Svetlana Khorkina, just as Valentina Rodionenko, was left unhappy with the judging in the WAG qualifications. However, she believes that if the judging will be fair in the all-around final, both Eremina and Melnikova have a chance to medal.
Khorkina told TASS her thoughts on the matter:
“Yes, Melnikova and Eremina have never experienced Worlds in their careers yet. But they have to forget about it and just fight to win. If they show any weakness and think about their inability to fight for the medals in advance, nothing good will come out of it. But if they get themselves together, then, if the judging is fair, they’ll have all the opportunities to make it to the podium. Judging at these Worlds sometimes seems ambiguous. I still don’t understand why Lena Eremina’s beam score in the qualification was lowered. First, the gave one score, then they just went ahead and lowered it.”
Actually, Eremina’s score was not lowered in the qualifications, despite what Khorkina and Rodionenko are claiming. If the judges would indeed make a mistake like that and give an incorrect score, first, there would much more discussion and deliberation – like it happened with Catalina Ponor’s floor score at Euros. And someone else besides Rodionenko and Khorkina would notice the issue. The most likely explanation for their claim is that there was either a mistake on the screen or they simply incorrectly read the screen.
Spencer from the BalanceBeamSituation suggested that Rodionenko saw Ellie Black’s bars score, which indeed was 14.400 and somehow mistakenly assumed it was Eremina’s score.
Dear Valentina, that 14.400 was Ellie Black's bars score, not Eremina's beam score. https://t.co/9B2odi1I5T
— BalanceBeamSituation (@TheBBSituation) October 4, 2017
In any case, the judging on beam stayed pretty tight throughout the competition, and the highest qualification score (posted by Tabea Alt) was only 13.533, while highest scores on other apparatuses went over 14.4 (on floor) and even 15 (on vault and bars).
Photo: Ginnastica Artistica Italiana
Thanks for these background articles. It’s a shame the gymnasts had to overcome avoidable obstacles. I guess this is good for the newer athletes. I can only get better from here. That said, I enjoyed the new group and their artistry.