Skip to main content

Eremina, Skrypnik, Melnikova, Sokova - four young champions for Russia in 2015



The Russian Junior Championships closed today with event finals in beam and floor, and the young Russians in the Master of Sport category demonstrated their fighting spirit, recording some good results and demonstrating that this generation has relative strength in depth - even though there is still a clear weakness on vault.

The four event champions are - 

Vault - Elena Eremina, coached by Alexander Kiryashov in St Petersburg (5.3/4.6 : 14.134)
Uneven Bars -  Daria Skrypnik, who resides in Krasnodar (6.6 : 15.567)


Beam - Angelina Melnikova, from Voronezh (14.767) http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/MS.compressed.pdf
Floor -  Ekaterina Sokova from Vladimir (14.633) http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2-list-MS.pdf

Melnikova, who had scored 15.6 on uneven bars in the team competition, but who fell on her layout Jaeger here, took silver on floor, showing her potential as an all arounder.  Skrypnik took a bronze medal on floor. With Eremina taking bronze on bars and silver on beam, and Sokova bronze on beam, these four gymnasts have established themselves at the top of their generation, although it remains to be seen if they can make the perilous transition to senior level.

2001 born Eremina, age eligible for selection to the 2017 World Championships, will just miss out on the Rio Olympics but Melnikova, Skrypnik and Sokova (just squeezes in with a 12th December birthday) all have a chance to make the Games.  The past record, however, shows that at most one first year senior will make the cut - in London, it was Anastasia Grishina.  Given the increasingly conservative Russian team selections that focus on reliability and a proven track record long term, it is likely to be extremely difficult for any 2000-born gymnast to make the Russian team.  Next year's Russia Cup, and the European Championships in spring, will doubtless be the testing grounds.  I hope these girls all work hard and put up a strong fight - they will likely be the foundations of Russia's progress post-2016.

Angelina Simakova - three gold medals as a Cand. MS - AA, vault and floor!

In the Candidate Master of Sport competitions the following gymnasts won : 

Vault - Angelina Simakova - 14.767 (Yaroslavl)
Uneven Bars - Yuliana Perebinosova - 13.967 (Penza)
Floor - tied between Viktoria Gorbatova and Angelina Simakova - 14.267 (both Yaroslavl) - http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/KMS-2-list.compressed.pdf

Comments

  1. I think that Melnikova will make the Games next year if she stays healthy, she is exactly what the Russian team needs.
    John

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Artistry versus acrobatics???

Watching videos of this weekend's competitions - the qualification and all around rounds of the Russian championships, medal winners from the American Cup - I am struck, more and more, by the huge difference between the American and Russian schools of gymnastics. It led me to ask the question : do artistry and acrobatics have to be mutually exclusive? (I am afraid that I think naming 'American' gymnastics a 'school' is perhaps lending an undeserved dignity to work which has become excessively obsessed with the difficult and the consistent, but I am using the word here so as not to label unfairly those individual gymnasts who are blameless in the direction of their training.) The FIG's vision for gymnastics is said to embrace more artistry; at least the publicity it has put about on the subject of its new Code makes that fairly plain.  So perhaps the Russians, with their inconsistent brilliance and superior body carriage (Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasy...

Updates on Russia, and Russian gymnastics

  Kartsev: FX, PB, HB; Suedin: PH, PB, HB; Roschina : V, UB Kalmykova: V, FX; Vassilieva: BB, FX; Kaiumova: UB, BB At times, I have been at a loss as to what to say; I still am.  I don’t think that politics and sport make good bedfellows, but we live in a time of global confusion and sadness.  It has been more than twelve years since Russia has competed under its own flag at the Olympics, and for all I know it could be another twelve or more before things revert entirely to ‘normal’.  I don’t know how seriously to take any of the announcements being made recently, about junior athletes being allowed to compete as Russian, about athletes in the Winter Paralympics being allowed to compete under the Russian flag.  I’d like to see the athletes back and able to live their lives, for them to be able to show off a bit and feel pride in their accomplishments.  But I can’t ignore the bigger picture of death and destruction.  People are lucky if they can live in...

Who really won the WAG All Around?

You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  My, how I wish we could have seen a similar document for the Tokyo World Championships. I wonder if anyone can explain how, if the FIG's Code of Points is so objective and fair, it is possible to come up with two different results using two differ...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more