Carlos Yulo

As with the women’s quickie recap, I wanted to get into the basics of what happened in this 14 hour day of pure chaos that was the men’s qualification day, talking about who surprised to make finals, who didn’t, and the biggest misses for each medal event.

TEAM QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Japan 260.695
2. Great Britain 252.793
3. United States 252.295
4. China 249.929
5. Italy 247.661
6. Spain 245.594
7. Brazil 245.394
8. South Korea 244.093
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9. Germany 243.292
10. Canada 242.962
11. Turkey 242.828
12. Hungary 242.661
13. Netherlands 242.060
14. France 240.027
15. Egypt 239.026
16. Belgium 237.228
17. Taiwan 237.029
18. Kazakhstan 236.993
19. Romania 236.561
20. Switzerland 236.495
21. Ukraine 232.428
22. Australia 231.929
23. Colombia 231.261
24. Austria 230.427

What wasn’t surprising about this final? Even Japan absolutely dominating was kind of a surprise given that most of the athletes on this particular team struggle with consistency! Ultimately, while it was wild to see so many teams have massive mistakes – including Great Britain, the United States, and China, which was down over five points from what its B team scored at Asian Championships – these teams still qualified into the higher half of the final, albeit slightly out of order than what we may have anticipated.

I think I expected Italy to make it in, and probably also Brazil, assuming both had good days, so it was nice to see it work out for both. I also had good feelings about Spain based on how well they competed in qualifications at Euros, even if the team final didn’t work out as planned, but I felt like that last spot could have gone to anyone, and I guess in a way it did, as South Korea absolutely was not a definite for me after missing out in the last two world championships.

My favorite bubble teams were Canada, Turkey, and Hungary, which funnily enough ended up finishing three tenths apart from one another, each a little over a point back from the final – especially devastating knowing in those final moments where falls happened for Turkey on high bar and Hungary on vault. Still, were this the Olympic year, all three would have finished within the top 12 and qualified to Paris, so that’s a massive step in the right direction after they all missed out last quad.

I think I also expected a little more from France, because it’s France, but knowing that they’re dealing with injuries and weren’t at a hundred percent here, and Switzerland down in 20th was a massive shock – yes, they’ve lost a lot of veterans, but three of the gymnasts on the team that just finished fourth at Euros were in Liverpool, so their score dropping 7.5 points from a three-up three-count final was definitely not something I would have predicted. Finally, Taiwan was far beneath what they’re typically capable of, but with a few shake-ups on the team, I didn’t expect the top 12 to happen this year, let alone the final.

Otherwise, I’d say I wasn’t too blown away by anything, though was happy to see Egypt do so well, getting to 15th place – the best they’ve done since 1954! I got to see a lot of them on the stream today and was impressed with all of it.

ALL-AROUND QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Tanigawa Wataru, Japan, 84.731
2. Hashimoto Daiki, Japan, 84.665
3. Carlos Yulo, Philippines, 84.664
4. Joe Fraser, Great Britain, 83.964
5. Zhang Boheng, China, 83.766
6. Asher Hong, United States, 83.299
7. Joel Plata, Spain, 82.799
8. Brody Malone, United States, 82.631
9. Casimir Schmidt, Netherlands, 82.565
10. Caio Souza, Brazil, 82.564
11. Jake Jarman, Great Britain, 82.365
12. Diogo Soares, Brazil, 82.264
13. Ryu Sunghyun, South Korea, 81.930
14. Adem Asil, Turkey, 81.764
15. Illia Kovtun, Ukraine, 81.732
16. Yumin Abbadini, Italy, 81.532
17. Tang Chia-Hung, Taiwan, 80.698
18. Lukas Dauser, Germany, 80.431
19. Sofus Heggemsnes, Norway, 80.099
20. Krisztian Balazs, Hungary, 80.065
21. Jossimar Calvo, Colombia, 79.898
22. Luka van den Keybus, Belgium, 79.799
23. Gabriel Burtanete, Romania, 79.798
24. Lorenzo Casali, Italy, 79.765

R1. Nestor Abad, Spain, 79.698
R2. Omar Mohamed, Egypt, 79.531
R3. Mohamed Afify, Egypt, 79.531
R4. Krisztofer Meszaros, Hungary, 79.498

Since I expected this to be a battle between the reigning Olympic champion and the reigning world champion for gold, with everyone else fighting for bronze, of course my whole world came crashing down with Zhang’s struggles today, and then Hashimoto also falling on pommels at the start of his meet. I still think that if the two are hitting at their full potential, it’s going to come down to them as the top two, but it was nice to see that a few others were able to disturb their kingdom, even if just for today – though I do think Yulo, who struggled on pommels – is pretty much right at their level and after years as more of an apparatus standout who could also place well in the all-around, he’s now just a standout, period.

Tanigawa in first was almost laugh-out-loud funny to me. He finished seventh at nationals and eighth at the NHK Trophy, not high enough to qualify to the team automatically, so why wouldn’t he finish as the best in the world? It was interesting enough that he was going in as the second all-arounder along with Hashimoto when even the alternate for this team finished ahead of him at two domestic meets, so I have to hand it to the Japanese MAG program – they know what they’re doing I guess!

