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Fresh start for Mustafina on Friday

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A brooding Mustafina contemplates the competition ahead.  RGF


Russia's women qualified as expected yesterday, with some difficult moments for Olympic Champion Aliya Mustafina on her way to a fifth place finish in the individual rankings.   Mustafina has also qualified to bars and beam finals.

'After today, the competition is brought back to zero, and it's a fresh start on Friday', said national coach Valentina Rodionenko to Itar-Tass yesterday.  'On floor, Mustafina made a mistake; this can happen to anybody.  We expect her to contend for honours in the final competition'.

Young Anna Rodionova enjoys her Worlds experience. RGF
Of the three Russian women presenting themselves in Antwerp, Anna Rodionova, qualifying on Tuesday, gave the best account of herself, finishing in 5th position on her strongest piece, the beam.  'Anna surprised me, she is amazing!', said veteran Olympic champion Larissa Latynina, noting the gymnast's confidence on the beam.  Certainly the 16 year old from Mari-El Republic has demonstrated laudable self possession in Antwerp so far, showing far fewer errors than her senior colleague Mustafina, even if her difficulty scores do not yet match those of her team mate and friend.  Journalist Natalia Kalugina recently noted (via Facebook) that Rodionova has been working with a team of psychologists recommended by boxer Alexander Povetkin, to toughen up her competition performance.  Anna will join Aliya in Friday's all around final where she will be expected to perform to her optimum, although a medal seems very unlikely. 

Tatiana Nabiyeva was unfortunately unable to qualify either to bars or vault final, the only two pieces on which she presented herself, following a nasty training accident earlier this week.  The Russian team has been particularly unlucky this year with many injuries and sickness hindering their preparation and limiting the number of top gymnasts available for selection.

Later on today the men will fight it out for position in the all around final, with Kohei Uchimura looking by far the most likely to take gold.  Russia's sole representative in the competition will be European Champion David Belyavski, although he is hampered by a painful foot injury and could only finish in 16th position in qualifying.  The Russian men's team has not performed as expected this year, with three of the six gymnasts selected failing to make the expected finals.  'The guys have been preparing new routines this year', said MAG team coach Valery Alfosov, 'perhaps they have not yet had time to work sufficiently on their stabilty and consistency'.  He added that Nikolai Kuksenkov, originally slated to do all around, failed to qualify to his one event, high bar, because of a severe finger injury.

You can find the start list for this evening's MAG all around final, which begins at 7 pm, here.

WAG all around qualifying results can be found here.

There is a list of qualifiers for the women's event finals here.

You can navigate all the scores so far here.
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Comments

  1. R.3 October 2013 at 13:51

    Rodionova did very well for having very little major international experience. I think she has done all that could be expected of her.

    I'm not sure why the Russians bothered training (and performing) second vaults, particularly given Tanya's accident. The vault field this year is deep and even if they managed to hit both vaults, it's nowhere near the D-scores needed to medal. I wish Tanya had upgraded bars instead. On the contrary it was a good thing Aliya watered down her bars, given how the other events had gone. Better to water down, perform cleanly and secure a spot in the EF, where she can train all her difficulty.

    I wonder whether it was the pressure getting to Aliya (hasn't really happened before though), injury/pain, simply not being in peak shape from the flu or that yesterday was just a bad day. Good thing it's clean slate for finals.. I think she can medal still IF she goes clean but she's not getting gold without serious mistakes from Biles.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown3 October 2013 at 14:19

    But it has been seen before, that aliya doesn't perform to her full potential in qualis, she looked like she had a rough time, but it might also be because she was kind of secured a spot in AA finals and wanted to save energy for finals. I think that, and illness, injuries and pressure was the reason she did not show her best performanse in quali.

    ReplyDelete
  3. John3 October 2013 at 15:47

    My woes have come true and the deficiency of management has paid off and that was exactly what Alexandrov has been talking about … the Rodionenkos should be discharged without honor like it’s said in military …. Hope these disastrous results for the WAG and MAG teams poke the Russian's officials into sacking those two seniles.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Julia3 October 2013 at 17:46

    I wonder how the Rodionenkos are going to explain this massive, systems-wide failure. Weren't they complaining that under Alexandrov, everyone was getting injured? Now the men's team is in just as bad shape as the women's! It's such a shame given the successes in Euros and Universiade, the athletes are clearly not being paced or peaked properly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. John3 October 2013 at 21:57

    Tomorrow in WAG AA Final I think we will see inflated scores in favor of the Americans on Beam and Floor and obvious underscoring to the American's rivals on same two apparatuses ... to know why I think so check the WAG Judges Assignment and you may figure it out ... Hope I'm wrong (by The way I expected the same in qual. on Vault and I was right)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown3 October 2013 at 22:58

      So tired of judging controversies..... please stop

      Good luck to all in WAG and event finalists and Congrats to the two MAG gymnasts from Japan, and the one from Germany today.

      Delete
    2. John4 October 2013 at 00:47

      So you think you have the right to say "stop" to me because I think something you don't like ... is that the case for you?

      Delete
    3. Unknown4 October 2013 at 01:59

      I simply asked please. It was not that big of a thing. Sorry to have pushed some internal buttons there...

      Breathe in..... breathe out

      Delete
  6. Rie4 October 2013 at 00:16

    To calm those who are concerned, and more importantly myself, I would just like to remind everyone that Mustafina qualified: 5th to AA finals in 2012, 5th to UB finals in 2012, 8th to floor finals in 2012, 4th (??) to AA finals in 2013 Euros, and 4th to UB finals in 2010. AND she medaled in ALL of those events. Ahhhh I feel so much better now! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown4 October 2013 at 02:00

      I agree. I think she has a great chance of medaling in the AA and the 2 event finals.

      Delete
    2. Unknown4 October 2013 at 02:21

      haha!! that's absolutely right!!
      I think the problem in this championships is that Mustafina is exhausted, compare how many competitions she has been through and how many the americans (kyla ross) since the Olympics, Mustafina needs to rest ASAP, she has everything to win the gold in the all around but she wont be able until she gets some rest, she looks so exhausted

      Delete
  7. Gláucia Sousa4 October 2013 at 18:22

    Why they do not indicate a psychologist to work with Komova and the other gymnasts too, plus Anna Rodionova, since underperform comes from an evil preparamento psychological? That was one thing that Aleksandrov said in an interview before the Olympic Games, they did not have psychologists for the Russian team of gisnastas and that it was necessary for some girls

    ReplyDelete
  8. Gláucia Sousa5 October 2013 at 07:02

    And our Queen Aliya got the bronze medal...I think she deserves the silver (the judges love overcores the americans but...) She Always make her job!!!! Ave Aliya!!!

    ReplyDelete

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