Skip to main content

Senior team final - WAG Europeans 2012 - start lists

By
Don't miss these start lists for tomorrow's battle, which begins at 3.00 pm Brussels time.  I will be there.
Russia's working order currently remains unchanged from Thursday's qualifications, so obviously the girls are expected to make amends for their rather shaky performances.  I hope they can at least regain some confidence.

In fact - let's hope that all the teams perform to their best!  Good luck, girls!

Link to the start list here.

Comments

  1. Anonymous12 May 2012 at 18:51

    Those who came second today are the obvious favorites for London. Let's be serious here. If Komova doing 2 events, Aliya just having started to train floor and vault and Ksenia Afanasyeva back home with her World title is BARELY enough for going-at-full-strenght Romania to manage a win, it is as obvious as Aliya being a champion. Stucking her DTY today and posting a 15.8 on bars (not even in full difficulty), splendid work. She spoke for all Russia in terms of how seriously they should be taken. To me, they won big time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Queen Elizabeth12 May 2012 at 20:35

    I would tend to agree but with the cautionary note that the team comp format is rather a lottery and does not favour the risky approach of our favourites.
    The Rom team is very confident and feisty. The scores reflected their position as the strongest team this weekend but might be difficult to replicate in London where there will be no clear number 1.
    In the meantime congratulations to B and B for creating yet another winning team. And to the Russian girls for putting up a real fight. It was great to see Aliya in particular retrieve her smile.
    More on Monday.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous14 May 2012 at 10:20

    The Russian Federation proves unable to put together a team with old gymnasts and juniors, while other teams have older and more experienced gymnasts. Why is Pavlova not training with them? Nabieva? What about talentful Dementieva? They just act as they did during the Soviet period, with three teams and 30 gymnasts ready to perform. Times have changed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Queen Elizabeth14 May 2012 at 18:49

    In my opinion Pavlova is out of the running (a) because her knee would not withstand the rigours of full training and Lake Krugloye, and the team needs all gymnasts to participate equally (b) because she let the team down so very badly in Beijing ... she really did. Mistakes are part of gymnastics, but to have those errors when she did, in the way they were made was unforgiveable.
    I believe Nabieva is back at Krugloye after a short period at home in St Petersburg trying to get back into shape. Alexandrov says he has only a little hope that she will be strong enough to compete in London.
    Dementieva has a niggling knee injury that is preventing her from working at full strength.
    Russia doesn't seem to have the same strength in depth as the Soviet Union, but then the Soviets had multiple Republics from which to draw their teams, and a sporting infrastructure that was second to none.
    Russia's sporting infrastructure is currently being rebuilt with massive injections of cash from the government and sponsors like VTB but the Russian team is currently managing a legacy of thin participation that will probably take decades to overcome.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russian gymnasts to apply for neutral status

By
Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists.  The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals.  Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes. This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts.  Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things.  In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good e...
Post a Comment
Read more

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,...
12 comments
Read more

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more