USA Women Put on a Show at World Championship Qualifications

Oct 2, 2013 by Anne Phillips

Who says the post-Olympic year is supposed to be a down season for gymnastics? The USA women destroyed this theory today in Antwerp by advancing to every possible final at the 2013 World Championships. There will be two Americans in every women's final with the chance to win a total of TEN medals.

Simone Biles of Bannon's Gymnastix, this year's breakout star of Team USA, was the class of the field during women's qualifications. Biles advanced to all around finals in first place with a 60.133 and earned her place in finals on every single event. She qualified in second place on vault, sixth on bars, fifth on beam, and finished in first place with three tenths to spare on floor.

Biles also achieved another dream for any international gymnast. She became the first gymnast to land a double layout half out in World or Olympic competition and will have the skill named for her in the FIG Code of Points.

Watch Biles on floor:

What's even more amazing is that Biles has more to give for the finals. Her personal coach, Aimee Boorman, felt Biles was affected by the nerves of competing in her first World Championships and told us, "she has better routines in her than what we saw today". Expect Biles to really turn it on for finals.

She will be joined in Friday's all around finals by Fierce Fiver Kyla Ross of Gym-Max. Ross looked better than ever during qualifications. She was polished, poised, and consistent. Despite earning questionably low execution scores while competing in the first of five subdivisions, Ross's scores held strong. In addition to advancing to all around finals in second place, she advanced to event finals on every apparatus in which she was eligible. She had hoped to make bars and beam finals, and was surprised to advance to floor finals. Ross has been really working on her artistry and endurance on floor and it shows. She edged out 2013 National Floor Champion McKayla Maroney for the second American spot in the event final. To conclude, Ross advanced in second place to the all around and uneven bars finals, third place on beam, and sixth place on floor.

Watch Kyla on beam:

World and Olympic Champion Maroney also had a successful day of qualifications for a couple of reasons. First, Maroney competed all around for the first time in over a year. The last time she competed bars and beam was at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, and she has shown vast improvement on uneven bars since that time. Unfortunately, Maroney had to count a fall on beam. She struggled on her side aerial in warmups and let the nerves get to her. In her post-meet interview, she said, "I still haven't gotten that calmness [on beam] down like the other events. To be completely honest, in training beam hasn't been as consistent as I wanted it to be. I have a lot more work to do at home. I've only been training for a few months now, and with beam, I'm the girl who needs experience and some competitions that need to be under the belt."

Maroney and coach Arthur Akopyan considered taking out the aerial, but decided to go for it because, "it's not really about taking things out for me," Maroney explained. "It's more about trusting that I can do a side aerial!" She made it clear that she was confident that it wasn't the skill. Rather, it was the situation, and the lack of recent competition experience on beam. Regardless, Maroney is happy to be back in the all around and, "really happy to keep moving forward." She sees this as one step closer to competing all around at next year's World Championships and ultimately in the 2016 Olympic Games. Even with a fall, Maroney impressively finished 6th all around. However, due to the two-per-country rule, she will not get the chance to compete in all around finals.

Maroney's second major success of the day was definitely more obvious. As expected, Maroney nailed her two vaults and will advance in first place to the event finals as the favorite to defend her 2011 World title. Maroney also hit floor in the first rotation but was knocked out of the final by teammates Ross and Biles. Maroney actually earned the same total score as Ross, but the tiebreaker (higher execution score) favored Ross. On missing the floor final, Maroney told us, "I did the best floor routine that I could do today, so I'm happy with that, and I still have vault to look forward to."

If the medals were decided today, Team USA would walk away with three golds, three silvers, and one bronze. It is safe to say the United States women are still the best team in gymnastics.

Women's finals will begin on Friday, October 4th with the all around. Event finals take place Saturday, October 5th and Sunday, October 6th. Gymnastike will continue to provide up-to-the minute coverage throughout the 2013 World Championships.