PARIS WORLD CHALLENGE CUP 2025:
NEMOUR DOMINATES ON BARS, MELNIKOVA RETURNS

Paris Hosts the 2025 World Challenge Cup

At the Accor Arena, the Paris World Challenge Cup brought a deep specialist field and post-Games energy into a compact two-day program. Finals rewarded athletes pairing top-end difficulty with controlled execution across all four events, with several Olympic and world medalists delivering title-ready sets.

Nemour Sets the Uneven Bars Standard

Reigning Uneven Bars Olympic champion Kaylia Nemour returned to the same Paris 2024 arena and won uneven bars gold with 15.033 in the final (D 6.8 / E 8.233). She led qualifications with 15.366 (D 6.9 / E 8.466), which stands as the top UB score awarded so far in 2025. Nemour's unique composition is key to generating these huge scores; her focus on minimizing rhythm breaks and transition deductions, while stacking high-value elements connected in sequence and sustaining world-class execution continues to set the gold standard. Relative to earlier 2025 benchmarks on the circuit, including Antalya and the Cairo World Challenge Cup 2025, Paris reaffirmed that Nemour’s D sits a step above while E remains in the high-8s band.

Melnikova Returns to FIG Competition

Angelina Melnikova, who was granted Authorized Neutral Athlete (AIN) status in 2025, returned to international competition in Paris. Qualifying to three event finals on vault, beam, and floor, she capture beam gold with 13.500 (D 5.6 / E 7.9) and floor silver with 13.400 (D 5.3 / E 8.1). Of note, Melnikova emerged with the highest execution score (8.1) of the floor medalists and second overall, behind only Lisa Vaelen (8.133) who also incurred a neutral deduction (-0.1) that factored into her final score (13.333) placing her in fourth.

Martin Takes Vault in close margin

Vault produced the weekend’s tightest podium. Abigail Martin (14.016) edged Karina Schoenmaier (14.000), with Karla Navas third (13.883). Martin's execution propelled her to gold, with the top 3 carrying the same 2 vault difficulty. Although Schoenmaier’s first vault secured a higher execution score (9.100) vs. Martin (8.866), the gold medalist's overall 2 vault execution secured the win.

Maneca-Voinea Powers Floor

Sabrina Maneca-Voinea paired the day’s top FX difficulty (5.9) with steady execution (7.9) to win floor with 13.800, separating the podium ahead of Melnikova 13.500 (D 5.3 / E 8.1) and Finland’s Kaia Tanskanen at 13.366 (D 5.4 / E 7.966).

Field Notes and Scoring Patterns

This Paris competition featured multiple Olympians across qualifications and finals, including Kaylia Nemour (ALG), Angelina Melnikova (AIN/RUS), Jessica Gadirova (GBR), Lisa Vaelen (BEL), Abigail Martin (GBR), Ruby Evans (GBR), Laura Casabuena (ESP), and Morgane Osyssek-Reimer (FRA). Nemour's high difficulty set the ceiling on uneven bars, while vault swung on execution with close score margins at the top.