2014 World Championships continue with the women's team finals tomorrow, October 8th at 7am Eastern Time. Below are a few important things to note.
 

 

1. The format is 3 up 3 count and there are 8 teams competing. Below are the teams who will be competing and their scores from qualifications.

USA - 235.038
China - 230.753
Russia - 228.135
Great Britain - 224.596
Italy - 222.459
Japan - 221.360
Romania - 219.261
Australia - 218.134

Finishing 9th and 10th and just missing out on team finals are Germany and the Netherlands. 

 

3. USA scored over four points higher than second place China, and almost seven points higher than third place Russia. USA is the favorite heading into team finals, but that doesn’t secure their win. With 3 up 3 count, there is a lot of weight on every routine. If USA has a fall and China improves qualifications, they have a chance to upset for the title.

 

4. Historically strong Romania barely made it to team finals. They had a rough qualifications and only put up four routines on vault and bars. They had multiple falls and had to count a bar routine that scored a 10.033. Romanian veteran Larissa Iordache was the star of the team and with her strong performance, she pulled Romania into seventh place. 

 

5. While this is a team competition, many of the top all-around gymnasts will be competing. Here are the top 10 all-around finishers from qualifications in order of finish: Biles (USA), Aliya Mustafina (RUS), Iordache (RUS), Yao Jinnan (CHN), Ross (USA), Skinner (USA), Vanessa Ferrari (ITA), Shang Chunsong (CHN), Ruby Harrold (GBR), Alla Sosnitskaya (RUS). 

 

7. The highest team score on a single event was scored by USA on vault- a 61.599. The team dropped Kocian’s Yuchenko full and counted scores from Baumann (Yurchenko double), Ross (Yurchenko double), Skinner (Cheng), and Biles (Amanar). Skinner’s 15.666 for her Cheng and Biles’ 15.8 for her Amanar bolstered team USA’s score.

 

8. The second highest team score on a single event was from China on bars- a 60.89. They are known to be amazing on bars and in qualifications they did not disappoint. They had two 6.9 difficulty scores from Yao Jinnan and Tan Jiaxin and a 6.8 from Huang Huidan. From qualifications, Yao, Huang, and Tan finished first, second, and third respectively. 

9. China needs to clean up floor. All teams will be looking to improve and clean up heading into team finals but China's floor was by far their weakness. They scored a 52.965 as a team on floor which was the third to lowest team event score from all eight teams on every event (Romania had the lowest with their 49.599 on bars and Australia had the second lowest for their 52.264 on floor). They didn't seem to be able to get in a groove on floor and had many bad landings and barely made passes. China's other events were strong with a 58.265 on vault, 60.89 on bars, and 58.633 on beam. 

 

10. Difficulty scores compared. Below are the difficulty scores from qualifications for USA, China, and Russia for their expected lineup in team finals. However, these scores can change depending on the gymnasts' performances tomorrow.

 

USA= 73.8
China= 73.1
Russia= 71.6
 

Make sure to tune into Gymnastike tomorrow, October 8th at 7am Eastern Time for Universal Sports' live feed and our live updates from the team competition.

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