Hong qualifying as high as he did here was great, Asil and Kovtun qualified much lower than I thought, and it was a bummer to see Meszaros and Félix Dolci of Canada miss the final after a couple of falls – I for sure thought both would be in. Seeing France not qualify anyone was also not on my list, and China only getting one into the final after Sun Wei opted not to compete rings or p-bars due to an injury was another blow, but at least he took himself out by choice (though with how things were going for him today, he would have been close to not making it not by choice).

FLOOR QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Carlos Yulo, Philippines, 15.266
2. Doi Ryosuke, Japan, 14.766
3. Milad Karimi, Kazakhstan, 14.733
4. Giarnni Regini-Moran, Great Britain, 14.533
5. Zhang Boheng, China, 14.500
6. Ryu Sunghyun, South Korea, 14.466
7. Hashimoto Daiki, Japan, 14.466
8. Nicola Bartolini, Japan, 14.300

R1. Benjamin Osberger, France, 14.266
R2. Aurel Benovic, Croatia, 14.266
R3. Kim Hansol, South Korea, 14.266

No surprises for who made it in – all of these guys are world-class floor workers and belong on this list! It’s a stacked field, and I had Benovic on my shortlist as well, but it was nice to see that he got close even if it didn’t work out.

I was definitely hoping Donnell Whittenburg of the United States could have a chance, and though he got close – 18th place – his execution was just about three tenths behind where it needed to be. The 2020 Olympic champion and silver medalist Artem Dolgopyat and Rayderley Zapata not getting in was a surprise – I didn’t see Zapata’s routine, but Dolgopyat’s was rough, holding him far back in the standings. Jake Jarman was a big hopeful with his massive difficulty, but fell short with a weak performance, while Illia Kovtun and Sun Wei both struggled as well.

Everyone else I would’ve liked to see in the final for purely aesthetic reasons was just too far behind difficulty-wise in a field like this, but kudos especially to Osberger, Krisztofer Meszaros, Tang Chia-Hung, Arthur Mariano, and William Emard for all landing in the top 20 with some of the best execution in the field.

POMMEL HORSE QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Rhys McClenaghan, Ireland, 15.233
2. Stephen Nedoroscik, United States, 15.233
3. Nariman Kurbanov, Kazakhstan, 15.033
4. Loran de Munck, Netherlands, 14.833
5. Harutyun Merdinyan, Armenia, 14.700
6. Doi Ryosuke, Japan, 14.466
7. Filip Ude, Croatia, 14.400
8. Ahmad Abu Al Soud, Jordan, 14.366

R1. Abdulla Azimov, Uzbekistan, 14.300
R2. Tanigawa Kakeru, Japan, 14.266
R3. Zachary Clay, Canada, 14.200

Again, no wild “I can’t believe he made the final!” options here, and love that some of the smaller-program guys and world cup staples like Ude, Merdinyan, and Abu Al Soud got in – I thought Kurbanov would be a definite with a hit, but the others were all bubble guys for me, so it worked out nicely.

Sun Wei having a miss here kept him out, as I think he likely could have contended otherwise, and the same goes for Joe Fraser and Illia Kovtun, both of whom are capable of mid-to-high 14s. Nils Dunkel also got close, finishing 12th, after qualifying to the Euros final over the summer, but that’s pretty much everyone I thought might have a realistic shot here in this particular field.

STILL RINGS QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Courtney Tulloch, Great Britain, 14.666
2. Zou Jingyuan, China, 14.666
– Adem Asil, Turkey, 14.666
4. You Hao, China, 14.633
5. Vahagn Davtyan, Armenia, 14.566
6. Kamoto Yuya, Japan, 14.500
7. Artur Avetisyan, Armenia, 14.466
8. Donnell Whittenburg, United States, 14.333

R1. Sokratis Pilakouris, Cyprus, 14.133
R2. Carlos Yulo, Philippines, 14.066
R3. Hashimoto Daiki, Japan, 14.000

I felt like rings judging was super tight here, but that aside, the final is full of guys who have been doing their thing on rings all year and were on the list of expected names to make it to this final. The biggest misses are definitely Igor Radivilov, Vinzenz Höck, and Nikita Simonov, staples on this apparatus who didn’t have their best days here, and I was also bummed to see Ali Zahran, Caio Souza, and Konstantinos Konstantinidis not at their best as well.

In addition, several of the best rings gymnasts in the world right now – Eleftherios Petrounias, Ibrahim Colak, Marco Lodadio, Lan Xingyu, Arthur Zanetti – either didn’t qualify to this competition or weren’t included on their teams, so this held back the level a little bit as well, but it’s still a great final group, and I was especially happy to see Whittenburg slip in after his vault mishap, which I’m just about to get to.

