Team USA have won the all around competition after a good overall performance, more than six points ahead of 2nd place, Canada (total of 173.800 for USA). Although their difficulty scores were not intimidating, the team impressed through consistency and physical fitness. They also had only one fall, Desch on beam on a very difficult skill, the layout full. Their highest scoring event was vault where they posted back to back strong and high DTYs. On bars they had clean routines with good swing, smooth transitions and good variety of skills (except for Desch’s routine composition, Coach Rick disapproves). Amelia Hundley set herself apart with the top all around total, while Rachel Gowey returned to the elite scene with great routines on bars and beam (she only competed these two events).
Team Canada was carried all the way to the second place by the pair Black-Onysko who, despite mistakes here and there, posted decent scores throughout. Ellie Black was impressive on vault (Tsukahara 1 1/2) and floor (clean tumbling 1 1/2 to double back, front double full to punch front) while Onysko brought her team’s highest score on bars 14.3/6.3.
Team Brazil finished on third place (just one point behind Canada). Flavia Saraiva hit some of the cleanest routines of the competition posting 14.15 for her FTY on vault, a 13.450/5.5 on bars, a 14.550/6.0 on balance beam and a 14.200/5.8 on floor. Saraiva (slightly controversially) qualified with the top score for the beam final despite the fact that she lost .5 in execution deductions after touching the apparatus with her hand after losing balance on a round-off – layout to two feet landing. Leticia Lima da Costa also stood out with her ambitious floor tumbling – double layout, full in, double pike finishing off with a double Arabian, unfortunately falling after the last skill and receiving only a 12.850/5.6.
Top three teams scores:
Article by: Bea Gheorghisor
Picture: by Grace Chiu, via USA Gymnastics