Jill Wright's Final Blog Update

Well, the last finals and what a feast of gymnastics.

Can I start with men's High Bar and Zonderland from Netherlands? I have never in my life seen any High Bar routine of this calibre. Hambuchen from Germany competed and his routine was amazing, and we thought that this was the gold routine then Zonderland arrived. He did three releases back to back, two of them with twists with his hair flying and the speed and height of his skills was absolutely staggering. I think I cheered loudest for him than any other competitor (even Lauren when she went on floor).

We started beam with Sui who was absolutely beautiful, rock solid and great skills and all this to get a 9.00 E score, what are those judges thinking? Next we saw Komova who has a great routine but if you can't stay on, you can't get the score! Then Deng, who I think had a slightly lesser routine in terms of performance but she has a 6.6 D score and so she nudged ahead of Sui. I really thought their performances tonight were fantastic. They were focussed and solid and didn't let the emotion get to them.

Then Ponor, beautiful and graceful and lovely line etc, but with a 0.5 and 0.3 wobble. Her execution score was 8.566. Next up was Iordache who was substituted for Bulimar. She fell on her full twisting salto, so she was out of the medals. Afanaseva was up next and she does some lovely skills but had a lower D score, 5.8, and a few unsteady moments for an 8.783 E Score. Douglas did her routine and looked quite confident but fell on her change leg half, not sure if it was paid; she had a step on dismount as well so was definitely out of the medals.

Then Raisman, her performance was very good, but we agreed that she broke a connection, she moved her foot slightly, then her turn with leg up was paid but the full pivot after was determined as incomplete, so she did not get connection bonus. Her E score was 8.766 which I thought was ok but in comparison with Ponor not enough difference. So Raisman came in 4th place. Immediately the US coach made an enquiry into the D score and eventually the D score was raised 0.1 so that she ended up on the same score as Ponor. But because Ponor's E score was lower Raisman got the bronze medal. A bit of drama!

We then went to floor and we were all anxious for various reasons. USA had two competitors; Lauren was competing as well as Afanaseva and Mustafina.

We started with Afanaseva and while her routine is very artistic and 6.1 D score she had a few landing errors and ended up with 8.666 E score, not a winning routine. Then Wieber, last year's World Champion, did not do her best performance. She went out of bounds twice, we thought, but only got 0.1 line deduction. Again, not a medal performance.

Raisman competed and I must say that her performance was electric. Everyone wanted to see a good routine and she did not disappoint. Double double was so high and fast, and her landings were stable, she really put her heart and soul into the routine. 6.5 D score and 9.1 E score, no-one else has such a high D score so we knew it was pretty much in the bag.

Ponor up next and her routine was the best artistry out there. She has such mature movement and dance and really showed what artistry is. But 6.2 D score cannot beat Raisman so she ended up with 9.0 E score, a good effort.

Lauren was next and she did a good job since she only competed 9 days ago! A pretty tough ask and she did well to end up in 5th place. The D judges gave her leap connections out of her tumbling but the E judges took maximum deductions for it!

Ferrari was next opening with a double double. She got 8.7 E score which was disappointing after Lauren's performance got 8.433.

Mustafina was great, did a good job but coming back from her extreme injury she did not have the difficulty to compete so ended up in third place, I think correct ranking for the performances tonight.

It finished Raisman, Ponor and Mustafina, they were happy and enjoyed the ceremony.

So we have finished........ Only a little drama on beam otherwise the judges were invisible which is what we were told to be from day 1.

We have said our goodbyes at the hotel tonight as the transport starts at 3am Wednesday and bit by bit everyone is shuttled out of here.

I have enjoyed my time here immensely and I thank GA and everyone who has supported me over the years.

Jill