Vanessa Ferrari

It’s been a rocky road back for three-time Olympian Vanessa Ferrari in the couple of years since the Rio Games, but in her first competition since rupturing her Achilles at world championships in 2017, the Italian superstar is back and looking ready to fight for a fourth Olympic berth after winning gold on floor in Melbourne this weekend, while Zhao Shiting carried on the Chinese beam legacy with her gold on that event.

The beam final was actually much stronger than qualifications, with only two athletes falling, and most performers improving a great deal on what they showed on Friday. Zhao’s routine was especially outstanding, showing a great layout series, a perfectly connected front aerial to split jump to Korbut series, and a beautiful switch ring to put up a 13.566. Aside from a few small adjustments, this was a wonderful routine and what better way to start out your senior career than a world cup gold?

Australia’s Emma Nedov came in a close second here, earning a 13.5 after looking super solid on her layout series and a lovely front aerial to split jump to sissone in addition to putting up a really strong double pike dismount. I’m really happy to see her more or less back at full strength here after struggling over the past couple of years, and hope she can continue stepping it up as a leader of this program.

Coming in for the bronze was Mana Oguchi of Japan, who had an excellent front tuck mount to start before showing mostly good work throughout both her dance elements and acro skills, with especially nice toe point throughout, and she looked thrilled with her performance after hitting her front layout full dismount, finishing up with a 13.066.

Elena Chipizubov of Australia came close to the podium in her senior debut, earning a 13.033 with some very promising work throughout her routine, nailing her layout series and a gorgeous front aerial to split jump to back tuck. She had a couple of wobbles throughout, including one especially big one on her punch front tuck, but she seemed confident overall and should have a bright future on the Australian team.

The rest of the routines here were either a bit weaker overall or just had a few too many mistakes to keep up with the rest, with Lai Pin-Ju of Chinese Taipei finishing fifth with a 12.433, Eom Dohyun of South Korea finishing sixth with a 12.400, Valeriia Osipova of Ukraine finishing seventh with an 11.233, and Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan finishing eighth with a 10.533.

Lai and Eom both hit their routines with really strong work, just missing the occasional form on certain skills in addition to making minor mistakes throughout, while Osipova had a few stumbles and then had a fall at the end of her otherwise gorgeous switch leap to split leap to tour jeté half series, and Chusovitina was great on her front pike mount, but then fell on her subsequent punch front pike and again on her layout series.

In the floor final, Ferrari brought both the biggest and cleanest tumbling to get the win by over a point with a 13.600 total. She had some leg separation in her double layout, and there were some minor landing deductions throughout, but she looked strong and solid throughout, and her ring shape in some of her leaps looked especially improved. She looks much better now than she did in her last-minute attempt to make it to worlds in 2017, and though she missed beam in qualifications here, she seems to be in overall great shape there as well.

Paula Mejias of Puerto Rico had a fantastic routine to take the silver medal with a 12.533, hitting a solid 2½ to punch front, arabian double front, and a stuck whip to double tuck, really going after the landings on everything in addition to getting in some big dance elements, like a switch leap to tour jeté full.

The bronze ended up going to Zhao, who sat the double tuck in her third pass, but overall she showed some strong work on her triple full, 2½ to punch front, and double full. This final was kind of a disaster, with nearly everyone else falling, so Zhao was able to use her otherwise solid execution and higher difficulty to still wind up with a medal, and when she gets the hang of her form and landings a bit better, she could be a shoo-in for future Chinese teams.

Also competing in the final were Nedov in fourth with an 11.833 after sitting the double pike at the end of her routine, Lai in fifth with an 11.733 for a hit routine that just had some wonky landings and several out-of-bounds penalties, Osipova in sixth with an 11.633 after falling on the double pike in her final pass, Aida Bauyrzhanova of Kazakhstan in seventh with an 11.000 after sitting her 1½, and Ting Hua-Tien of Chinese Taipei in eighth with a 10.566 after falls on her double tuck and double pike.

I absolutely loved the men’s vault podium, which saw Igor Radivilov take the gold with two of the best vaults I’ve ever seen him do, including a stuck landing on his Dragulescu and a really solid finish to his tsuk double pike, averaging a 14.949. Loris Frasca of France was also really clean, winning the silver with a 14.900 for his kaz double full and just a small step on his Dragulescu, while Dominick Cunningham of Great Britain got his second bronze of the week, landing his Yurchenko half-on front layout double full and his Yurchenko triple very well for a 14.749.

Hidenobu Yonekura of Japan came in with the highest difficulty, but he was pretty messy on both his kaz 2½ and on his handspring Randi, both of which also had weak landings, putting him fourth with a 14.579. Shin Jea-hwan of South Korea was fifth with a 14.566 with two decent attempts, Christopher Remkes of Australia was sixth with a 14.083 after a decent Dragulescu but then a crashed tsuk double pike, Kim Han-sol of South Korea was seventh with a 13.999 after falling on his Randi, though his kaz 1½ was great, and Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan was eighth with a 13.583 after sitting his Roche and then wobbling the landing of his kaz 1½.

The parallel bars gold went to You Hao of China, whose monstrously difficult salto-filled routine earned a 15.066. I actually preferred the work we saw from Ahmet Önder of Turkey, who was tight and clean overall, but his difficulty held him back to the silver medal with a 14.633, and his teammate Ferhat Arican picked up the bronze with a 14.366, looking shaky throughout but impressive nonetheless.

Mitchell Morgans of Australia came in a close fourth with a 14.200 for his really clean routine, Hibiki Arayashiki of Japan was fifth with a 14.066 with a couple of saves on some pirouette elements, Mikhail Koudinov of New Zealand had an excellent routine until he stumbled back and sat his double pike dismount, finishing sixth with a 12.933, and we saw falls from Kazakhstan’s Akim Mussayev and Japan’s Tomomasa Hasegawa, who finished seventh and eighth with scores of 12.266 and 11.466, respectively.

Finishing up the day on high bar, Hidetaka Miyachi of Japan and Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands matched each other’s score of 14.733, but Zonderland was super messy with his leg form throughout, and so Miyachi ended up taking the gold to Zonderland’s silver, with Miyachi doing especially nice work on his many releases before flaring out a full-in double layout to finish.

The bronze here went to Zhang Chenlong of China, who posted a 14.333 for some form issues throughout, especially on his layout Kovacs and in his double double layout dismount, which was a bit short with a big hop forward, though his difficulty allowed him to bump ahead of the two Australians who were excellent in this final, with Morgans finishing fourth with a 14.033 and Tyson Bull ending up fifth with a 13.966.

Rounding out the field were Ahmet Önder in sixth with a 13.900 for his solid but simpler routine, Tin Srbic of Croatia in seventh with a 13.266 after he missed the handstand out of his first skill, the stalder Tkachev, though he came back with an otherwise incredible set, especially with his Tkachev to layout Tkachev to straddle Tkachev half; and Karimi in eighth with a 12.200, falling hard on his Cassina in addition to a few other form errors throughout, though I was happy to see his progress on this event overall and hope to see him hitting it well in the future.

You can find all of our Melbourne World Cup coverage – including live blogs, recaps, and results – here. Next up on the FIG calendar is the first of the all-around world cups next weekend with the American Cup in Greensboro, North Carolina, while next in the apparatus series is the Baku World Cup beginning March 14.

Article by Lauren Hopkins