a 13.567, but she was miles ahead of the rest of the competition with her difficulty on floor, getting a 13.3 total with a few missteps on her landings, though her skill level alone there is more than enough of a reason for her to stick around for quite some time.

In the absence of Wang Yan in the final, limited by a foot injury, China’s second-in-command vaulter Liu Jinru won the gold on that event with a 14.483 average for her tsuk double and Rudi combo, her form just a little loose on both but for China, these vaults are huge and she could definitely earn some team spots in the future just for what she can do here.

Junior Qi Qi was the vault silver medalist with a 13.933 average for her excellent Yurchenko double and tsuk full, not bad for a 13-year-old, while fellow junior Yu Linmin was third with the same vaults for a 13.783, her form just a little weaker than her teammate’s.

Following Luo and Du on bars was 2016 Olympian and reigning world champion Fan Yilin, falling in her set to earn a 13.833 for bronze in her first performance since Rio. Fan looked a bit out of shape here on both days of competition, and her future in the sport seems questionable, though whether or not she ends up being a frontrunner for worlds this year, she’ll at least be around until the National Games, so she has a few months to get it together before then.

Zhu Xiaofang won the beam title with a 14.167 for her lovely routine, while junior Li Qi and first-year senior Li Hairuo shared the silver medal with each posting a 13.967. Li Qi was favored to win here with her super difficult and normally excellent set, but some uncharacteristic mistakes held her back, whereas Li Hairuo was incredibly clean on her simpler set.

Wang, who skipped the vault final and didn’t compete in floor in qualifications, ended up fourth with a mostly good set, one that could make her a solid leadoff in team competitions in the future should she continue making teams, while the others in this final — Shang, Luo, and Chen — all had mistakes, and Fan’s difficulty was just simply too low, though her routine itself was quite nice.

After Shang, Liu Tingting, and Liu Jingxing on the floor podium and Luo just a spot behind them was Li Qi with her hilarious NCAA-style routine earning a 12.633 for fifth. Her tumbling has lots of potential given her age, but her performance is so not typical of what we normally see from China, it was so funny to see her bringing something new to the table for them.

The only Rio team member who didn’t make a final here was Tan Jiaxin, who competed everything but beam, but was downgraded on all three and wasn’t able to contend with scores much lower than we’re used to seeing from her, especially on vault — where she just had a Yurchenko full — and bars.

We also saw 2014 world beam silver medalist Bai Yawen in qualifications on all but bars, and we saw 2013 world bars champion Huang Huidan on bars and beam, but like Tan, they’re both far behind the skill level we once saw them at, and they’ll probably end up retiring after National Games in the fall.

Full results from the competition are available here.

Article by Lauren Hopkins