Location Tokyo, Japan | Competitors 528 | |
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Start date October 7, 2011 (2011-10-07) End date October 16, 2011 (2011-10-16) | ||
The 2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were held in Tokyo, Japan, from October 7–16, 2011, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Due to uncertainty over the nuclear situation following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the International Federation of Gymnastics revealed it was considering moving the event, but on May 22 FIG president Bruno Grandi announced that the World Championships would take place in Tokyo as planned.
Contents
Participating countries
83 countries participated, which included gymnasts from
Teams
This event is the first qualifying stage for the 2012 Summer Olympics which will be held in London. The top 24 men's and women's teams from the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships are allowed to send a full team of gymnasts. The top 8 men's and women's teams will directly qualify for the team events at the 2012 Olympics. Teams placed 9th to 16th will get a second chance to qualify a full team at the Olympic Test Event in January 10–18, 2012, from which four men's and women's teams will qualify
Individuals
The winners of gold, silver and bronze medals in each apparatus will qualify for the Olympics, either as individuals or as members of their national team. Additional individual gymnasts will qualify from the Test Event in January.
Competition schedule
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Women's results
2011 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships – Women's qualification
Team all-around
In the qualifying round, five gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and the top four scores were counted towards the team's total. The top eight teams qualified to the final.
In the final, held on October 11, only three gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and all the scores counted. The United States team won the gold medal with solid performances by all gymnasts on all apparatus, while the Russian team made several mistakes and finished a distant second. China narrowly beat Romania to win the bronze medal, followed by Great Britain in fifth place. This was the highest ranking finish Great Britain had ever had for a team at a World Championship.
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Controversy
During the presentation of medals, the National Anthem of the United States was abruptly ended, causing some frustration amongst both the coaches and the gymnasts themselves.
Individual all-around
The final was held on October 13. None of the medallists from the previous year were able to compete to defend their title as the Gold and Bronze medallists -Aliya Mustafina and Rebecca Bross - were both unable to compete at worlds due to knee injuries and Silver medallist, Jiang did not qualify high enough over teammates. A number of gymnasts ranked high enough to make the all-around final, but did not qualify due to the 2-per-country rule. All the gymnasts from the USA that competed in the preliminary round had ranked in the top 24. The gymnasts affected were Gabby Douglas (5th), Sabrina Vega (9th), and McKayla Maroney (12th) of the United States. Also affected were Tan Sixin (15th) and Jiang Yuyuan (20th) of China, Yuko Shintake (21st) and Yu Minobe (23rd) of Japan, and Anna Dementyeva (31st) of Russia. In the end the last gymnast to qualify was Carlotta Ferlito who had ranked 32nd in the preliminary competition.
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Vault
Phan's Bronze medal was the first medal for Vietnam at a World Championships. Maroney's performance secured the 3rd consecutive World Gold medal for the USA on women's vault following Kayla Williams in 2009 and teammate Alicia Sacramone in 2010. Chusovitina's Silver was her 11th world medal (her 9th vault world medal). As her first world championships was in Indianapolis in 1991, she has been competing at an international level since before her fellow vault finialists were born.
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Uneven bars
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Balance beam
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Floor
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On the day before the competition, it was announced that Diana Bulimar had injured her foot, and so 1st reserve Lauren Mitchell would be taking her place in the final. Shortly after the women's beam competition, it was announced that Russia had decided to pull Viktoria Komova from the competition to give her teammate (and 2nd reserve), Ksenia Afanasyeva a chance to compete in the final instead. During the warm up Vanessa Ferrari injured herself and so 3rd reserve Diana Chelaru was quickly added to replace her.
Team all-around
In the qualifying round, five gymnasts performed on each apparaus, and the top four scores were counted towards the team's total. The top eight teams qualified to the final.
In the final, held on October 12, only three gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and all the scores were counted. The Chineses team won the title for the fifth successive time, benefitting from crucial mistakes by the last two Japanese gymnasts. Japan was still able to win the silver medal, with a margin of only 0.010 point from the United States in bronze medal position.
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Individual all-around
The all-around final was held on October 14. Three gymnasts had ranked high enough to qualify, but were not allowed to compete due to the 2-per-country rule. The affected gymnasts were Jonathan Horton (5th), Fabian Hambüchen (19th) and Steven Legendre (24th). On the day of the final, Marian Dragulescu pulled out of the competition and Nathan Gafuik took his place.
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Floor
The final for Men's Floor Exercise took place on October 15. Marian Dragulescu had qualified in 2nd, but pulled out of the competition on the morning of the final. As the first reserve, Jake Dalton (USA) took his place. There was also an inquiry made by the Japanese coaches into the scoring when Kōhei Uchimura's difficulty score was only awarded a 6.500 because they had mistaken a triple twisting move for a double twisting move. The inquiry was accepted by the judges, and the score adjusted accordingly, which gave Uchimura the gold medal.
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Pommel horse
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Rings
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Vault
Originally Marian Dragulescu was to compete in this final, but had to pull out of competition due to an injury. Denis Ablyazin took his place in the final as the first reserve.
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Parallel bars
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Horizontal bar
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