This event was the first qualifying stage for the 2012 Summer Olympics, which were held in London. The top 24 men's and women's teams from the 2010 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships were allowed to send a full team of gymnasts. The top 8 men's and women's teams directly qualified for the team events at the 2012 Olympics. Teams placed 9th to 16th got a second chance to qualify a full team at the Olympic Test Event on January 10–18, 2012, from which four men's and women's teams qualified.
Individuals
The winners of gold, silver and bronze medals in each apparatus qualified for the Olympics, either as individuals or as members of their national team. Additional individual gymnasts qualified from the Test Event in January.
In the qualifying round, 5 gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and the top 4 scores were counted towards the team's total. The top 8 teams qualified to the final.[3]
In the final round, held on October 11, only 3 gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and all the scores counted. The United States team won the gold medal with solid performances by all gymnasts on all apparatus, while the Russian team made several mistakes and finished a distant second. China narrowly beat Romania to win the bronze medal, followed by Great Britain in fifth place.[4][5] This was the highest ranking finish Great Britain had ever had for a team at a World Championship.[6]
During the presentation of medals, the National Anthem of the United States was abruptly ended, causing some frustration amongst both the coaches and the gymnasts themselves.
It has since been reported that right before the team competition began, McKayla Maroney from the United States, who was a member of the team who won the gold medal in the team competition and later won the individual vault title, was sexually assaulted by the former national team and Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar. Maroney has since described this incident as "the scariest night of my life"[7] Nassar, later convicted pedophile, was on the floor next to the gymnasts for most of the world championships.[8]
Alicia Sacramone injured her Achilles tendon during the last podium training and had already left Japan when the Team Final started. However, US National Team Coordinator Marta Karolyi opted to keep her on the roster instead of officially naming alternate Anna Li to the team and subsequently competed with only 5 instead of the usual 6 gymnasts. This led to Sacramone receiving her tenth World Championships medal and officially becoming the US gymnast with the most World Championship medals. As Sacramone was not present during the competition, Li dressed, supported the team on the floor, and accepted the team medal for Sacramone. Li later passed the medal on to Sacramone and received (as customary for the World team alternates) a copy from USAG.
Individual all-around
The final was held on October 13. None of the medalists from the previous year were able to compete to defend their title as the gold and bronze medalists—Aliya Mustafina and Rebecca Bross, respectively—were both unable to compete at worlds due to knee injuries, and silver medalist Jiang Yuyuan did not qualify high enough over her teammates. A number of gymnasts ranked high enough to make the all-around final, but did not qualify due to the two-per-country rule. All the gymnasts from the US that competed in the preliminary round ranked in the top 24. The gymnasts affected were Gabby Douglas (5th), Sabrina Vega (9th), and McKayla Maroney (12th) of the United States. Also affected were Tan Sixin (15th) and Jiang Yuyuan (20th) of China, Yuko Shintake (21st) and Yu Minobe (23rd) of Japan, and Anna Dementyeva (31st) of Russia. The last gymnast to qualify was Carlotta Ferlito, who ranked 32nd in the preliminary competition.
Phan's bronze medal was the first medal for Vietnam at a World Championships. Maroney's performance secured the third consecutive World gold medal for the USA on women's vault following Kayla Williams in 2009 and teammate Alicia Sacramone in 2010. Chusovitina's silver was her 11th world medal (her 9th vault world medal). As her first world championships was in Indianapolis in 1991, she has been competing at an international level since before her fellow vault finalists were born.
On the day before the competition, it was announced that Diana Bulimar injured her foot, and first reserve Lauren Mitchell would take her place in the final. Shortly after the women's beam competition, it was announced that Russia decided to pull Viktoria Komova from the competition to give her teammate (and second reserve) Ksenia Afanasyeva a chance to compete in the final instead. During warm up Vanessa Ferrari injured herself; so, third reserve Diana Chelaru was quickly added to replace her.
In the qualifying round, 5 gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and the top 4 scores counted towards the team's total. The top 8 teams qualified for the final.[9]
In the final round, held on October 12, only 3 gymnasts performed on each apparatus, and all the scores were counted. The Chinese team won the title for the fifth successive time, benefiting from crucial mistakes by the last 2 Japanese gymnasts. Japan was still able to win the silver medal, with a margin of only 0.010 point from the United States in bronze medal position.[10][11]
Berbecar landed on his back, therefore scored a 0.000.
Individual all-around
The all-around final was held on October 14. Three gymnasts had ranked high enough to qualify, but were not allowed to compete due to the two-per-country rule. The affected gymnasts were Jonathan Horton (5th), Fabian Hambüchen (19th) and Steven Legendre (24th). On the day of the final, Marian Drăgulescu pulled out of the competition and Nathan Gafuik took his place. Kōhei Uchimura's gold-medal-winning-margin was 3.101 points over runner-up Philipp Boy, who defended his silver medal from 2010 as well.
The final for Men's Floor Exercise took place on October 15. Marian Drăgulescu had qualified in 2nd,[12] but pulled out of the competition on the morning of the final. As the first reserve, Jake Dalton (USA) took his place. There was also an inquiry made by the Japanese coaches into the scoring when Kōhei Uchimura's difficulty score was only awarded a 6.500 because they had mistaken a triple twisting move for a double twisting move. The inquiry was accepted by the judges, and the score adjusted accordingly, which gave Uchimura the gold medal.
Originally, Marian Drăgulescu was to compete in this final, but had to pull out of competition due to an injury. Denis Ablyazin replaced him in the final as the first reserve.
