2026 Worlds Women's All-Around: Why Sugihara Missed Bronze

*This article reflects information available as of October 25, 2026. Scores are taken from a live results site that publishes the official FIG/Longines data.

The women's all-around final at the 2026 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam took place on October 23. Skye Blakely of the United States won with 55.733. Japan's Aiko Sugihara finished fifth with 54.765, and Rina Kishi was 15th with 52.632. Sugihara had qualified only 21st, so she gained 2.499 points between qualification and the final, but she still ended up 0.267 short of the bronze medal. This analysis comes from the perspective of a former Japanese gymnast and the developer of a D-score app. It breaks down those 0.267 points using the published difficulty (D), execution (E) and neutral deduction figures.

Sugihara started the final on floor and scored 13.400, tied for second best of the night. Floor is the only women's event performed to music, and both the 90-second structure and the way the routine fits the music show up in the score. If you are building a floor routine, you can talk through music choice and editing with a former gymnast and recording artist through our competition floor music service.

2026 Worlds Women's All-Around Final Results: Blakely Takes Her First Title

Final standings (top eight)

Here are the top eight in the final (scores from the full women's all-around final results on Gym Art, based on FIG/Longines data). D and E totals are summed over the four events.

Third through fifth place were separated by just 0.267, and Nemour missed the bronze by only 0.034.

The three medalists

• Gold: Skye Blakely (USA), 21. According to Yahoo Sports, she is the ninth American woman to become world all-around champion and the first since Simone Biles (Yahoo Sports report on the final). An Achilles tear kept her off the 2024 Paris Olympic team. Her college program, Florida, also announced her world all-around title.
• Silver: Liudmila Roshchina, a Russian gymnast competing as a neutral athlete (WG2) in Rotterdam.
• Bronze: Ke Qinqin (CHN), who is 16 according to Kyodo News (Tokyo Shimbun / Kyodo report, in Japanese).

Japan: Sugihara fifth, Kishi 15th

Japan had two gymnasts in the final. Daily Sports reported that Sugihara called fifth "my personal best" and said she could feel that she had "leveled up to this position" (Daily Sports article on Sugihara, in Japanese). Kishi fell on balance beam and finished 15th.

From 21st to Fifth: Where Sugihara Found 2.499 Points

Qualification vs. final, event by event

Sugihara scored 52.266 in qualification, which put her 21st (women's all-around qualification results). Qualification scores do not carry over, so everyone starts the final from zero. Lining up her two days by apparatus shows exactly where the extra points came from.

Of the 2.499-point gain, 2.099 came from execution. Her difficulty barely moved (21.6 to 21.7). In other words, she did not raise her start values; she hit the same routines cleanly, and that accounts for almost the entire jump.

Uneven bars: the biggest swing at +1.567

The largest gain came on uneven bars. Nippon TV reported that Sugihara fell on bars in qualification. Her E-score there was 6.666; in the final it was 8.133. A fall costs 1.0 point under the Code of Points, so most of that +1.467 in execution is simply the fall going away.

If her bars score in the final had been the same 11.966 as in qualification, her total would have been 53.198 (our calculation). Rebuilding this one event was the foundation of her climb from 21st.

Floor: neutral deductions down from -0.4 to -0.1

On floor her D (5.700) and E (7.800) were identical on both days. The only difference was the neutral deduction. Neutral deductions are taken separately from difficulty and execution, for things such as stepping out of bounds or going over time. They dropped from -0.4 in qualification to -0.1 in the final, and that 0.3 is exactly the gap between 13.100 and 13.400.

For a full explanation of how women's floor is scored (D-score, composition requirements and difficulty values), see our guide to women's floor scoring.

0.267 Short of Bronze: The Gap Was in the D-Score

Sugihara vs. Ke Qinqin (bronze), event by event

So where did the 0.267 between Sugihara and bronze medalist Ke Qinqin come from? Here is the comparison from Sugihara's side.

Across the four events Sugihara out-executed Ke by 0.733 but trailed her by 0.9 in difficulty. The net -0.267 is essentially the difficulty gap.

Second in execution, eighth in difficulty

Among the 24 finalists, Sugihara's E total of 33.165 was second only to the champion Blakely (33.433). Her D total of 21.700, however, ranked eighth. All three medalists had D totals of 22.4 or higher, 0.7 to 1.0 above Sugihara.

• E total: 1. Blakely 33.433, 2. Sugihara 33.165, 3. Colas 33.066
• D total: 1. Pease 23.200, 2. Roshchina 22.700, 3. Ke 22.600 ... 8. Sugihara 21.700
• Sugihara's D deficit was concentrated on uneven bars (-0.4) and balance beam (-0.9)

To see how the difficulty letters (A to J) translate into points, read how to read the women's difficulty table. In women's gymnastics, 0.1 of D is the difference made by moving one counting skill up a single letter.

One event's gap equals the medal gap

Balance beam tells the story. According to International Gymnast, Ke fell on her double back dismount (International Gymnast's report on the final). Even so, her 6.500 start value kept her at 13.833, 0.267 ahead of Sugihara's clean routine (D 5.600, 13.566).

