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≡ WORLD ARTISTIC CHAMPS ≡
The final day of the 2026 World Gymnastics Artistic World Championships in Rotterdam (NED), ended with a roar for the American women, with two more medals that placed the American team at the top of the medal table.
● Women/Beam: All-Around champ Skye Blakely was the only American, starting second behind Algeria’s Uneven Bars winner Kaylia Nemour. But Nemour – who was the last qualifier at 14.133 – was the 2025 silver medalist in the event and made everyone’s life harder with a polished routine that scored 8.266 on execution and 14.566 overall.
That was going to be hard to beat, but China’s defending champ Qingying Zhang (15.100) and Qiyuan Qiu (14.966) had been better in the qualifications. They had to wait, as Blakely followed with a 13.633, not in contention and she finished sixth. France’s Elena Colas posted a 14.100 and moved into second, and Qiu had trouble, scoring only 13.633 and finally finishing seventh.
Brazil’s Flavia Saraiva, third in qualifying, was just as good and scored 14.300, moving into second with just Zhang remaining. The Chinese star had a stronger difficulty value than Nemour, but her execution score of 8.066 was lower and as they both scored 14.566, the lower execution score meant Nemour got her second gold of the championships.
● Women/Floor: American teens Reese Esponda (17) and Claire Pease (17) qualified first and fifth on Floor, so both figured in the fight for medals. The early leader Britain’s Abigail Martin, who scored 13.466 in the second position and she was still on top when Esponda came up in the sixth slot.
She showed her usual power and poise and took the lead with a 6.000 difficulty value and 7.566 on execution for a 13.566 total, just below her leading qualifying score of 13.633. That brought another teen, 17-year-old Mariana Prat (FRA), who posted a 13.466 and had a better execution score than Martin and moved into second.
That left Pease, already the Vault silver winner. She started with the highest difficulty value of 6.100 and executed it well, earning a 7.866 (equal second best in the field) on execution and totaled a gold-medal-winning 13.866, despite a 1/10th penalty!
At 17, Pease won four medals (1-3-0) at the U.S. Nationals and came to her first World Championships and took away a Team silver, All-Around seventh, Vault silver and a Floor gold: four more medals!
Pease became the sixth American to win the Floor gold; it was the first U.S. 1-2 in the event since 2019, when Simone Biles and Suni Lee did it. With Frederick Richard’s men’s Floor gold, it’s the first time the U.S. has won the men’s and women’s Floor at the same Worlds!
● Men/Vault: Winners of the last four Worlds were in this event with Carlos Yulo (PHI: 2021, 2025), Artur Davtyan (ARM: 2022) and Britain’s Jake Jarman (2023). Jarman took the lead in the fourth position, scoring 14.650 on the average of his two vaults, and he was followed by Davtyan, who scored 14.800 and 14.900 to take the lead at 14.850.
Yulo scored only 13.833 and was seventh and no one could challenge the top two. Norway’s Sebastian Sponevik, just the no. 7 qualifier, averaged 14.366 and earned the bronze ahead of Ukraine’s two-time Worlds bronzer Nazar Chepurnyi (14.350).
For Davtyan, it’s his fourth medal (2-1-0) in the last four Worlds in this event.
● Men/Parallel Bars: China’s Jingyuan Zou, the winner in 2017-18-22-25 was back again and was the top qualifier by more than half a point! He was fourth in the order and simply crushed the event, scoring 15.733 – with a 9.633 on execution! – and won easily, his fifth Worlds gold, the most ever.
Croatia’s Ilia Kovtun was the no. 2 qualifier and won the silver, scoring 14.900, same as in qualifying. He finished just ahead of Russian Daniel Marinov at 14.866, who repeated his bronze-medal performance from 2025.
● Men/Horizontal Bar: Japan’s Shohei Kawakami led the qualifying and started second, scoring 14.600, exactly the same, but he was already in second place as Russian Sergei Naidin had led off with a 14.800.
Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka improved to 14.800 in the third spot and moved into the lead with better execution than Naidin. Then both were immediately passed by 30-year-old Chia-hung Tang (TPE), the Paris 2024 bronze winner.
Tang had the equal-highest start value of 6.600 and even with an execution score of 8.366, he took the lead at 14.966, moving up from second in qualifying to first and no one could catch him.
Tang won Chinese Taipei’s first-ever Worlds medal in this event; Oka’s silver extended Japan’s medal streak to five straight Worlds.
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The overall medal table showed the U.S. with eight (3-3-2), ahead of China (3-2-2: 7) and Japan (2-1-1), Armenia (2-0-2) and Russia (0-2-2) with four each.
Richard won the only U.S. men’s medal but the women, competing without U.S. A-A champ Hezly Rivera, were outstanding, with seven medals with 21-year-old Blakely winning three individual medals and Pease, 17, winning two, as the next generation emerges in U.S. gymnastics.
It will be fascinating to see how these results impact the interest of stars who did not compete in 2026, such as Jordan Chiles and Biles. The serious prep for 2028 is now on.
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