Gymnastics world championships

A great achievement I would of enjoyed watching it had it been available. There was a snippet on BreakfastBBC this morning.

Tanith - it was on BBC 3 - but you would have had to know in advance, as this is not a channel most of us would normally watch.

Anyone else interested in watching this
Mens Team : 17.45-.1BBC2 Wednesday 19.00 - 21.00
Iplayer at 17.45
Thursday WA All Around (ie: Individual title)
Iplayer 18.00 - 21.00 BBC 3 19.15 -21.00
Friday: Mens All Around 1.45-21.00 Iplayer
Saturday: Apparatus finals : Mens Floor, Pommels, Vault
Womens, Vault, Bars i player 13.15-17.45/BBBC 2 14.05 - 17..45
Sunday Remaining Individual apparatus
Mens Rings, PBars, High Bar Womens Beam, Floor
BBC 1 13.15 - 16.35 BBC 2 16.35 - 17.45

For the first time in about 12 years GB does NOT have a finallist (and potential medal winner) on Pommels, however Rhys from Ireland (this is his only apparatus), has a good chance of Gold.

I watched the first hour last night. It was very good - there were some amazing routines, but I felt so sorry for the girls that fell from the beam or bars.

Falls come mainly from nerves. All the competing gymnasts would have done their routines,quite literally, hundreds of times in training. But then the pressure of the big audiance, the big event is something that some sportspeople thrive with, and others, no matter how well trained, how much psychological support they are given find really difficult.

Alice Kinsall's uncharateristic fall on beam made no difference whatsoever to the final team scorings. However, the poor last bars Japanese competitor, just never got to grips with her routine and went from fall to fall to fall taking her team well outside the medals.

I watched the women's team final last night - it was a fantastic nail-biter

The GB women did really well to finish second and automatically qualify for the next Olympics

The bronze medal fight was really dramatic as well the Japan looking to have it in the bag then their final competitor fell from bars multiple times trying to get her full pirouette. Then Canada had a great beam rotation and got up into 3rd

The only bad point of this World Champs is the idiots that took the decision not to show the prelim rounds either on TV or stream - it felt like the 1970s had come back trying to follow what was going on from people blogging in the arena and even the live scoring crashed for several hours

There was some streaming of the prelims. but this had no sound at all. And only in England.

Must say I actually enjoy watching (when I am allowed) prelims more even than the finals, as you see competitors who you will never see in any finals. AND. I can so well remember when that would have meant ALL the GB Competitors!!!

Must say if I still had a car, I might well have gone for a drive on Sunday and 'got lost' and ended up in Liverpool!!!!!

They are on BBC2 at 7pm

Franbern

There was some streaming of the prelims. but this had no sound at all. And only in England.

Must say I actually enjoy watching (when I am allowed) prelims more even than the finals, as you see competitors who you will never see in any finals. AND. I can so well remember when that would have meant ALL the GB Competitors!!!

Must say if I still had a car, I might well have gone for a drive on Sunday and 'got lost' and ended up in Liverpool!!!!!

That was the great thing about the Commonwealth Games - everything was direct streamed. So it was possible to watch gymnasts from countries such as Barbados and Singapore who will never make a final.

Not making the prelims available means that fans miss a lot of the drama unless someone loads a video on their youtube. Few were able to see Chiles (a leading US contender) falling several time on beam or Andrade's scary second vault when her hand slipped that cost her a great chance of getting the vault gold.

DD was competing in the 80s (never got beyond county level, although she did go to a friendly competition in Belgium where she won gold on the beam) In those days you were lucky to catch sight of a single British gymnast on TV and you certainly didn't expect any medals. Today's girls are amazing, although I wish they would stop those scraped back hair styles. So many are showing signs of a receding hairline and all the teams are doing it.

Hair styles in competitions do seem to have fashions!!! I can remember back in the late 70's and 80's it was all big pom poms and bunches. Currently it does seem to be scraped back and buns. However, between competitions most of them let their hair down in normal styles so do not think it will effect their future hair growth in any way.

Exciting team finals last night for the men, the GB team did manage to work back from a disastrous pommels to grab the bronze medal AND a place at the Paris Olympics.

Was so good seeing Canadian female gymnast Ellie Black getting a team bronze medal and showing that even elite level gymnastics is perfectly able at the age of 27 years of age. Indeed, it was her calmness (through experience), on the beam that secured that podium place for herself and her team mate AND a place at the Olympics.

Felt for Alice Kinsall last night. Just one tenth of a mark putting her in that horrible fourth place (off the rostrum). She worked hard to keep back the tears and congratulated Jessica on her great bronze medal. Bet she spent ages after that reviewing each of her apparatus and whre she could have redeemed that one tenth!!!! Great competiton and super new World WA Champion in Brazil's Rebecca Andre.

My heart went out to our lovely Joe Fraser -had such a totall disastrous competion in the Mens All Around Finals, falling on most apparatus. Still finished with a smile and a thank you to the audiance.

His efforts a couple of days earlier ensured the GB team their Bronze medals. Yesterday was just not his day!!! But.....he will be back!!!! Even in this very devastating defeat he was such aa great role-model........in the future whenever any young competitor (at any level), has a really bad competition with falls, they can look at how he reacted and (I know it is the future) came back all the stronger and better.

Not to take anything away from young Jake Jarman's incredible result of 5th in the World All-Around Mens Artistic Chamioships.

This afternoon on BBC 2 for three Mens Apparatus finals and first two Womens. I will be cheering on Rhys from Ireland in his attempt to take GOld on the Pommels.

They really are doing so well. We are sad to see Joe Fraser coming 22nd when at one time we would have been ecstatic to see a British gymnast in the top 24. I think it would have been better if there had been longer breaks between the competitions. Going straight into the apparatus finals after the all round competition is a big ask when they all have such demanding routines.

It was a bit of a shock to realise that the middle aged balding man talking to Matt Baker and the others was Neil Thomas who was so gorgeous in the 90s. Athletes shouldn't get old, they should stay young and fit!

Deeda, Oh yes I do agree with you with regard to Neil Thomas. Glad they actually showed some of his FX back in the day. Women Gymnasts seem to age much better than the male!! Nelly Kim was head of FIG for WA and was a very imposing figure. I was terrified of her. Interesting that Max feels inspired now to come back to competition next year.

I shared the tears of joy for Rhys -he just could not get any words out at allfor the interviewer - so happy for him getting that treasured gold at last.

My biggest claim to faim is that I was awarded a prestigious gymnastic trophy the year after Matt Baker was awarded this, so my name follows his!!!!!

I do think Courtney was cheated yesterday - his Rings excercise should definitely have got the Gold medal. I would love to see the judges sheets for those exercises!!!!

On the point about spreading it out a little more - to try to have a days total rest between events would mean making these competitions far too long and expensive. Okay, for those who ar in both AA finals and then Apapratus ones it can be a little difficult - but largely it is an even playing field.

Final day today - will be fixed (again) to television the whole afternoon.

I thought Courtney was undermarked Franbern he was very good. Wonderful result for Jessica and how incredible to find us ahead of China in the medals table. Who would have thought it a few years ago?