COMPETITION I: Team qualification WOMEN  / Frauen

Rotation 1:
                           US team

The Brazilian team has been highly touted with arrival of former Ukrainian national coach Oleg Ostapenko. Some early competition jitters held them back on beam but they showed potential. Daiane Dos Santos nailed a double front dismount.

Rotation 2:
The bars had to be adjusted specially for the tall Ashley Miles- who said gymnastics was only for short people?-, who took a few steps on her double front dismount. Then the rotation was delayed again when the bars had to re-adjusted for the not so tall Mohini Bhardwaj, who stuck her full-twisting double layout dismount cold.

Over on floor, Brazil was tumbling up a storm with Hypolito and Dos Santos both opening with double layouts, followed by Arabian double fronts in their second pass. Hypolito, the smallest competitor of the world championships at only 1.36m, added a great 2 ½ into front layout for good measure.

Daniele Hypolito (BRA)

Tabitha Yim (USA)

Rotation 3:
Bhardwaj started off with a good routine but low a start value kept her well below 9.0. Heenan was rock solid until she fell on her dismount.Rachel Tidd wobbled on her ff- Arabian combination but her strong work elsewhere earned her a ten start value. Tabitha Yim dismounted with  a beautiful 2 ½  twist but fell in the middle of her routine.

Brazil went for security rather than risk on vault a row of piked baranis. Hypolito balked at her first attempt but had no problems the second time around.

Rotation 4:
Ashley Miles dynamic floor routine was well received by the crowd who loved her incredibly high and clean tumbling. Then, Bhardwaj picked up where Miles had left off with a double layiout to punch front and second tumbling pass of full-in, but still, her routine only started from a 9,5.

Brazil lost ground on bars with Camil.a Comin looking great until she put her hand down on her double front dismount.
The USA took a well deserved lead after a very stable perfomance, that saw only two falls. 

Mohini Bhardwaj