Skip to main content

Denis Ablyazin leads on two events – MAG Europeans

By
Denis Ablyazin in flight, during his vault at yesterday's qualifying.  Picture by Elena Mikhailova, courtesy of the RGF

 The Russian team sits in second place in team qualifying behind the British team after a hot and cold performance on the first day of senior competition at the European Championships in Montpelier.    Five gymnasts selected for their event finals potential provided fans with highlights and lowlights, the highlights including Denis Ablyazin’s highly acrobatic floor routine and dynamic vaulting which currently lead the scoring on these two events.  Also qualified in first place on high bar is Emin Garibov, with Alexander Balandin sitting in second place on rings.  

Gympower has caught a video of Ablyazin's floor, and of course I am sceptical.  The tumbling is impressive - such a lot of it, and well performed as far as can be seen.  But is this really gymnastics?  What do you think?  Is this the direction men's floor should take? Of the five gymnasts on the team, four have qualified to finals (Golotsutskov will appear in the vault).  Russia will not, however,  be represented on pommel horse or parallel bar finals.   A significant lowlight was indeed pommels, where Golotsutskov scored in the 11s, and Russia do not appear to have improved much on this apparatus.

No Russian appeared in the unofficial all around competition which Britain’s Daniel Purvis leads.   David Belyavski, often amongst the leaders in individual competition, was disappointing yesterday, did not compete all six apparatus and failed to make any event finals.  This leaves him with the opportunity of Saturday’s team final  to prove himself to the Olympic selectors.

Russia still have significant room for improvement in the final, but then so do all of the top four teams (including Britain, Germany and France,who have a home advantage).  Russia will have to find consistency if they are to rival for medals on Saturday; hopefully Belyavski will be able to pull out his best form and make the chase interesting.

Full results can be found at the UEG’s website, and summary images are provided below for ease of reference.  The Russian Gymnastics Federation also now has a gallery of pictures from MAG Europeans including both junior and senior competitions, and the UEG is posting highlight videos relatively rapidly on its Youtube channel.

The competition continues this afternoon at 3 pm French time (2 pm in the UK) with the junior all around competition, where Russia's Grigory Zyrianov is expected to compete for a medal.












Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous25 May 2012 at 14:20

    Oh my i can't wait for the team finals !!!!!
    And events too : )

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nelli Kim - 'Russian gymnastics has closed in on itself' - Lupita translates

By
Lupita has translated this ITAR-TASS interview with Nelli Kim.  It's controversial, to say the least. Ed's note : much of the initial response to this interview - both here and in the wider gymternet -  has focussed on the detail of Kim's words and especially her comments about Viktoria Komova, and smiling.  But I think these have to be taken in context, and not too literally. Don't forget that just a day ago Andrei Rodionenko complained bitterly about the judging in Antwerp, calling Kim's behaviour 'aggressive'. Kim is responding to this here, and to the wider current context of Russian gymnastics.  What she is essentially saying to the Russian coach is 'get your own house in order, produce confident, disciplined, well trained gymnasts - stop complaining, do your job, and I will do mine.'   She goes about saying this in a somewhat long winded way and says some things along the way that seem contradictory, unfair, inappropriate even for th...
30 comments
Read more

National team coaches 2024, the Russian Federation - a full list

By
In January each year the Russian Gymnastics Federation publishes its list of coaches and gymnasts who have made the training teams for their country.  You will find below a transliteration of the list of national team coaches, 70 of them in total.  The oldest member of the team is Valentina Rodionenko, 88, the youngest Ivan Galonenko, 24 - he is a bars coach, to the junior women's team.   The senior coaches to the senior teams would all have qualified as coaches during the Soviet era.  Many of them work out of Moscow, Vladimir and Rostov, former Soviet strongholds of gymnastics.  The doctors are all attached to Yaroslavl.  St Petersburg has two coaches listed, but there are no St Petersburg gymnasts on the senior national teams at present.  There are no coaches from Russia's Far East.  This region has been highlighted as a geographical area President Putin is targetting for sports development and investment over the coming years.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

30 years in elite sport: Oksana Chusovitina

By
You've been competing internationally for over 30 years. How has gymnastics changed over that time? Is there anything about your sport that has remained the same for decades? First of all, the age has changed. More mature athletes are competing now, which makes me happy. Secondly, the apparatuses. They've become more comfortable and sophisticated. Gymnastics in general has become more challenging, but in my youth, people performed mostly the same elements as they do now. Back then, this was par for the course, but now it surprises many. It's a bit amusing. Has the nature of the training itself changed? For me personally, absolutely. Now, my life isn't just about my athletic career. I'm involved with the Oksana Chusovitina Academy, which was personally opened by the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. It has 155 students, both girls and boys. I used to train three times a day, but now I train once. The entire afternoon is taken up with the academy and organi...
Post a Comment
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more