VAULT QUALIFICATION STANDINGS 

1. Artur Davtyan, Armenia, 14.900
2. Carlos Yulo, Philippines, 14.849
3. Gabriel Burtanete, Romania, 14.633
4. Igor Radivilov, Ukraine, 14.566
5. Caio Souza, Brazil, 14.566
6. Lee Junho, South Korea, 14.450
7. Tanigawa Wataru, Japan, 14.450
8. Kim Hansol, South Korea, 14.433

R1. Adem Asil, Turkey, 14.333
R2. Yuri Guimarães, Brazil, 14.216
R3. Courtney Tulloch, Great Britain, 14.200

If anything, seeing the Koreans both make it in with lower difficulty than a lot of the guys who were just outside of the standings was the most interesting part of seeing these final results come in, especially when you had guys like Asil and Tulloch so close behind – though Asil’s first vault came up short and Tulloch fell on his second.

There were a significant number of falls and weak landings from some of the stronger guys here, including Jake Jarman in 13th, Ivan Tikhonov in 14th, Asher Hong – who had the highest combination of difficulty in the field – in 15th, Giarnni Regini-Moran in 19th, Andrey Medvedev in 20th, James Bacueti in 21st, Shek Wai Hung in 22nd, Tseng Wei-Sheng in 24th…literally going down this list I’m like, he could’ve made it, he could’ve made it, he could’ve made it, so it’s definitely a bit of a reminder that had everyone hit, the makeup of this final would have been wildly different.

We also saw two kind of major disasters from guys who also had potential, with Léo Saladino getting lost in coming off the table in his first vault, which was supposed to be a Kaz double full, and only getting one and a half twists around instead of three. Even worse was Donnell Whittenburg’s foot slipping on the springboard, causing him to completely crunch down onto the table and bail out with no recognizable position coming off, earning him a zero.

Whittenburg’s perspective was amazing, though. He told the press, “I slipped on the springboard. I can’t do anything about that. At least I got to walk away safe from this. That’s part of gym. That’s never happened to me before, so it’s upsetting, but as long as I can walk away from this there’ll be more opportunities.”

PARALLEL BARS QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Zou Jingyuan, China, 15.700
2. Kamoto Yuya, Japan, 15.433
3. Lukas Dauser, Germany, 15.400
4. Carlos Yulo, Philippines, 15.300
5. Ferhat Arican, Turkey, 15.200
6. Jossimar Calvo, Colombia, 15.166
7. Joe Fraser, Great Britain, 15.066
8. Giarnni Regini-Moran, Great Britain, 15.066

R1. Illia Kovtun, Ukraine, 14.966
R2. Tanigawa Kakeru, Japan, 14.933
R3. Zhang Boheng, China, 14.900

This was always going to be one of the toughest finals to make, but I think all of the major players here – including the entire Olympic podium of Zou, Dauser, and Arican along with 2019 world champion Fraser, 2021 world silver medalist Yulo – ended up getting in, though it was a bummer to see this year’s European silver medalist Kovtun come up a bit short in his routine here to miss out by a tenth.

I don’t think there was anyone where it was super surprising to see them miss – lots of guys in the top 20 had really excellent routines but just don’t match the difficulty of the top guys, so there are several routines that earned scores of 8.6+ (and even a 9.0 from Nicola Bartolini, down in 32nd!) but just weren’t able to contend. The biggest miss was probably this year’s Chinese national champion and the 2015 world champion You Hao, who ended up down in 106th, but that aside I don’t think there’s anyone else I thought definitely should have made it.

HIGH BAR QUALIFICATION STANDINGS

1. Hashimoto Daiki, Japan, 15.100
2. Sun Wei, China, 14.833
3. Zhang Boheng, China, 14.733
4. Ilias Georgiou, Cyprus, 14.466
5. Brody Malone, United States, 14.433
6. Kamoto Yuya, Japan, 14.400
7. Arthur Mariano, Brazil, 14.366
8. Tyson Bull, Australia, 14.333

R1. Mitchell Morgans, Australia, 14.333
R2. Caio Souza, Brazil, 14.333
R3. Robert Tvorogal, Lithuania, 14.300

Right off the bat, this is another very strong final with no one surprising me by getting in, though there were two bummers here with Tvorogal getting within less than a tenth despite his vastly lower difficulty compared to most of the guys who reached this final, and then Morgans being ousted by his teammate on a tie-breaker, with Morgans having competed first to finish eighth only to slip down a spot minutes later after Bull went up with a slightly cleaner set. A heartbreaker!

But the 2020 Olympic champ and 2021 silver medalist Hashimoto coming in first was no surprise, and those who finished behind him have also been at the top of their class on this event for quite some time. One I would’ve liked to see get in was this year’s Euros champ, Marios Georgiou, but he unfortunately didn’t have the routine he needed in qualifications. Krisztian Balazs was another outside hopeful for me, but while he was excellent, he’s another one along with Tvorogal where with the lower difficulty, it can be a bit hard to pull it off.

Other favorites to get in included Joe Fraser in 12th, Carlo Macchini in 15th, Alexander Myakinin in 16th, Milad Karimi in 19th, Joel Plata in 20th, Doi Ryosuke in 21st, and Illia Kovtun in 32nd, and it was also very sad to see Tin Srbic – who has had a very hit-or-miss season – down in 46th, and to see Tang Chia-Hung struggle in his set to end up down in 73rd.

Article by Lauren Hopkins