That beam gap of -0.267 is the same number as the overall gap. Sugihara's other three events (vault +0.233, bars -0.367, floor +0.134) net out to exactly zero. The bronze medal was decided by beam difficulty. Having enough difficulty to absorb a 1.0 fall deduction turned out to be the price of a medal.

Women's All-Around D-Score Analysis: How the Medal Race Played Out

Top qualifier Nemour undone by vault

Nemour, who led qualification with 55.999, scored only 12.366 on vault (D 3.600). International Gymnast and Gymnastics Now both report that she mistimed her run and performed a Yurchenko layout instead of her planned double-twisting Yurchenko (Gymnastics Now live recap).

She then posted the best bars (14.866) and best beam (14.500) of the final, but could not recover the vault deficit and finished fourth, 0.034 off the podium. On vault alone, Sugihara outscored her by 1.900. Our article on women's vault skills and difficulty values explains how vault choice sets the D-score.

Blakely won on execution

Blakely's D total of 22.400 was only the fifth highest in the field. She won with execution: her E total of 33.433 was the best of anyone. International Gymnast notes that she built a lead of more than a point after vault, bars and beam, which was enough to hold on through her final event, floor (12.933, 16th best).

• Vault 14.200 (2nd)
• Uneven bars 14.400 (3rd)
• Balance beam 14.200 (3rd)
• Floor 12.933 (16th)

Pease had the highest D but fell on beam

The highest D total belonged to Claire Pease of the United States (23.200), but she fell on beam (per International Gymnast) and her E total of 31.232 left her seventh. Difficulty raises your ceiling when you hit, but a single mistake can erase it through execution.

Sugihara is the mirror image: modest difficulty, very few errors, and an execution total good enough for fifth. To reach the podium she would need to keep that execution level while adding roughly 0.3 to 0.5 of D on bars and beam. Coaches and gymnasts rethinking a floor routine from both the music and composition side can also look at our women's floor music production, which covers editing built around the Code of Points and original composition.

Kishi 15th After a Beam Fall

Qualification vs. final

Rina Kishi qualified 13th with 53.499 and finished the final 15th with 52.632.

Her D total of 22.0 was higher than Sugihara's

Kishi's D total of 22.000 was 0.3 higher than Sugihara's and tied for sixth in the final. The difference was execution: her beam E-score fell from 8.133 in qualification to 6.900 in the final, a drop of 1.233. On floor she went the other way, raising her D from 5.200 to 5.700 and gaining 0.700.

Her difficulty is already at a level that can compete with the world's best. Had she matched her qualification beam score, she would have finished in the high 53s (our calculation).

What's Next: Event Finals and LA 2028

Mana Okamura in the beam final

The last day of the championships, October 25, includes the women's balance beam final. Japan's Mana Okamura qualified fourth with 14.266 (women's balance beam qualification standings). The final had not finished when this article was written. Session times are on the championships schedule.

Sugihara did not qualify for the floor final this time. The full story of Japan's qualification day is in our analysis of the women's qualification.

Sugihara and the Los Angeles Olympics

According to Daily Sports, Sugihara said she "has the desire to take on" the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. She stepped away from the top level for a time and coached before returning, and she said she is now doing "efficient, high-quality gymnastics."

• Japan's women in Rotterdam: team bronze, the first team medal in 60 years, and fifth in the all-around for Sugihara
• Sugihara's strengths: best vault of the final (14.266), tied second on floor (13.400), second in total execution
• Her gap: difficulty on bars and beam (0.7 to 1.0 behind the medalists)

We analyzed Japan's team bronze in 2026 Worlds Women's Team Final: Japan's First Medal in 60 Years. The Japan Gymnastics Association also keeps an event page for the championships (in Japanese).

Music and structure also move the floor score

Sugihara's floor D and E were the same on both days; only the neutral deduction changed. Floor also has rules on routine length (90 seconds maximum) and on music, and the full Code of Points is available on the FIG rules page. For how to plan the length and structure of a routine's music, see our complete guide to making women's floor music.

Summary

• Skye Blakely (USA) won the 2026 world women's all-around title with 55.733, ahead of Roshchina and Ke Qinqin
• Aiko Sugihara rose from 21st in qualification to fifth with 54.765. Of her 2.499-point gain, 2.099 came from execution, and hitting uneven bars (+1.567) was the biggest single swing
• Her 0.267 gap to bronze is the same as her beam gap to Ke (D -0.9). She ranked second in total execution but eighth in total difficulty
• Top qualifier Nemour was forced into a Yurchenko layout on vault and missed bronze by 0.034
• Rina Kishi finished 15th after a beam fall, though her D total of 22.0 was higher than Sugihara's

Sugihara scored 13.400 on floor in this final, tied for second best in the field. If you want to rebuild a floor routine starting from the music, get in touch through our competition floor music service.

Related articles

• 2026 Worlds Women's Team Final: Japan's First Medal in 60 Years
• 2026 Worlds Men's All-Around: How Hashimoto Won a Fourth Title
• Women's Floor Scoring Explained: D-Score, Composition Requirements and Difficulty