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| Evgeniya Shelgunova, second placed in tonight's Junior Europeans All Around competition. Picture courtesy of the RGF. |
A good competition today, with our two Russians performing well to expectation. Shelgunova was extremely happy to land her full twisting Yurchenko after Wednesday's disappointment (two crashed vaults left her out of the running in theoretically one of her best events) and went on to complete her bars efficiently (a couple of form breaks but a good double layout dismount). She also delivered strong routines on beam and floor where she looked very solid on both days. Italy's Enus Mariani competed to her predicted form and took gold, just over a point ahead of Shelgunova and third placed Romanian Andreea Munteanu.
I shall reserve a small gasp of delight for the second placed Russian on the team : Maria Kharenkova really performed tonight and finished in sixth place; is it academic that she missed 5th by only .067 of a mark? What is less academic is how Maria worked tonight. Had she not counted a fall on her layout back somersault with altitude (they should create a new description in the Code for this), and a close fall elsewhere on beam, she could quite easily have competed for gold with Mariani. As things stood, she not only performed well but also competed relatively unflappably, catching her piked Jaeger which she had crashed in warm-ups, following up with a sky-high double pike dismount, and fighting back with real spirit during the fluffed beam routine and, afterwards, that lovely floor routine. Which for me outshines any floor routine of the whole Championships, Junior or Senior.
Shelgunova was a delight, feisty, competent and showing routines full of interesting difficulty. Kharenkova is a real Russian, adding that extra dimension of musicality and amplitude. It is a different sport when she is on the podium. I hope they both manage to maintain their progress and work their respective ways into senior competition, where they will enrich the field significantly.
Full results of the all around competition are available here.
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