In her second world cup of the season after also winning silver at last month’s American Cup, Mai Murakami took home the gold in front of a home crowd in Tokyo, winning the title a full two points ahead of the rest of the competition with solid work on all four events.

Beginning with an always excellent Yurchenko double on vault, Murakami then hit her bars with no major mistakes, earning a 13.700 with her clean toe-on to Maloney to Gienger as well as a big piked Jaeger and straddle Jaeger before finishing with a tidy full-in, showing just a couple short handstands throughout but overall looking great on the event.

On beam, she gave a controlled performance to earn another 13.700, and her floor showed the power, dynamics, and fantastic attention to detail on her landings that we’ve come to know and enjoy over the past few years, earning a 14.566 to help her to a 56.532 all-around total, her highest so far this quad.

Coming in for the silver medal was Trinity Thomas, making her major international debut here as a senior after representing the United States at Jesolo a few times in the past. Thomas started her day with a Yurchenko 1½, showing a ton of amplitude and beautiful form, but she had perhaps a bit too much energy, causing her to run forward out of it. She still managed a 14.033 there, and then added a 14.000 to her running total on bars, where her hop change to Weiler half to Maloney to clear hip full to Tkachev to Pak was incredibly impressive, and she almost stuck her double layout to cap off her excellent work.

Thomas pretty much sailed through her beam set, looking a tiny bit short on her double tuck dismount, but otherwise showing lovely work from skill to skill for a 13.100, and she posted the second-highest floor score of the day with a 13.400 after hitting her double layout with a little bounce before going on to come up a little low out of her 2½ to double tuck and then nailing her front layout to front double full to sissone and double pike to finish, tallying a 54.533 to complete her excellent day.

France’s Mélanie De Jesus Dos Santos went home with the bronze, stumbling back her DTY at the start of the competition to pick up a 14.066, but she came back with a lovely bars set, getting her Galate to Pak and Maloney to clear hip half to Ezhova before dismounting with a full-in double layout for a 14.033. De Jesus Dos Santos did some good work on beam, coming in as the second-highest scorer on the event with a 13.366, though she unfortunately made some costly mistakes on floor, landing her full-twisting double layout almost to her knees to get just a 12.533 for an all-around total of 53.998.

Also competing in Tokyo were Angelina Simakova of Russia, who earned a 53.732 in her senior debut to place fourth after a mostly good day; Elisabeth Seitz of Germany, who won the Stuttgart world cup silver a month prior and had the highest score on bars here but wasn’t quite strong enough on beam to end up in fifth with a 52.299; Aiko Sugihara of Japan in sixth with a 51.933 after showing a lovely Yurchenko 1½ and a clean bars set, though she had some mistakes on beam; and Victoria-Kayen Woo of Canada in seventh with a 48.465 for what was a relatively weak performance for her, including a couple of missed connections and a fall on bars.

In the men’s competition, Japanese standouts Kenzo Shirai and Wataru Tanigawa led the all-around, winning gold and silver with scores of 86.064 and 84.399, respectively. Shirai hit all six events with his top events being floor and vault, though he shows a continued improvement on his other events, especially parallel bars and high bar. Tanigawa, meanwhile, had a weak pommels set, but otherwise made it through his day successfully, showing an excellent vault while also looking strong on floor and rings.

The American Sam Mikulak won the bronze just a few tenths behind Tanigawa, hitting all six events well in his first international all-around competition back since Rio. Mikulak performed especially well on high bar, posting the top score of 14.500, and he broke the 14 mark on every event but pommels and rings, generally not his strongest events. It was a promising competition for the two-time Olympian, and we hope he can continue a strong season going forward to finally get some hardware at worlds.

The men’s field also saw Artur Dalaloyan of Russia fourth with an 81.464 after some struggles on pommels, vault, and high bar; Andreas Bretschneider of Germany in fifth with an 80.298; Yevgen Yudenkov of Ukraine in sixth with a 78.597; Alberto Tallon of Spain in seventh with a 76.731; and Jackson Payne of Canada in eighth with a 58.164.

Payne suffered a minor injury on floor and didn’t complete his exercise, receiving just a 4.066 there, and though he decided to continue with his meet, he was unable to perform more than the bare minimum of difficulty on most events, with his highest score of 12.866 coming on parallel bars.

Full results from the competition can be found here.

Article by Lauren Hopkins