Skip to main content

Pavlova, Mustafina, Afanasyeva, Grishina - four Russian Champions!

By
Some of the medallists from this weekend's Russian National Championships
The Russian National Championships drew to a close this weekend with gold medals for three of the best Russian gymnasts of the past five years, and one up and coming star, including 2008 Olympian Anna Pavlova (vault), 2010 World Champion Aliya Mustafina (bars), 2008 Olympian and 2011 World Floor Champion Ksenia Afanasyeva (beam) and first year senior Anastasia Grishina (floor).  Full results are available in Russian here.  All members of the 2011 World Championships team competing here (Komova and Nabieva were not) managed to secure a medal in these national championships.

Vault results were noticeably flat this week with only one national team member (Grishina) competing (Maria Paseka is in the reserve squad) in the final.  National team coach Alexander Alexandrov has commented on his team's performance on this apparatus as trailing that of their main rivals, the USA (thanks to Gymnastics Coaching for this link). If this competition is anything to go by, Russia still have to find their consistency, and certainly in this respect they are clearly behind the USA, who must by now be strong favourites for gold in the team event at the London Olympics.  Next week's Troffeo de Jesolo will surely provide more evidence.

Vault

Anna Pavlova           14.49
Anastasia Grishina    14.34
Maria Paseka           14.12

Uneven Bars

Aliya Mustafina         16.22
Yulia Inshina             14.32
Anastasia Grishina     14.24

Beam

Ksenia Afanasyeva    14.98
Anastasia Grishina     14.48
Kristina Goryunova    14.44

Floor

Anastasia Grishina      14.64
Ksenia Afanasyeva     14.18
Yulia Belokobylskaya 14.06

Go-Tribe is doing some brilliant work uploading her home videos of the competition and I believe will be updating her channel over the coming two or three days.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

By
Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...
14 comments
Read more

Rodionenko responds

By
Rodionenko about Melnikova’s words about the level of gymnastics in Russia: “Such comments are not from a great mind. I don’t think Angelina has the right to judge.” The coach criticized Angelina Melnikova for her words about the level of Russian gymnastics. Earlier, Olympic champion Melnikova said: “In Russia there are two or three gymnasts who can qualify for the level of the European and World Championships, the rest cannot. The level of competition in Russia is also low.” “I am skeptical about her comment. I don’t think that Angelina has the right to judge the state of gymnastics in Russia and talk about who can qualify for prizes. We have enough competition, it is no coincidence that Angelina was only third at the Russian Cup. Such comments are not from a great mind. We are Olympic champions in team competitions. Not individually, but as a team! This is a special victory and it says a lot. That’s all,” said senior coach of the Russian artistic gymnastics team Valentina Rodionenko....
4 comments
Read more

Mustafina Interview 2 of 2 : 'I will only perform under the Russian flag'

By
Argumentyi i Fakti interview with Aliya Mustafina Translated by Marina Vulis ‘I have no fear’, says Aliya Mustafina.   ‘My father [Farhat Mustafin, the bronze medallist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1976 Olympics] took me to my first gymnastics class.   In his opinion children need to do sports, and he saw gymnastics as useful for my general development.   He had no goals – just to let us practice.’ It did not end with ‘just practice’ – she became the World Champion at 16, but then had an ACL injury the next year (2011) at the Europeans.   Even just returning to gymnastics is a feat; then she came back to win four medals at the 2012 Olympics. Aliya Mustafina – That injury.   I do not know why I was ashamed – so many people were watching me and I could not even walk.   My parents!   They saw everything on TV (the coach had to carry her from the podium).   Of course I was aware that anything could happen in gymnastics, but I di...
4 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more