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.
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.
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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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.
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!
ReplyDeleteIn 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.