Mustafina should peak at Worlds, says coach Starkin

Aliya Mustafina today with her gold medal.  Courtesy of the RGF.

It wasn't a classic all around competition.  The format saw to that, with many of the best gymnasts left behind on the bench thanks to the one-gymnast-per-country rule.  It would have been nice to see Komova, or Germany's Elisabeth Seitz on the competition floor, but that wasn't possible.  We did, however, get to see some vintage Mustafina along the way.  Another gold medal for the gymnastics Queen only serves to underline that her multifarious victories have been anything but fluke.

Russian Aliya Mustafina came to the competition as the strong favourite, but she must have had a few sleepless nights during the break since Monday's team final.  You can't rely on anything in gymnastics; competitions are regularly decided by the most ridiculously small decimal margin.  In this case, any slip could have allowed Switzerland's Giulia Steingrueber to repeat her gold medal from the European Championships earlier this year.  And while Mustafina would have known that she didn't need to be at 100% to beat Steingrueber, she would most certainly have wanted to be sure of reinforcing her reputation as a winner.  Defeat by the European Champion would not have been good for her comeback to major competition.

This perhaps explains the rather relieved, but dignified demeanour surrounding Mustafina's victory today.  There is an understanding that while this is a valuable title in its own right, it's only part of Aliya's road to full competitive readiness, and there was still plenty of room for improvement.  'We will do everything to hit peak form at the World Championships', said Sergei Starkin to Rsport earlier today.  'These Games are one of the steps along the road of preparation for Worlds, even if the competition itself can hardly be considered minor.  The World Championships are the qualifying event for the Olympics, so they are very important.'

'We have changed several things in Aliya's programme and tried them out here. For the future World Championships, we will make some adjustments and try to come into top form.  Mustafina is not in the best shape, and needs more time to get used to her new programme and to add more polish to her routines.'

Mustafina adopted the same realistic tone to her performance today.  'Compared with qualifications, I did some things better, other things worse', she told Allsport.  'I can't hide my failures behind a seven month break (smiles), this does not give me the right to call it a perfect performance'.  Aliya explained that on both beam and floor she had had errors, and that there was much work to be done on floor, which was her weakest piece.
 

Aliya and coach Sergei Starkin in discussion during today's all around competition.  Courtesy of the RGF

Aliya's comeback from a painful back injury - the second major physical hiatus of her senior career - is remarkable for a gymnast at a fairly advanced stage of her career.  Many would choose quietly to take a supporting role in the team, accept their limitations and hope for the reward of the occasional apparatus final berth.  Mustafina, however, clearly possesses the same fire that fuelled her early career, and now looks to share that same ambition with her team mates.  When she won her first World Championships gold medal in 2010 she was only 16 years old, visibly an adolescent prodigy whose victories were almost run-of-the-mill for her.  Today, however, at 20 years old she stands as an elder amongst the competitive field.  Fierce but respectful during a closer than comfortable fight with the Swiss gymnast today, Mustafina has grown an added dimension of maturity, and seems much more settled since her coaching ills were solved with the appointment of the affable but direct Starkin.  She shows leadership of both the international field and her Russian team.  She is a figure of immense charisma and, one suspects, a source of much down-to-earth advice.  What remains remarkable about her as a competitor is her ability to turn out her best performances at the clinch moment whilst maintaining support for her team mates. 

But here, in Baku, those clinch performances did include some rather obvious errors.  Despite the margin of victory, was Aliya happy with her competition?  Did she feel the pressure of a competition that everyone expected her to win?  'Even though I saw there was a two point gap between me and Giulia, I wanted not just to win, but to win the competition with dignity', she said.  'This competition is an important step on the road to Rio'.  It had been hard being the last to perform on floor; there had been a long wait.  She didn't like the competition format, which forced them to wait many days between qualifications and finals, and split team finals over two days.  Asked about upgrades, she said she didn't want to talk, it was too soon.  She handled the press with all the aplomb of an experienced politician.

I read earlier today a discussion on one of the gym forums about Mustafina.  Could she hope to challenge Biles at her best, 60+ scoring potential?  Could she possibly win in Glasgow, and/or Rio?   I didn't make my contribution : how should I know?  There are people far more knowledgeable than me who would say : 'I never make predictions'.  Aliya herself would probably say, it's far too early to think about that; you can't set a target of winning a competition, you can only do your best.  Who knows what will happen.  I would say: Biles is certainly the favourite both for Glasgow and Rio.  But who knows in gymnastics.  Better wait and see.