Tuesday 27 October 2015
It was an exciting first night of finals at the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships in Glasgow, as USA won their second successive World title and host nation Great Britain claimed a historic bronze - the first time Britain has ever won a team medal at a World Championships.
The first medals of the 2015 World Gymnastics Championships were presented
after an enthralling final in front of a packed SSE Hydro where over 6000 fans filled the arena.
The USA continued to show their supremacy in women’s artistic gymnastics tonight, just as they did in qualification, winning the 2015 title by five clear points to claim the title for the second successive time scoring 181.338. The USA started strongly on first rotation Vault and didn’t look back dominating the competition from start to finish.
Team USA’s Ally Raisman said: “I’m very proud of my teammates. I think that you know we did a great job out there tonight, we did our best and had a lot of fun.”
Teammate Simone Biles continued: “The girls did their jobs. We went out there and had fun with it. It comes from all the practices we’ve done. We’re so prepared for this. We came into it mentally stronger. We were like, ‘OK, we’re actually really prepared for this, maybe even over-prepared, so let’s go and have some fun.’ I think that’s what we all did.”
It was an identical first - second who finished at the 2014 World Championships, with China taking the silver medal scoring 176.164.
After a number of unforced errors in qualification, China upped their performance, proving they were back to their best and retaining Team silver for the second successive year.
While USA controlled and China delivered a number of excellent executed routines, the battle for bronze went to the wire. After contrasting starts to the competition where Britain faltered on Uneven Bars and Russia delivered strongly on Vault, the battle went to the final piece of apparatus with Russia on taking to the Floor and Britain on Vault.
Russia delivered three steady routines finishing their competition with Britain still to compete on Vault. Britain knew that three consistent vaults could see them edge Russia off the podium and so it transpired. The British vaulters of Claudia Fragapane, Amy Tinkler and Ellie Downie delivered superbly when it mattered, pushing up the British score to 172.380 to claim the bronze medal, to the delight of the ecstatic home crowd leaving the Russian’s in their wake in fourth with 171.964.
On trailing the Russians at the half way point Ruby Harrold said: “Floor and Vault are our strongest events – so we knew we still had our best pieces to come. We tried not to think of the scoreboard too much as things can change so quickly and people make mistakes. I guess we had to keep calm and not concentrate on the other countries, just focus on the job we had to do.”
On winning the historic medal Becky Downie said: “It was an amazing experience, it was so nice to be able to achieve this success in front of a home crowd as well. It just makes it that much more special for us all to know how much it means to the supporters out there. The future for British Gymnastics is really exciting, so we have a lot to look forward to.”
In the rest of the competition Japan placed 5th 169.887, Canada scored 167.697 to finish in 6th, Italy placed 7th scoring 167.597 and Netherlands finished in 8th as they did in qualification, with a score of 162.730.
TEAM FINAL STANDINGS:
The 2015 World Gymnastics Championships continues tomorrow as day 7 sees the top eight men’s team battle it out for the team world title. All eyes will be on host nation Britain to see if they can replicate the success of their female team mates.