KOMOVA SHOULD HAVE WON

It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011.

Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Komova was back to her junior form on floor, leaping, twisting and somersaulting with the most amazing power disguised as lightness, and dancing with all the confidence of a trained performer, while Douglas tiptoed and waved her arms in the air in what was a pale imitation of a floor routine.

Oh, and then there is bars; can anyone explain the .5 hike in Douglas's score compared to Tuesday's performance? Did she really improve her execution so much? Did she really manage to achieve better execution scores than both Mustafina and Komova?

Douglas was a worthy silver medallist, with significantly better line that we are used to from an American, but very poor choreography and not an all around champion by my measure, especially not against Komova at her best. Despite her step on vault Komova was the best today and should have won by rights. I don't like to listen to Russian coaches complaining about the marks, which I guess we are going to have to tolerate in coming days, but if the boot were on the other foot the gymternet would be alive with twitters, Facebook and blog posts by American coaches defending their gymnasts. The double standards are appalling. The FIG says it wants beautiful gymnastics and that the Amanar needs downgrading, then marks vault higher than ever before. Bars scores have favoured the American girls during both finals, being held down when they might help the Russian girls level during the team competition, and hiked during the all around when it favoured Douglas to do so.

Nevertheless, I will congratulate all the medallists for their fantastic performances today. It was by far the best all around competition I have seen in many years. And that bronze medal - well, it's worth more than its weight in gold. Kudos to Queen Mustafina, and commiserations to Tsarina Viktoria, who really should have been wearing the gold medal tonight