Xiao Ruoteng

Xiao Ruoteng, the 2017 world all-around champion who helped his team to gold in Monday’s final, is back in tonight’s all-around competition, where he’ll hope to pick up his second straight win.

In qualifications, Xiao was impressive, looking flawless on all six events to top the field with an 87.332, about four tenths higher than he managed in last year’s win and three tenths ahead of Nikita Nagornyy of Russia, who was second after a practically perfect day of his own.

Xiao had some of the most unexpected errors in the team final earlier this week, falling on floor as the first athlete up and then missing his Liukin as the last man up on high bar after a frustrating competition for the Chinese men, a mistake that almost cost them the gold, but he was relieved to see Nagornyy make a mistake in his own routine moments later and walked away a champion.

As a leader on the Chinese team, Xiao was quick to chalk his teammates’ mistakes in the final up to being young, but he wasn’t quite so forgiving with his own. Xiao wants to get redemption in the all-around final, where he hopes to once again hit all six routines beautifully to defend his title and once again win the gold.

Unfortunately, the Russian men tend to buckle under pressure, and so while I’d personally love to see Nagornyy – who was phenomenal in qualifications with his super high difficulty routines – get the win here, I think Xiao’s cool and collected style will defeat him.

Nagornyy is still a medal threat even with mistakes, however, and I’d love to give his consistency the benefit of the doubt with how awesome he’s been at his last few meets. He has been such a surprise to see climbing the ranks internationally this year, going from tenth in last year’s all-around final and missing every event final in 2017 to now coming in as a threat for gold while qualifying for every final but p-bars and high bar.

I love that the team final came down to Xiao and Nagornyy on high bar, and hope the all-around final ends up coming close to that level of heart attack-inducing drama because as nerve-wracking as it was, it was one of the best finals I’ve attended and I’d love to see these two continue to bring the excitement to the arena here in Doha.

Sam Mikulak of the United States qualified in third last week, and I’ve been so excited with how well he’s been holding up at worlds this year, truly doing some of his best work over and over again to make himself a real threat not only for the podium, but for gold. Mikulak had a fall on pommels in the team final, but that aside, he’s been killer for the U.S. team.

He has a few guys on his trail, though, especially if he has a fall or two. One of those is Artur Dalaloyan, who fell on pommels in prelims to place fourth, though he still managed to edge out teammate David Belyavskiy for the second Russian spot. Like everyone else in this final, Dalaloyan wants to redeem himself for that fall and especially for his uncharacteristic p-bars fall in the team final, so we can expect big improvements from him to see him also becoming a contender for gold.

Sun Wei of China was a surprise into the final, two-per-country’ing out last year’s silver medalist, Lin Chaopan, who made a number of mistakes in prelims that held him down to seventh place. Sun was honestly a surprise on the Chinese team, to be honest, but as a relatively solid all-arounder this year, going up and hitting every routine is exactly what they needed him to do, and while I don’t see him as much of a threat here, if there are disasters from the top guys, he’s close enough for a surprise medal.

Last year’s bronze medalist Kenzo Shirai looks better than ever on his ‘weak’ events, aka pretty much everything that isn’t floor or vault, with especially nice improvements on p-bars and high bar. I’d love to see him in the mix again, but like some of the others ranked below him, he’d need to rely on mistakes from the top guys to pull it off.

Though he only qualified in a shocking 18th, we also can’t forget about Oleg Verniaiev. Just back from multiple surgeries last month, Verniaiev looked like he let the nerves get to him in prelims, making big mistakes on pommels and high bar while also fighting through a low-difficulty rings set due to his still-healing shoulder. I think with a fully solid set today, Verniaiev could probably challenge for the bronze or maybe something more if everyone else is a mess, but that could just be wishful thinking. Worlds this year was a last-minute push for the Ukrainian star, and a medal might be too much too fast, though I’d love to see him get close.

Outside of this top group, I’m excited for true all-arounders James Hall of Great Britain and Nestor Abad of Spain, and think both could get close. Kazuma Kaya is Japan’s second entry into the final, with some standout routines, though he doesn’t really have a complete enough all-around set to factor in. Caio Souza of Brazil and Brinn Bevan of Great Britain both made multiple mistakes in prelims and can be expected to build on that for big performances here, and 18-year-old Carlos Edriel Yulo of the Philippines was the fan favorite in prelims who surprised with his perfect execution and huge difficulty on floor and vault, so I’d love to see him hit high bar tonight and make the top ten.

Also competing will be the young Turkish standouts Ahmet Önder and Ferhat Arican, Swiss gymnasts Pablo Brägger and Oliver Hegi, both of whom sadly missed the high bar final with mistakes there, Lukas Dauser and Marcel Nguyen of Germany, the super tidy Yul Moldauer of the United States, Andrei Muntean of Romania, Park Min-soo of South Korea, and fan favorite Marios Georgiou of Cyprus, who squeaked into the final just one one-hundredth ahead of the first reserve.

After suffering an abdominal strain in qualifications, René Cournoyer of Canada tried to recover in time for the all-around final, but wasn’t able to get there and ended up withdrawing yesterday. Artur Davtyan of Armenia, the first reserve, will take his place.

The final will begin at 4 pm in Doha (9 am ET) and you can watch live on FIG’s YouTube channel.