Day one of event finals are complete here at the 2015 World Championships and your first set of individual event champions were crowned. The most exciting results of the day came on bars where there was a four way tie for gold between USA’s Madison Kocian, Russia’s Viktoria Komova, Russia’s Daria Spiridonova, and China’s Fan Yilin. Russia’s Maria Paseka won gold on vault, Japan’s Kenzo Shirai won gold on floor, Great Britain’s Max Whitlock won gold on pommel horse, and Greece’s Eleftherios Petrounias won gold on rings.

Paseka performed two difficult and clean vaults, an Amanar for a 15.7 and a Cheng for a 15.633. She averaged a 15.666, just enough to edge out the 2014 vault champion Hong Un Jong who scored a 15.633. Hong also performed the same vaults but had just a slightly lower execution score. Simone Biles performed a beautiful Amanar and an extremely clean Lopez. She had the highest execution scores with a 9.6 and a 9.583 but ended with a 15.541 average for bronze. 

On bars, over half of the lineup earned a score of 15.366, which resulted in the four way tie for gold between Kocian, Komova, Spiridonova, and Fan. Fan had the highest difficulty score with a 6.9, Spiridonova had a 6.7, and Komova and Kocian both earned 6.6s. Gabby Douglas also competed in bar finals and scored a 15.133 which was the second highest score but put her in fifth behind the four way tie. 

Kocian displayed her usual spectacular bar set with an in bar Shaposhnikova to Pak to a stalder Shaposh half. She had a hop forward on her tuck full in dismount but the rest of her routine was sparkly clean. Komova was extremely clean and performed her Komova II release and a layout Jaeger. Fan performed beautiful pirouetting work as well as a Maloney to in-bar Gienger. Spiridonova finished the rotation with an intricate routine including a Komova II to Pak to Maloney half. 

On the men’s side, there was just as much excitement. On floor, Shirai won gold by a huge margin with a 16.233. He performed his incredible triple twisting double tuck and finished with a quadruple twist. Whitlock earned silver on floor with a 15.566. His routine included a back 3 1/2 twist to Barani and a back 2 1/2 twist to Rudi. Rayderley Zapata Santana earned bronze with a 15.2. His most unique pass was a back 2 1/2 twist to layout Barani right into a huge straight body Shushunova. 

On pommel horse, Whitlock made history becoming Great Britain’s first male gymnast to earn a World gold medal. He was last up and performed incredible difficulty for a 7.3 D score and a 16.133 total. Teammate Louis Smith earned silver with another stellar routine for the Brits that earned a 7.2 D score and totaled a 16.033. Armenia’s Harutyun Merdinyan and Japan’s Kazuma Kaya tied for bronze, both posting 15.5s. Merdinyan is now qualified as an individual for the 2016 Rio Olympics, after earning his pommel horse medal.

Rings was the final event of the day and the rotation was bursting with difficulty. Petrounious performed a massive routine topped off with a tuck double double to earn gold with a 15.8. China’s You Hao and Liu Yang earned silver and bronze, respectively. You had the highest difficulty of the rotation with a 7.0 and he totaled a 15.733. He performed an L-cross and a layout double double. Liu displayed extreme strength with his iron cross to inverted cross and his hang right up to inverted iron cross. Liu scored a 15.7. As Greece did not qualify to Rio as a team, Petrounious has qualified as an individual with his rings medal. 

Full women's event finals results
Full men's event finals results

Routine of the Day

Madison Kocian on bars:

Lineups and Predictions

Beam
1. Simone Biles
2. Ellie Black
3. Seda Tutkhalian

Floor
1. Simone Biles
2. Maggie Nichols
3. Sae Miyakawa

Vault
1. Ri Se Gwang
2. Marian Dragulescu
3. Donnell Whittenburg

Parallel Bars
1. Oleg Verniaiev
2. Manrique Larduet
3. You Hao

High Bar
1. Fabian Hambuechen
2. Danell Leyva
3. Kohei Uchimura

They Said It

“One thing Nastia texted me before the meet was just to keep a positive thought in your head because a positive thought cannot be denied, so I was saying that to myself before I went tonight and it helped” -Kocian. Full interview here.


Related:
World Championships Central