Note: I wrote this a long time ago, actually around the time of these events, and somehow never got around to posting it. Gotta love busy lives, right? Anyways read on to see my thoughts!
This can be considered a grand time, at least for me. The girls (and men) were all in Glasgow for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships this month, with competition running the past 2 weeks. But that's not all! Baseball postseason was also occurring, culminating with the World Series this past week. I'm here to share my thoughts with you.
Starting off with Worlds. Man, was it a crazy ride, from qualifications to the bars final! Out of qualifications, I don't know what the bigger shock was: the falls and miscues for the United States, or Romania not directly qualifying a team for Rio next year. Team finals brought the same kind of exhilaration. With miscues from Russia, Britain was able to make the podium and place third. Not so shockingly, the US and China went 1-2. All Around finals were predictable in the sense that Simone Biles won (of course). The girl is superhuman, I swear. Gabby Douglas also returned, defending her Olympic title, placing second. We'll never know what would've happened if Maggie Nichols competed AA in qualifications and qualified to finals over Gabby though. Now for the craziness. The bars final resulted in four, I repeat, FOUR gold medalists, including Madison Kocian and Viktoria Komova. Simone placed 3rd on vault that day, behind Maria Paseka and Hong Un Jong. Then came beam finals, seeing Simone again win gold, and the same on floor, where Maggie Nichols also placed 3rd.
So what? The US continued to show dominance despite a poor performance. The return of Aly Raisman (who, sadly, missed any individual finals) and Gabby Douglas to the international stage proved their comebacks. Worlds time is one of the best times of year for a gym fan, and this was no exception. There was a lot of stakes out there, being the year before the Olympics, and that definitely showed in the competition. Oh, and the Netherlands team was pretty boss too, if I say so myself.
On to the World Series. Man, all the postseason came down to this. Mets vs Royals. I gotta say I was pulling for the Astros or the Blue Jays, but hey, whatever. I always seem to pull for the underdog, like I was pulling for the Mets to win. Unfortunately, their defensive errors and general lack of offense couldn't overcome their excellent starting pitching or the Royals exceptional bullpen. Nonetheless, I'm happy for the Royals, but I would've liked to see someone new to the scene win instead of a team in there for the second straight year. It's not that I don't like the Royals either, because I do, it's just my nature to pull for the underdogs and newbies. Why else would I root for the Rockies?
