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| Hard-working Anastasia Grishina was the top Russian senior gymnast of these Championships. Picture courtesy of the UEG. |
In his latest interviews Alexandrov has avoided discussing the likelihood of team success in the London Olympics - almost as though he wants to give the impression that the thought had never occurred to him in the first place. His strongest verbal commitment is to the idea that one of the individuals on his gifted team has a good chance of gold in the uneven bars. Even then, however, he is apparently plagued with doubt - Britain's Beth Tweddle, performing in front of a home team, may have a better chance, and he clearly doubts claims that she has been injured, as recent press reports have claimed. Perhaps the engineer of Russia's resurgence is working hard to manage the expectations of rivals and paymasters - or maybe he is just superstitious.
He is wise, though, not to make predictions. That team final format of 5-3-3 is like a Champions League penalty shoot-out, except for that instead of kicking balls into a net gymnasts have to fly, explode, dance and balance their way through five minutes of the most risky, extreme yet controlled effort you will ever see in any sport. Landings matter more than quality, making it almost pointless to show any kind of artistry, line and amplitude. Difficulty has a disproportionate influence on scores. The result is not so much a gymnastics competition, as a gymnastics lottery. Yes, who wins will be the team who performed the most difficult routines with the fewest errors, but that doesn't necessarily tell you who was the best.
Neither will I make predictions. However, on the basis of little more than a gust of wind, a whistle, and an illusion turn to my favourite tune I will venture to suggest that the team competition, rather than bars, might well be the best chance of a medal for the Russians if an on form team manages to make it to London with all their heads, arms and legs attached and facing the right direction. Substitute the beam score of finals with the beam score of qualifications and the Russians would have won Europeans by a fairly decent gap of 1.999. Russia's below-par performance with a compromise team begins to say more.
How did the individual gymnasts perform?
Anastasia Grishina emerged as the leading Russian gymnast at this particular competition. Since the Olympic test event in London, Grishina has made tangible improvements at every appearance, and was the top individual gymnast in team finals. With her errors in team qualifications behind her, she showed in team and event finals for the first time an ability to pull out her best performance at will. Andrei Rodionenko has now confirmed her as one of the three all around gymnasts who will be selected for the Olympic team (Mustafina and Komova are the other two).
Was the fact that Grishina signalled at 6.3 SV for her first vault in finals of any significance? Regardless of difficulty, Grishina's vaulting form at this competition was severely underrated - she deserved better execution scores. Forget the fall from her side somersault on beam - everything else is faultless - and Grishina has arrived at senior level.
Aliya Mustafina's grey performance in qualifications must have dug up nightmares of self doubt, but a world champion will not be defeated by a bad day - or a painful back. She still has work to do on a floor routine that includes significant vestiges of her 2010 presentation, surely evidence of a pragmatically assembled exercise devised as a place filler while she re-establishes her tumbling vigour. But that bars routine in team final confirmed that she is well on the way back from one of the most serious injuries a gymnast can face. In one and a half minutes of sheer flowing brilliance the leading gymnast of the last four years got her smile back, and recorded the single highest score of the entire championships - 15.833. She also achieved the Russian team's highest score on vault with a high and powerful double twisting Yurchenko.
Viktoria Komova's continued diffidence on the balance beam worries me. She is a beautiful and talented gymnast who does not receive sufficient credit for the time she spends on the apparatus. On the other hand, the rather hesitant performances she showed here were well below potential and provide the judges with every incentive to deduct. Komova's errors on this piece were largely responsible for the team's failure to contend more closely for gold. She carried only 50% responsibility here and I hope she will be able to do much better in future.
Anastasia Sidorova was given a tough task here, leading off the team effort in both qualifications and finals on their first piece, beam. The results of this test were inconclusive; first of all, a rather tight beam in qualifications was followed by an error on floor; while a sloppy fall from beam in finals was followed by an error-free floor.
I like Sidorova and will be interested to see how she does in the Russian Cup.
Finally, Maria Paseka delivered pretty much as expected; her qualification round vaults were penalised as they were off line, but in finals she did much better. I'm guessing that if she can perfect a 2.5 twisting Yurchenko by the time of the Russian Cup, she may have a chance to make the team.
I cannot close this blog without making mention of the junior team, who provided the Russian highlight of this competition. Evgeniya Shelgunova, Viktoria Kuzmina and Maria Kharenkova all won individual medals at this competition and promise great things in coming years. Shelgunova, recovering from a back injury, showed a few errors here, including a particularly nasty, upsetting, crumpled fall on both her vaults in qualifications. But she picked herself up for a silver medal in the all around competition, recording the highest execution score on bars, and distinguished herself by a fighting performance throughout.
Kuzmina wins the competition for the cutest gymnast in Brussels. The top knot she adopted in event finals did not make her any taller, and the flight she achieved in her transition movements must have taken superhuman effort. Her 6.00 SV was the equal highest (with Schede) of the competition. This little girl is a strong and skillful athlete with a fearful desire to succeed.
Finally, the best routine of the competition, junior and senior, was for me Maria Kharenkova's floor. Kharenkova was the most successful junior gymnast of the championships, taking three gold medals. It would have been four had she not fallen from her favourite apparatus, beam, in the all around final.
It is hard to describe the beauty of Kharenkova, which one suspects comes as much from within as in the physical shapes and form she achieves on the apparatus. All I can truthfully say is that she has that special, indefinable, quality that makes you want to watch her. A double turn on floor is not particularly remarkable in terms of its difficulty, but there was something about Maria's rendition that made me gasp out loud. Her combination of flic, whip, flic, whip, double tuck was beautiful and rhythmic. The music from Cirque du Soleil's Allegria was the perfect choice. Somebody choreographed this whole routine with immense care and Maria must love it.
Did I say that floor was Maria's best piece? Her SV there of 5.6 was the equal highest of the competition, and despite a penalty of .1 (foot out of area after her opening Arabian somersault) she still managed the highest execution score. Although, technically speaking, Maria's best piece is beam, with an SV of 6.1 (raised from 5.8 in qualifications). She could teach Komova a thing or two about sticking her routines.
Oh my. Yet another Russian to dream about. Maria turns senior in 2013. I really hope she can hold her own and translate junior promise to senior success. The sport needs a star.
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