Skip to main content

Polyan strikes gold in Shenzhen

The Universiade event finals took place yesterday, with Japan's Yu Minobe taking two golds (bars and beam).  The Japanese women put on a strong showing here, taking a total of nine medals throughout all stages of the competition (seven in the event finals, team gold and silver in the all around (Yamagishi)).

Russia showed their class on vault and floor, taking three medals in total.  Alena Polyan, who shone at this spring's Russian Championships, dominated floor, taking the top score on this event each day of the competition.  Along with her bronze all around and on beam, she has a good collection of medals from this event.  2010 European team champion Anna Myzdrikova took silver on vault. St Petersburg's Irina Sazonova performed pretty much as she did in qualifying on bars, finishing in sixth place, Ekaterina Skorodumova took a .6 penalty on floor to finish 6th there also.  Yulia Lozhecko was the only Russian woman not to qualify to any final.

In the men's competition, Flavius Koczi made up for a disappointing all around performance by taking two golds, on floor and vault.  No Russian man performed in event finals.  Given Russinyak's performance at this spring's Russian championships, and before that at the European Junior championships, this must be a disappointment.

Full results of the events finals can be found here.

Comments

  1. Found these interviews with Polyan and Myzdrikova (they're in Russian, obviously). Thought I'd share them in case you hadn't seen them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvHIm-YNKQs&feature=channel_video_title

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hadn't seen them - thank you very much for the link - will try to post later.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Komova should have won!

It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011. Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Kom...

'Mustafina is no longer in pain' - Valentina Rodionenko

Picture of Aliya Mustafina, courtesy of RGF Valentina Rodionenko has provided some updates on the Russian teams and how their preparation for Worlds (Nanning, China, 3 to 12 October) is progressing, via Allsports (http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=84328) - The teams are now at camp in Italy, in two small towns close to Milan, by the sea, where the girls travelled on 29th June and the men on 1 July.  The athletes aren't only training, they can also relax. - Komova is working out at Round Lake, she didn't go to Italy.  We will see how she does at the Russia Cup, which will be held late August in Penza. Tatiana Nabiyeva is looking good in training and the other girls are also working.  Ksenia Afanasyeva won't have time to prepare for Worlds, and Anastasia Grishina's participation is also in doubt, we just don't know if she will qualify for the team.   We have hopes for Aliya Mustafina.  As always, she is our number one.  It would be great if there were t...

The State of the Art - Gymnastics in 2013

Just picked up Peter Aykroyd's 1987 book  International Gymnastics: Sport Art or Science?.  Seeing it reminded me that gymnastics is in a constant state of flux and change; its identity has been subject to debate and conflict since the earliest days of competitive gymnastics, well before it existed in the form we recognise today.  I want to try to talk about the state of the sport today, how it compares to past models, how it arrived at this point, and what are the questions arising. I make no apologies for publishing the picture comparisons on this page, which were created by Lifje.  Some have seemed to find them rather challenging in the past, but they are not airbrushed or altered in any way.  Yes, the pictures are purpose selected for the sake of comparison, but they express a truth about the direction the sport has taken over the past few years.  They are not so much about Russia versus America as artistry versus athletics.  I do not pretend...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more