Angelina Melnikova won silver on floor at the World Championships today but the happiness from the medal was marred by the score she believes to be too low. It took judges quite a long time to announce Melnikova’s score and when they did, the difficulty was 0.2 lower than Melnikova got in the qualification. Mai Murakami who won gold also initially got lower difficulty (5.7 instead of 5.8) credited which put her in the second place behind Melnikova. Both submitted inquiries, Melnikova’s inquiry was rejected, while Murakami’s – accepted, which moved her to the first place.
Melnikova said in the mixed zone that she was extremely upset and couldn’t even think about all the good things that happened at the competition. She couldn’t understand what happened with the score:
“I’m very upset with the floor final because I didn’t get my full difficulty, a turn wasn’t credited even though I’ve never had problems with this turn. We submitted an inquiry but it wasn’t accepted, I don’t know what to say.”
Melnikova later wrote on Instagram:
“This is the turn that wasn’t credited. Never, never in my life I had issues with this turn! I don’t know what happened and why it wasn’t credited. The inquiry was not accepted. I won’t even say what we got in response to submitting the inquiry, it was horrible. It’s a huge pity, I’m very upset, I did what I could, I did my maximum. It was one of my best floor routines.”
At these World Championships, gymnasts finally got one-touch warm-ups in the event finals, something they’ve been asking for at many competitions. Famously, Simone Biles said in the past that she wouldn’t do her most difficult vaults in the vault final because of the lack of warm-ups on the competition equipment. These warm-ups were finally reinstated and Melnikova got to experience the change on all four events. She said she wholeheartedly approves the change:
“I think they made the absolutely right decision, because we’re doing very difficult elements and it’s very hard sometimes to compete without a warm-up [on the competition equipment]. It’s less dangerous with the warm-ups, it’s for the good of the athletes, so it’s right.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
