Andrade, Nemour, Richard, Lan, Manukyan golden as apparatus finals begin at Gymnastics Worlds

Resurgent performances from Rebeca Andrade (BRA) and Kaylia Nemour (ALG) resulted in renewed World titles on Vault and Uneven Bars in the women’s competition as apparatus finals began at the World Championships Saturday. 

For the men, Lan Xingyu (CHN) collected his second gold on Still Rings, while Hamlet Manukyan won Pommel Horse gold for Armenia, the nation’s first on the apparatus. Fulfilling a promise to himself, Fred Richard (USA) upset reigning World and Olympic champions as the surprise winner on Floor Exercise.

He called it months ago

Richard became the first U.S. man since 2003 to win the World title on Floor Exercise, combining high-flying skills with sharp landings as he scored 14.466 points to take an early lead in the final.

That score stood up against every other competitor, including reigning World champion Jake Jarman (GBR), who piled on the difficulty but was not as precise as he could have been with his landings. Despite a difficulty score half a point higher, Jarman settled for second with 14.600, just 0.033 shy of gold.

Richard said on social media in May that “there will be a gold medal from Worlds on my neck” this year. 

He was right.

“I hope this is a lesson to everybody that you don’t have to wait to get the win to say you will be a champion,” Richard told NBC. “You don’t have to know when it’s going to happen or how it’s going to happen, but believing it every second of every day does pay off. I’m proof of that now.”

Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Artem Dolgopyat (ISR) was finessed as he won bronze, his fourth World medal on Floor. Reigning Olympic champion Carlos Yulo (PHI) missed the landing on his second tumbling pass and finished eighth.

Still nobody can top Andrade on Vault 

In her first World Championships since 2023, Andrade proved that she hasn’t lost a step after taking a year away from competition. Andrade won her third World title on vault with a scintillating double-twisting Yurchenko and roundoff, half on, layout front half off. 

Andrade’s difficulty — a combined 9.8 for both vaults — was 0.6 lower than silver medallist Claire Pease (USA), but the 27-year-old Brazilian’s technique put her over the top by 0.233.

“I trained, and I did what I trained. So I couldn’t be prouder,” Andrade told reporters. “On to the future.”

Pease landed a Cheng, the hardest vault in the final, but was crooked on the takeoff of her double-twisting Yurchenko and swallowed a 0.3 penalty for landing out of bounds. 

She still earned silver ahead of new All-Around champion Skye Blakely, who showed clean but lower-difficulty vaults. Canadians Lia-Monica Fontaine and Ellie Black were fourth and fifth, respectively.

For Manukyan, the rest is gold

The final gymnast to go in the Pommel Horse final, Manukyan needed better than 15.233 to become the first Armenian World champion on Pommel Horse.

That’s an impossible score for most, but attainable for the 19-year-old, a Pommel Horse wunderkind who had already claimed World and European titles at the junior level. He scored 15.300, upstaging European champion Gabriele Targhetta.

“This is my dream. I can’t explain my emotions,” said Manukyan, who finished fourth last year. “ Last year I made some mistakes, but this year I was able to do my combinations. I’m so happy.”

Teammate Mamikon Khachatryan was almost as good, taking bronze after silver last year. Between them was Targhetta (ITA), the first Italian in 113 years to win a World medal on the apparatus.

Paris Olympic silver medallist Nariman Kurbanov (KAZ) hit his routine but got conservative on the dismount and ended fourth. 2025 bronze medallist Patrick Hoopes (USA) finished fifth.

Imperial Nemour soars to second Bars title

Another Uneven Bars title helped Nemour absorb the sting of disappointment from Friday’s All-Around competition, where she finished fourth after mistakes on Vault and Uneven Bars. 

“I’m so happy to have risen above the disappointment from yesterday and the pressure of being the first up in the final. It can be complicated to go out first, especially at the World Championships when your performance is highly anticipated,” Nemour said.

“I’ve been so happy because people have been really supportive after yesterday. I’m so happy because I’ve received an enormous number of benevolent, supportive messages, which brought my self-confidence back up. Certainly this medal will never replace one from the All-Around, but nothing is lost. I am so proud today, and there’s still the Beam final to come. And I’ll be fighting to go get that [All-Around] medal next year.”

Nemour reconfigured her routine for the final after struggling with the timing of her first sequence of skills earlier in the week. Even with some difficulty removed, she amassed a 7.0 D-score, 0.6 higher than anyone. Her 15.233 made her all but untouchable. 

European champion Helen Kevric (GER) came closest with 14.833 for her first World Championships medal. 

Kevric lacked Nemour’s connected elements, but showed World-beating potential with a high-flying exercise that concluded with a stuck full-twisting double tuck. 

With Vault and Uneven Bars bronze, Blakely has landed on the podium in every women’s event so far. The bronzes bring her medal count to four on the championships, with the Balance Beam final still to come.

Elena Colas (FRA) continued to show promise with her fourth-place finish, ahead of Naomi Visser (NED), the only host nation gymnast to qualify for an apparatus final.

Lan is lord of the Rings once more

Lan Xingyu’s second World title on Still Rings has been a long time coming: he won gold in 2021 and bronze last year after several years without a major international title.

On an apparatus often decided by razor-thin margins, nobody in the eight-man final was able to come near Lan’s 14.766 for a routine with three massively difficult strength holds that commenced with Lan hanging completely extended from the Rings. 

Lan’s margin of victory over Eleftherios Petrounias (GRE) was almost half a point, the Still Rings is the equivalent of winning a football game by multiple goals. European gold medallist Artur Avetisyan (ARM) earned bronze, his nation’s third medal of the day, ahead of Oka Shinnosuke (JPN) and Ilia Zaika (WG2).

“Over the past few days, I’ve been working with my coaches and the team to make some adjustments, aiming to learn from the team finals experience, perform better, and ultimately secure this title,” Lan said. “I’m truly delighted. I hope to put in even more hard work leading up to the Olympic team event, with the goal of achieving a great result at the Olympics.”

Silver was Petrounias’s fifth World Championships medal, and capped a “crazy week” for the 35-year-old. After a mistake on his dismount in qualification, he was so sure he wouldn’t make the final that he cancelled his family’s hotel reservation. (He qualified in eighth place.) Then came a fever, and finally realization of what he needed to do to fix his dismount. 

“I found a small difference in the technique. When I tried it yesterday, I said to my coach I could bet all my money that I’ve found the solution,” said Petrounias. 

The 35-year-old might have retired by now, but his two daughters have convinced him to carry on.

“I said, ‘Daddy’s going to stop soon’ and they said ‘Nooo!’” Petrounias said. Motivation is “my kids mostly,” he added. “And the fact that I love the sport.”