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Europeans - Event Finals Day 2

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A great day for the Russians as beautiful Anna Dementieva took gold on beam, and spritely young Yulia Belokobylskaya presented a wonderfully precise floor routine for the bronze medal.

This means that all four Russian girls medalled at these championships, if you count Aliya Mustafina's leading performance in qualifications - and despite Aliya's unfortunate absence from finals, the Russian girls medalled in all but one event - vault.  So a good competition all things taken into account,  Go today to the Russian Federation's website to see a lovely picture of happy Anna and Yulia.

Well, we are all sad that Aliya is facing such a difficult recovery - but confident she will make the best of it in the long run.  In the meantime, the remaining team members have a chance to step up and make their contribution to Russian gymnastics, and it will be interesting to see how the various gymnasts perform under the spotlight,  I for one was highly encouraged by the strong, stable and artistic performances of Anna Dementieva.  The robust competitive attitude of the Russian team's leader certainly seems to have rubbed off onto all the girls, who got through this competition almost flawlessly - did any one of them make even one major error? - and I should mention here spitfire Tanya Nabieva, and the baby Yulia Belokobylskaya.

Wow.  Come on you Russians.
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