Rebeca Andrade edged out by Flavia Saraiva for beam gold on final day of Trophy Brazil
Olympic beam finalist Saraiva narrowly defeated Andrade in Porto Alegre thanks to her higher difficulty score.
Artistic Gymnastics
Tokyo 2020 Olympic artistic gymnastics gold medallist Rebeca Andrade missed out on a second title at the Trophy Brazil (Trofeu Brasil) on Sunday (22 May) after Flavia Saraiva edged her out in the balance beam at the country’s apparatus national championships in Porto Alegre.
Two-time Olympian and five-time Pan Am Games bronze medallist Saraiva, competing after Andrade in the final, delivered a confident and difficult routine that began with a round off, back handspring, split jump, swing down mount sequence.
She was solid on two acrobatic series (a round off, layout to two feet and a back handspring to two layout stepouts) and dismounted with a double pike with a small hop.
saraiva scored 14.433, just ahead of Andrade's 14.333. Although Saraiva, an Olympic beam finalist, earned an execution score of .300 less than Andrade, her difficulty score was 0.4 higher, making the difference in the final standings. Thais dos Santos was the bronze medallist.
Andrade produced her second confident exercise on the apparatus of these championships with barely a wobble throughout.
She mounted with a switch leap onto the beam and then executed a switch leap, switch half, split jump sequence. Her acrobatic series was a back handspring, layout step. Andrade dismounted with a new combination: round off, back handspring, double pike.
The pair train together as members of the Flamengo club in Rio de Janeiro.
2008 and 2016 Olympian Jade Barbosa also made the final, but suffered two falls throughout her routine and scored just 10.533.
Andreza de Lima won the floor title, scoring 12.967.
In the men's competition, Joao Vieira, the top qualifier on vault, ran off the mat on his second vault in the final, opening the door for 2020 Olympian Caio Souza.
Souza capitalised, vaulting a Kasamatsu double twist and a handspring double front half out to take the gold medal with a 14.800 average score. Yuri Guimaraes was second at 14.250 and Rio 2016 Olympic floor exercise bronze medallist Arthur Nory finished third with a 14.100 average score.
In the parallel bars final, Souza was once again victorious, earning a 14.500 score for the gold medal. Diogo Soares, a Tokyo Olympian and two-time Youth Olympics medallist, scored 14.367 for silver while Nory's 13.600 gave him another bronze.
Souza had a chance to complete a sweep of Sunday's final, having posted the top score on the high bar during Friday's qualifying round. But, in the final, he slipped off on a difficult catch-and-release move, a Cassina. Instead, it was Nory, the 2019 world champion on the event, who took the title.
Competing last, Nory wowed the crowed with three release moves in-a-row (layout, straddle and piked Tkatchevs) before executing a full-twisting laidout Jaeger. He dismounted with an upgraded double-twisting, double layout dismount with a small hop for a 14.433.