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Queen Mustafina's new clothes. Or, Why Wear Your Best Tiara to the First Party of the Year?

I cannot remember a time when even relatively low profile competitions seemed to carry such significance for gymnastics as today.  The internet is at least partly responsible.  Almost instant access to results, images and videos spawns international discussion and debate.  I do not think we should underestimate this power of word, especially now we have the open-ended Code with its prescriptive formulae for deductions and bonuses which can appear to make everyone with a little knowledge into a gymnastics expert.  Gymnastics has always been a political sport in which the importance of ‘reputation’ has regularly played a role in determining competition outcomes, both by influencing the psychological pressures under which the athletes perform and by shaping the expectations and responses of judges. 

This means that Federations have many difficult selection decisions to make each year as so much of what their gymnasts do falls under a microscope.    A gymnast’s participation in this or that competition is not only to do with gaining experience or testing training outcomes, it can also be to do with trumpeting potential, jockeying for position, and basically ensuring the PR advantage so that every last thousandth is awarded at that crucial time when your team is vying for a medal.

The early gymnastics season has been fascinating, therefore, for selection decisions the Russian team has made – and some that they haven’t; and for the not-so-subtle interplay with American team decisions.  The two most prominent of these decisions have to be the omission of Viktoria Komova from the field for the European championships; and the last-minute inclusion of Jordyn Wieber into the American Cup competition.

Gymnastics fans had been waiting for a showdown between World Champion Mustafina and Youth Olympic Champion Komova ever since Komova became eligible for senior competition in January.   This was expected to take place at February’s Russian National Championships but Mustafina was absent there as she focussed her energies on the upcoming American Cup.  What happened next was perhaps rather unexpected: Anna Dementieva, a young pretender famous for her style more than her competitive attitude, was crowned Russian Champion.  Viktoria Komova, who had barely been known to falter before, is reported to have balked vault.  So the wild favourite to dominate not only Russia, but the world, had fallen at the first hurdle.  And in so doing she propelled her more artistic, less touted colleague into the world spotlight.  All of a sudden Russia had crowned a new, somewhat surprising star.   

Meanwhile, at the American Cup, Queen Mustafina put on a good performance, but not quite convincing enough for the judges who preferred to place Jordyn Wieber ahead of her in the all around stakes.  Mustafina was the author of her own downfall here, gifting the Americans the gold medal they so badly wanted on home ground when she stumbled in her floor exercise.  And in the PR battle, thanks to the overwhelming dominance of English-speaking websites on the internet, Wieber seems to have gained a little ground.

So while Russia had gained a third senior all around prospect for the coming World Championships and Olympic Games, its current all around World Champion stood with a question mark over her crown.  And while she may have regained some ground during her epic triple gold medal winning performances at this weekend’s French International, critics will point to the depleted field and to the fact that arguably her fiercest rival was competing in Italy at the Jesolo Cup.  There her American Cup nemesis, Jordyn Wieber, found herself in a tricky floor situation and overtaken in the overall competition by team mate Mckayla Maroney, thus introducing a new name to the US all around roster, providing their somewhat weakened team with a second ‘name’ to rival the court of Queen Mustafina.  

In the midst of all this media noise, our Queen maintains her regal bearing and few doubt that she will dominate the upcoming European Championships, which provide a welcome semi-colon in the very long sentence that is this year’s gymnastics season.  Will she match the achievement of previous Russian Queens Boginskaya and Tourischeva and take gold in every event?  This feat is fairly well within her grasp, though Beth Tweddle, Tanya Nabieva and Anna Dementieva may well have something to say.  

And Viktoria Komova?  Hmm … she won’t be there, her absence reportedly due to an ankle injury she has been carrying since last December, and which severely curtailed her success at February’s Russian National Championships.  But then …

With all the parading and puffing going on around gymnastics today, wouldn’t you rather keep your crown jewels locked away for a little longer, especially when the main competition doesn’t happen for another year and a half?  Why wear your best tiara to the first party of the year?

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