Russian Cup 2011 - apparatus finals

The Russian Cup finished on Sunday with the final day of apparatus finals.  In the women's competition, Komova, Dementieva, Afanasyeva and Belokobylskaya proved to be the most successful of those in contention for places on the national team for the World Championships in Tokyo this October.   In the men's competition, we saw a changing of the guard as Ablyazin, Ignatiev and Garibov began to prove their worth against the falling star of such gymnasts as Devyatovski. 

The Russian Federation website carries full results of the men's competition, and the women's competition.

The top three in each event, and some more detailed notes, are as follows.

Women's Competition

Vault 

1.  Anna Pavlova          14.225
2.  Anna Dementieva    13.813
3.  Maria Paseka          13.713
4.  Tanya Nabieva        13.65

Bars

1.  Viktoria Komova     15.875
2.  Tanya Nabieva         14.825
3.  Yulia Belokobylskaya   14.55
4.  Anna Dementieva      14.45

Beam

1.  Viktoria Komova       15.525
2.  Anna Dementieva       15.15
3.  Yulia Belokobylskaya  14.625


Floor

1.   Ksenia Afanasyeva      14.65
2.   Yulia Inishina                14.025
3.   Yulia Belokobylskaya   13.375

I am indebted to Tess at the Russian language gymnastics board, whose careful reports provide some elaboration to the bare bones we see here.  She includes her calculations of some of the start values.  Some key points

-   Yulia Belokobylskaya fell on her first tumbling pass on floor
-   Ksenia Afanasyeva's choreography is excellent, her tumbling was perfect in this floor exercise.
-   Komova's SV on beam = 6.2
-   Semenova on beam managed only a double twist dismount and an SV of 4.9.
-   Belokobylskaya looked very, very nice on beam, with a start value of 6.0
-   Afanasyeva beam SV of 6.0.  Fell once during the early part of the routine; had another near fall.
-   Dementieva didn't manage to control her beam dismount well and may have missed a connection - resulting in a SV of 6.6 or 6.7
-   Nabieva fell on her double twisting Yurchenko in vault final and had some execution faults in her second vault.  Paseka fell on her second vault.

All of the national team members have new floor routines, the nicest of which I think is Afanasyeva's; I'm not terribly fond of the break in Komova's music nor of the jazzy style given to Dementieva, but perhaps they will grow on me.  Videos of some of the routines can be found here. 

There are still some weeks to go before the team has to make its nominative registrations for the World Championships.  It is fairly plain to see who are doing the best here (Komova/Dementieva, Afanasyeva, Belokobylskaya) but question marks still remain over the right strategy to fill the final places, given the need (a) to qualify for the Olympics and (b) to present a credible performance in finals.  Vault was the weakest piece at this competition, perhaps suggesting Nabieva and Paseka as the final two team members.  Paseka in particular would benefit from the experience of international senior competition.  Let's just hope the team gets through the final stages of preparation and selection with their health intact.

Men's competition

Floor

1.    D. Ablyazin     15.05
2.    A. Cherkasov  15.00
3.    D. Barkalot     14.75
4.    N Ignatieva     14.73


Pommels

1.   A. Perevozhnikov   15.08
1.   D. Belyavski           15.08
3.   V.  Olennikov         14.5


Rings

1.   K. Pluzhnikov         15.85
2.   N. Ignatiev              15.03
3.   E. Garibov              14.5
4.   D. Ablyazin             14.38

Vault

1.  D. Ablyazin             15.76
2.  M. Bondar              15.41
3.  N Lezhankin            15.24

Golutsotskov fell to his knees on both vaults, scoring 14.98 for 5th place

P Bars

1.  N. Ignatiev            15.00
2.  D. Gogotov           14.98
3.  M. Devyatovski     14.73
4.  K Pluzhnikov         14.68

High bar

1.   E. Garibov             15.7
2.   M. Bondar             15.13
3.   M. Devyatovski      14.73