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Russia's future turns gold in Turin

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A young Russian team led by Seda Tutkhalyan and Evgeniya Shelgunova did themselves proud today by performing their way to a team gold medal and a clean sweep of the individual AA medals at the 4 Nations Trophy in Turin against rivals Italy, Romania and Colombia.

Without too many major errors the team looked well prepared and confident.  Their overall score of 224.85 would have placed them fourth in qualifying at the 2014 World Championships, ahead of Britain but just behind their own senior team.  Sokova's superb beam routine, which earned a 14.8 thanks to strong execution, would have been Russia's highest beam score at that stage of the competition.  Tutkhalyan's 57.4 AA score would have placed her 7th in qualifying, or more significantly Russia's second all arounder.  

Melnikova and Tutkhalyan both performed steadily to make a case for themselves as up and coming all arounders, with Tutkhalyan surely sealing her place on the team for the upcoming European Games.  She showed courage as well as consistency in nailing her full twisting layout on beam and only needs to clean up a little more all around to add those precious tenths that will make her competitive at world level.  

You can find complete scores here - http://dati.federginnastica.it/articoli/allegato_8680.pdf

and more videos here, including podium training and some routines not covered by live streaming - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8T4sSh0bcAs

Molodyets, girls!  Keep working!!


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  1. Anonymous31 May 2015 at 18:32

    I don't see the allure of Seda gymnastics. Like why everyone is so hyper with her. To me she is disappointing, she is not on competitive level and is beyond time she raises to the occasion. Reminds me os Nastia Grishna that everyone said would be so much better at O12, and turned up just a disappointment. And even to Russian nowadays standards Seda is on the average level. I see more olympic future on Angelina, with the right upgrades she could definitely make AA and on Sokova, good beam and floor definitely could help Russia.

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  2. Anonymous1 June 2015 at 14:35

    Angelina Melnikova really seems to have Olympic-caliber polish and potential. What do you think of her gymnastics, Queen Elizabeth? :)

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    1. Queen Elizabeth1 June 2015 at 16:12

      I really like this generation of Russian gymnasts for their serious attitude and because they seem to be very fit. Tutkhalyan has a lot of potential if she can only contain her tendency to rush through her skills.
      Of this group, I think Dmitrieva has the best gymnastics, but her difficulty level will probably drop her out of contention.
      If we divide gymnasts into two categories - performers and competitors - I think Melnikova is more of the competitive type. I can see her doing well. Her performances here were less polished than we have seen before, but I understand she has a slight hamstring injury that is affecting her range of movement at present.
      The Code of Points limits these gymnasts in presenting their true full potential as polished performers because it rewards difficulty over execution and does not recognise performance quality.

      Delete

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