Friday 30 October 2015
The penultimate day of the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships sees the first of the individual apparatus finals as gymnast’s fight it out for individual supremacy.
Day one of the apparatus finals sees both men’s and women’s gymnasts compete cross five finals. The men will compete in Floor, Pommel Horse and Rings, while the women will contest both Vault and Uneven Bars.
It is set to be another enthralling day at the SSE Hydro, as gymnasts aim to leave Glasgow with a 2015 World medal.
In the men’s competition it will be a battle of strength in the individual Rings final which will see a strong field, including Chinese gymnast Yang Liu, the 21 year old who is going for ‘two in row’ after winning the Rings title in 2014. However, he will be up against Greek Rings specialist, Eleftherios Petrounias, who qualified in first place.
One thing that is for certain is that there will be a new individual Pommel champion, after the Hungarian Krisztian Berki failed to qualify for the final. In pole position to take the crown is Louis Smith, the Britain who missed out on Olympic gold at the hands of Berki at London 2012. He now has the chance to claim his first ever World gold medal, however his main challenge is likely to come from Armenian, Harutyun Merdinyan who qualified in second and he will be pushed all the way by teammate Max Whitlock.
After failing to qualify for the 2015 final, reigning world champion title holder Denis Ablyazin has paved the way for a new floor champion to be crowned. Japanese twisting sensation and 2013 individual Floor champion Kenzo Shirai is favourite for this year’s title, after qualifying more than half a mark in front of second placed Shudi Deng (China). Just like in the Pommel, Britain’s Max Whitlock is also capable of challenging for the medals. The British gymnast scored over 16 on floor during his team’s silver medal winning success and will know if he produces the same performance in the final he will be well in the mix.
The women will compete for world titles on both Uneven bars and Vault, with Russia and the USA contenders favourites to end the day on the podium.
Only one of last year’s Uneven Bars medallists will contest the 2015 final. Russia’s Daria Spiridonova, who took bronze last year, will be confident of staking her claim, after finishing in first place in qualification. However only half a mark separated the first four gymnasts in qualification, so fellow Russian, Viktoria Komova and the USA’s Madison Kocian will also be pushing for a podium finish.
The USA women, who have dominated the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships thus far, will be looking for more medal success in the Vault Final. It was a USA 1-2 in qualification from Simone Biles and Margaret Nichols respectively. The battle for gold will be close, as 2014 Vault champion Hong Un Jong of Korea goes out to retain her individual title. India’s Dipa Karmakar will also be looking to place highly, the 22 year old who had the highest difficulty in qualification, will be aiming to land her challenging “Produnova” vault and claim an individual medal.