Watch Mai Murakami cap off an illustrious career with a final gold medal on home turf, and understand the score behind the routine. Mai Murakami’s (JPN) event final floor exercise was actually one of the most controversial scores of the 2021 World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan: she initially placed second, just behind all-around champion Angelina Melnikova (RUS), but was moved ahead after an inquiry improved her score a tenth. See the breakdown of her difficulty (D-score) and execution (E-score) in this video.
This medal is one of the ones that I was rooting for the most. Mai Murakami has been such a force in gymnastics since 2013, with a world title on floor exercise in 2017 and several medals at the 2018 World Championships. After such a struggle in 2019, it was great to see her take an Olympic medal in 2021, winning bronze on floor in Tokyo. She returned to Worlds 2021 to compete in front of a home audience—and her mother, who couldn’t watch the Olympics live due to COVID—and managed to grab one more gold. It was such a heartwarming moment!
Notes on scoring:
- Her Mustafina (E) seemed a bit short—her leg dropped early—so I credited her a Memmel (D), a one-tenth reduction in line with the difficulty score she received (Murakami attempted a 5.9 but was awarded a 5.8).
- There might’ve been bent knees on her back layout 5/2 + front layout 1/1? I didn’t take it off, but I noticed a bit of bending. I couldn’t tell how much of it was even possible—her legs could’ve been at their straightest at that point—and it didn’t seem like a deduction that live judges would’ve noticed without significant video replay.
- I only saw one tenth of body shape on her split 1/2 (she was basically at a full split if you look closely, but she was weirdly angled forwards so one of her legs seemed below 90).
- I only saw one tenth of body shape on her switch ring leap—I couldn’t tell with 100% certainty if she managed to get her foot up to the crown of her head, which is 0.1 instead of 0.3, so I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt given that the angle is poor.
- Whether or not Murakami deserved it over Angelina Melnikova is a tough question to answer, but I personally think Murakami was deserving of the gold medal. The reductions in Melnikova’s D score were very strict, but still justifiable in the Code. Ultimately, given Gelya’s all around gold medal from this championships, it feels “right” to me that both got to cap off the quad on top of the world.
- Whoever colored the arena in Kitakyushu wasn't looking out for me! The colors are a bit tough to see here, though I've done by best to position the annotations in places where they're easily understood.
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