Going into this year's worlds aiming for team Gold with one of their strongest line-ups yet, Team Japan's qualifications didn't quite go as planned with the two-per-country rule.
While it was thought that the battle for Japan's second place in the AA finals would be between Ryohei & Nonomura, Tanaka Yusuke emerged victorious of the three, leading Ryohei by just 0.176 (89.331 - 7th vs 89.507 - 6th). Ryohei started off strongly with a beautiful Floor routine packed with stuck landings, scoring a huge 15.833. However, he came off Pommel Horse and was scored 13.833, a far cry from his usual scores of 14.8-15, which would have otherwise clearly qualified him for the AA finals):
With Uchimura in the AA lead (92.165), it looks like King Kohei is well on his way to claiming his 6th consecutive major title.
Instead, Ryohei edged out Uchimura to qualify for the Floor and Parallel Bars (15.533) finals, where he will join Shirai (16.033) and Tanaka (15.700) respectively. Tanaka also failed to qualify for High Bar (14.266), his pet event, after a botched hands-down dismount despite a beautiful routine. Even more surprising is that 2013 Pommel World Champion Kameyama failed to qualify for the PH finals after he also came off Pommels (14.300), and Nonomura has not qualified for any event finals -he too suffered a fall- off High Bar (13.400).
Ryohei's other scores:
Still Rings: 14.900
Vault: 14.866 (6.0D Lopez, but stepped OOB)
High Bar: 14.366 (really low dismount, but saved it)
While it is pretty disappointing that Ryohei will not be able to defend his silver medal at the AA this year, he has managed to qualify for two event finals which he did not make last year, evidence of his improvement over the past year^^
But first, Team Japan needs to focus on the team finals coming up on 7 Oct - China has placed ahead of them (362.689 to 361.609) in qualifications, indicative of their strong team this year. However, if Japan is able to avoid any uncharacteristic mistakes and bring out the best of their elegant gymnastics, then the Gold will most definitely be theirs(: Japan has not won team Gold at a World Championships/Olympic Games since 2004, so they are definitely hoping to clinch the Gold this year!
がんばって、日本！
凌平くん、がんばって！*\^o^/*
A/N: I'm not sure if the surprises will mean re-shuffling within the team as to who will perform at which finals - we won't know until the finals' start lists are released, but this is unlikely (although at the 08 Olympics, Tomita replaced Sakamoto in the AA finals despite Sakamoto qualifying ahead of him).
Complete results:
http://www.fig-docs.com/live_results/5529/5529.php
http://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/page/view?id=702
http://www.gymnastike.org/coverage/251385-2014-Nanning-World-Championships/article/28265-Japan-Leads-Qualifications-Sub-7-Second-to-China-Overall
Photos credits as tagged.
