Angelina Melnikova (Russia) finally did what was long overdue at Worlds 2021—she won herself a Worlds gold medal, the first title of a long and successful career. Melnikova beat out Leanne Wong and Kayla DiCello, two Americans making their World Championships debuts in Kitakyushu, to take the gold medal home with a score of 56.632 and snap a decade-long American winning streak. While these Worlds were somewhat “under-attended”, with notable athletes like Mai Murakami and Rebeca Andrade opting not to compete in the all-around competition, it’s clear that Melnikova was on top of her game and ready to back up her Olympic bronze with a Worlds gold. What a year this has been for Angelina and Team Russia—after upsetting Team USA to win Olympic team gold in Tokyo, Angelina now has the spot on top of the podium all to herself. Congratulations!
I scored these routines based off of the Worlds scoring, which seemed pretty good to me—I was a bit surprised by how stringent they were on floor exercise. If I’m remembering right, they gave Melnikova a 5.5 in D value on this routine, which seemed awfully low? I couldn’t find a justification to bring the score down that much, so I left it as is. The scores ended up being similar, so I’m a bit doubtful about what happened.
Had she been competing at the Olympics, this score from Angelina would’ve placed fourth, right behind Sunisa Lee in first, Rebeca Andrade in second, and Russian teammate Vladislava Urazova in third. (Mai Murakami would be fifth.) Melnikova posted a 57.199 at the Tokyo Olympics, which was a bronze medal score.
Notes:
- The two replay angles aren’t super good for seeing vault deductions on their own, so I’ve included both of them. The video is a bit quick; sorry about that.
- On uneven bars, it’s hard to see the deductions on the dismount from the angle included, although they’re pretty apparent from the replay angles. I think that the deductions for leg separation are fair.
- I didn’t see any deductions on her beam mount series.
- I watched every element in slow motion to determine where the judges found a 5.5 D score—I did not find anything suspicious. I imagine she either was downgraded on her Double L Turn (D) to a B-rated turn, losing 0.2 base value and 0.1 combination value to a 5.5. Any other reduction: for example, her Memmel (D) to a Y Turn (B) or her Double Wolf (D) to a Single Wolf (A) would’ve resulted in a 5.6. The judges were quite odd at this event regrading difficulty scores: I saw a lot of routines where I thought the full score should’ve been given receive deductions anyways. Any feedback is appreciated!
- On floor exercise, she was very artistic, and her complex choreography came just before her Double Wolf Turn (D). She was on-time for both beam and floor, so there were no time deductions.
I'm not an expert judge and gymnastics can be very subjective -- if you have questions, please feel free to ask, and if you have other ideas, please feel free to comment below! Lu is doing very difficult skills at a world class level, and this video is not intended to diminish her accomplishments but only to help viewers understand how she was successful at the championships by explaining the scoring.
Actual scores earned by Angelina Melnikova at the 2021 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan:
Vault: 14.466
Uneven Bars: 14.533
Balance Beam: 13.800
Floor Exercise: 13.833
Total score: 56.632, 1st place, 2021 World All-Around Champion in Women's Artistic Gymnastics
Timestamps:
0:00 Vault (with slow motion replay)
0:32 Uneven bars
1:17 Balance beam
2:59 Floor exercise
4:43 Final calculations
I do not own this footage. Footage was found from two sources: NBC for vault, bars, and beam, and Olympic Channel for floor. These videos are all being used legally as they are educational by nature and therefore qualify under fair use, although I had to dispute with TMG to get the rights to post.
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