Nemour Beats Zhang For Beam GOLD 2026 on tie-break! Flávia Saraiva 🥉 | World Championships

Top in qualification, Zhang Qingying of the People's Republic of China, who will be the last to perform. It's not so much about what you lose, but what you save. The fight that a gymnast shows to remain on the apparatus can sometimes be enough to take you to the podium. Kayla Nemour is going to start this beam competition. She's had a complicated championships, fourth in the all-around, but... Gold on the uneven bars. Let's see how she chooses to begin her exercise. This is crucial. If she does what she's intending, we will see a round off onto the springboard and then three layout step outs. One, two, three. Fantastic. She's not done yet. She's setting up for her acrobatic series. We're going to see two back handsprings and then a layout to two feet. Oh, just beautiful. This is very good. Oh, yes. If she can just maintain her focus throughout the rest of this routine, this is going to set a very high bar for everyone else. Now, there's that little tiny pause between the switch and the switch half, and she added in the straddle jump at the end because... It's good practice on balance beam. A gymnast has to show in every routine a sequence of two jumps or two leaps that are connected, or a leap and a jump. And I think she's thinking that she might not have gotten the connection credit for the switch leap and the switch half, and so she adds in the straddle at the end to make sure that she gets the half a point composition requirement for the series. Very, very smart. Just the dismount now, two back handsprings and a double pike. Caelian and Moore will that win it? Yes it could. Good. Style jubilation here. I mean she attacked the mount sequence didn't she? She was spot on in her alignment. She's very good about reminding herself, she says, that she just needs to do her normal in competition, and that is enough. And she's had some frustrations here, not just on balance beam, but also on vault in the all-around final, on uneven bars in the qualification. Education. Great to see her come out and just hit this beam the way that she can, and to add this jump. Yeah. She has really saved herself, potentially, half a point. Thank you, thank you. 19 years. The 16th World Cup in the world. And overall, all of the acrobatic sequences, three of them in this routine, were so well executed. The dismount, again, two back handsprings, right to double pike. She comes up with a brilliant landing today. That small hop is going to be only a tenth of a point deduction. We have seven performances to come. Golly, that's a very good score. 14.566. Six. Four tenths higher than qualification. The difficulty is one tenth up. I'll be the first one representing Brazil. Now, Flavia Saheva. Of Brazil, 14.4 in qualification, the only Brazilian medalist on the apparatus, Rebeca Andrade, in 2023. She won bronze. If Saraiva does what she did in qualification, she'll be second. The door is open, and how many balance beam finals have we seen Flavia Saraiva in over the years? She has never won a world medal on this apparatus. Could today be the day? Beautiful, crisp switch half. Sorry, I was going to say, being finalist way back in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo. This is going to tell us a lot. Back handspring, layout, step out, layout, step out. Today, it's excellent. Now, can she keep her focus? This is one of her trademark skills, the switch ring. She does it like no one else and not a wobble on the landing, so secure. Front aerial, ring jump, back handspring. It's nicely executed. It might be a little questionable if she gets all of the bonus she's intending. But what she isn't doing is giving away deductions in execution. Not a lot of wobbling in this routine. Her dismount, too, will be a double pike. Flavia Saraiva! Outstanding exercises. Could this be the day? Okay. Right from the mount, she was on. Round off back handspring, split jump to Corbett, the back handspring swing down, and then that neat little chest stand, giving the routine some character with the half turn, she finishes the rotation of the switch half really early, it's beautiful to look at, it just kind of floats back down to the beam, and this skill. There's so many photographs of Flavia Saraiva doing it because she does it so well. The head needs to be all the way back and the foot, the back foot needs to be quite near the head. She knows exactly where she is. It's true. Virtually every photo you see of Flavia Saraiva or collection of photos involves that at some point, doesn't it? Some kind of ring position, yes. It's verging on iconic in the world of gymnastics. Completely. There's a little wobble there. But she was just not coming off the beam today. Good day. Gets the body around, secure landing, that is a job, brilliantly done. She was asked about Simone Biles being here and she's like, you know, she'll be in the crowd, she'll be watching, I hope she'll be cheering us all on. She'll be cheering with everyone else right now. 14th World Championship medallist on beam, Flavia Saraiva. Parabéns to the great Brazilian. Finally, congratulations and yes, as you say, finally, now we've got the top qualifier and this is one of the greatest beam routines in the world. She won the title in Jakarta last year. She's going for two in a row. Top qualifier, Zhang Qingying. She's going to do several combinations of leaps and jumps that are very important. It starts here from the mount. Quite well connected. And now she's going to do a round-off straight to a layout to two feet. The fact that she does that skill and lands with both feet at the same time makes it more difficult than if she'd done a layout step-out. Oh, and she got a bit hesitant, didn't do one of the elements that she usually does. This too. Now that's too slow. That's much too slow. She'll get the difficulty credit, but she's going to be... Down on the difficulty score that we saw in prelims, almost certainly, because she's not going to get the connection bonus. That's what we were talking about right at the start. And that third element as well, the straddle three-quarter, unlikely that the judges are going to see that as being connected to the first two leaps. So some complications here, but still some great gymnastics with a sizable adjustment. From Zhang Jinying as she lands. This is going to be a really interesting piece of judging now. I mean, there is, let us be clear, a huge amount that is being done in that exercise. It is packed full of difficulty. It's a penalty. And single skill by single skill, she executes very well. The mount sequence is very good. The switch leap on, the switch half, and then the Corbett. He's ready to score. And then this, one of the highlights of the routine, really. The way that she lands. And no wobbling whatsoever. Switch ring to back handspring. And then she second guesses herself. Normally she does a jump out of that. So there'll be no difficulty for the jump that doesn't exist. And also no series bonus for potentially a connected second and third element. Thank you. Now what we have to bear in mind is this is a gymnast who had a 15.1 score in qualifications. So... She had a pretty decent advantage at the top of the leaderboard. The question is how close she can get to that 15.1 here with 14.566 leading the way. In the all-around final, she was hit quite hard for being a bit slow on some of her connections. And we saw a score, although the routine itself looked very good, only in the low 14s. And you have to wonder... Well, you just have to wonder. We'll leave it at that. I like that. It's been such an interesting final we've got. Namor, Sahaiwa and Kollar at the moment. One, two and three. This is the last score to come in. Zhang Qingying, champion of the world last year. Cheers. 6.8 was her difficulty score in qualifying. Oh my goodness! 14.566! Kayli Namor has won it on a tiebreak! So, the execution score of Kayleigh Namor's 8.266, two tenths higher than Zhang Qingying. Kayleigh Namor has won the gold medal, two golds at these World Championships. Thank you. But for Kayleigh Namor, from fourth in the all-around, from tears of disappointment to sobs of disbelief, The classified results in the women's balance beam competition. Bronze to Flavia Sahaiwa of Brazil. Silver to Zhang Qingying of the People's Republic of China. And gold to Kayli Namor of Algeria. She wins on an execution tiebreak. Her execution scored two tenths higher than Zhang's.