Hello everyone, and welcome to Gymnastics Insider! It was a slow news week, but things will pick up as we head into continentals and the U.S. elite season this summer. For now, we have news of Rebeca Andrade’s comeback.
Andrade will return to competition at the upcoming Pan American Championships. According to Olympics.com, she will only compete on vault. Brazil is likely to qualify a team to worlds, so Andrade is under no pressure to meet any individual standard. It’s her first competition since Paris, so she just needs to get her feet wet here.
Andrade’s return is especially exciting since she’s a true all-arounder, and one of the few athletes to get close to beating Simone Biles in the all-around since 2013. Plus, she waits about 30 years after her block before she finally starts twisting her Cheng. This is going to be great.
European Gymnastics lifts Russia ban
Following World Gymnastics’ decision to lift the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes, European Gymnastics followed suit this week. This (likely) means Russia will field a team at the European Championships and thereby qualify a team to worlds.
It’s unclear if these decisions will make for some difficult moments in the upcoming international competitions. But this has already happened in rhythmic gymnastics, more than once.
Gymnastics Now reports that two Ukrainian athletes protested as the Russian and Belarusian anthems played during junior event finals at the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships. While on the podium, the athletes from Ukraine covered their eyes and put earbuds in their ears.
A few months ago, a Russian competitor turned her back when the Ukrainian anthem was played at rhythmic worlds.
As for artistic, Koper will feature Ukrainian athletes, but no Russian or Belarusian athletes are slated to attend. Most likely, the next time Russian and Ukrainian artistic gymnasts will compete against each other will be at Euros in August.
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Elite news
Koper Challenge Cup qualifications concluded this week. Zsofia Kovacs and Teja Belak (who leads on vault with a 13.466) are there, along with Sanna Veerman, who leads the charge on bars with a 14.333 in qualifications.
Vault (quals results) and bars (quals results) finals will be held today, and floor (quals results) and beam (quals results) will happen tomorrow (live scores).
Chinese Championships were last week (results). Ke Qinqin took the all-around title with a 54.898 (55.299 in quals), and Zhang Qingying won beam with a 14.700.
But what I really want to talk about is Yang Fanyuwei’s bars. She won the final with a 15.166 (+0.4 bonus, 6.5 D), but she qualified with a massive 15.633, with the caveat that this score included .5 in bonus.
Following the conclusion of the world apparatus cup series, I wrote about a potential face-off between Yang and Kaylia Nemour at worlds. Yang scored a 15.266 at qualifications at the Cairo World Cup, the highest score of her career. She didn’t upgrade for nationals, opting to compete a regular old Jaeger instead of the full.
Of course, Nemour earned a 15.566 with a 6.9 D score at qualifications at the African Championships, including a new skill. Maybe Yang is playing the long game? We’ll see who comes out on top when the time comes.
Madison Kocian got married, and some familiar faces showed up.
NCAA news
Transfers and hires are winding down. Here is the transfer log courtesy of College Gym News, which is also tracking things here. Follow Greg Marsden on Bluesky for coaching updates.
Five at the IX
Joscelyn Roberson opened up about her transfer to Georgia for Inside Gymnastics.
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