Nabieva, Dementyeva cement national team status; Belokobylskaya shines for the first time!

Russian nationals has closed with impressive shows of strength and skill from now established national team members.  A new star also shone for the first time this weekend.  Tatiana Nabieva and Anna Dementieva  strengthened their positions on the Russian team by becoming dual gold medallists, Nabieva taking gold on vault and bars, Dementieva a further gold on beam to complement her all around win.  And with silvers on bars and floor, Dementieva must surely be considered Russia's top female gymnast of these championships.  First time senior Yulia Belokobylskaya took floor gold and silver on beam.


Full results are available at the Federation website.  It's unclear what implications these championships have for European team selections as the results ask so many questions, in particular regarding the form of Viktoria Komova, who has clearly faltered somewhat here.  The gymnasts' competitive schedules are busy over  coming weeks, with Mustafina kicking her season off with an appearance at the American Cup and the main contenders for Europeans appearing in the French International in Paris in a couple of weeks' time also.  Now, if I were Alexander Alexandrov, I would rest Komova this spring and push Dementieva and Mustafina as all arounders backed up by Nabieva on vault and bars and Belokobylskaya on beam and floor.  This avoids tiring out Komova needlessly (the Russians will probably dominate Europeans with or without her) and also avoids establishing any kind of certainty at all regarding the relative rankings and status of members of the team.  But it is doubtless far too early to come to any kind of decision at all about rosters.

Results :

Vault

1  Tatiana Nabieva    14.475
2  Anna Pavlova        14.413
3  Alena Polyan         13.85

Bars

1  Tatiana Nabieva   15.6
2  Anna Dementieva  14.725
3  Viktoria Komova   14.525.  Thanks to Nora for a link to a video of this routine.

Beam

1  Anna Dementieva  15.5
2  Maria Dunaeva   15.1
3  Yulia Belokobylskaya 14.75
4  Viktoria Komova  14.075

Floor

1  Yulia Belokobylskaya  14.575
2  Anna Dementieva 14.325
3  Maria Stepanova 14.025

There is much speculation as to the source of Komova's problems at this competition, but isn't the girl entitled to a bad weekend?  There could be countless reasons besides the much cited heavily strapped right ankle.  She looks as though she has grown quite significantly since last summer.  And to be frank, like Dementieva, she looks even more elegant than before.  So let's just keep our fingers crossed for all of these girls, who in addition to pushing the difficulty envelope, also make the sport worth watching again.  Oh, and I LOVE TATIANA NABIEVA ;-)))

I will bring you the men's results a little later.