Algerian Nemour shines in the World Gymnastics Championships | sports

The day after she was crowned with the gold medal on the uneven bars, Algerian Kilia Nammour won the silver medal on the balance beam, Saturday, at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Jakarta.

She was surpassed only by the brilliant Chinese Zhang Qingying, who was also 18 years old, and who had won the bronze medal in the general competition two days earlier.

Zhang scored an exceptional score of 15.166 points on this difficult device, making her competition extremely difficult.

But Nammour, who moved from representing France to Algeria two years ago following a dispute between her club and the French Federation, proved with this silver medal that she is no longer just a specialist in the uneven bars, but is now capable of competing on the podium in the full competition as well.

She had qualified for three finals in the Indonesian capital, and ranked fourth in the full competition last Wednesday, before overcoming the disappointment and winning the gold on the bars, the apparatus in which she was also crowned Olympic champion.

Since the Olympics, the young woman has lived a year full of ups and downs. In the spring, she decided to leave her training club in Afouane, near Tours, to move to training in Dijon. She then denounced the “insults” she had been subjected to for years and the “dominance” practiced by her former coaches at Afwan.

As for the next stage, which is supposed to lead her to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, her coach, Nadia Massé, believes that the greatest margin of improvement will be in floor movements.

“The biggest work will be on improving self-confidence,” she told Agence France-Presse. “We are excited to come back and start preparing new movements for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.”

As for the bronze medal, it went to Japanese Aiko Sugihara (14.166 points), who moments later won gold on floor, scoring 13.833 points.

Absent from the tournament was American star Simone Biles, who preferred to stay away in the year after the Olympics.