Skip to main content

Russia - mixed fortunes in Gwangju

By


The Russian women won the gold medal today in the team competition at the Universiade in Gwangju, ahead of the Japanese and Korean teams.  


The picture is Alla Sotnikova's gold medal ... from her Instagram account - thank you, Alla!  Congratulations!


It was a fantastic team effort, highlighted by Polina Fyodorova's stable performances on bars, beam and floor, Maria Paseka's powerful vaulting (strong Amanar) and bars work, and Kramarenko's bars.  I loved the way that Fyodorova's technique on bars looked so effortless (wonderful 1.5 turn on the top of the high bar), the expressiveness of Sidorenko's floor work, and the power and emphatic charm of Elizarova.  This is not to ignore the great efforts of Kramarenko and Paseka, but we see these two often on the international scene and their gymnastics is familiar, and on a different level.   Alla Sidorenko, for example, has not featured on a national team before, and the native of St Petersburg showed her class here with calm, well rehearsed gymnastics.  She was a credit to the coaching of the Kiryashov family, Alexander and Vera, who also coached 2013 Universiade champion Tatiana Nabiyeva.  With the exception of Paseka, this wasn't Russia's A team, but they faced some strong competition from Japan and showed good teamwork to earn the gold.


Daria and Polina are through to tomorrow's All Around final ... Good luck, girls!  


Video of today's live stream - http://youtu.be/Tc467oTdQqU


The Russian MAG team didn't really do very well today, finishing in fifth place as a team.  It is difficult to comment on the standard of their performance as hardly any of their routines were shown on the livestream, but the scores give every indication that they were just outclassed here.  The Japanese were very clearly the best, ahead of the Chinese, and showed some good work.  The Ukraine team's effort was spoiled by a difficult time on the high bar, but Oleg Verniaiev looks likely to contend for a medal in tomorrow's AA final and there will be plenty of further medal chances in event finals for him and for Igor Radivilov. The modest Mukhail Kudashov will represent Russia in the AA final tomorrow and has qualified to vault EF.  Alexei Rostov has also qualified to high bar final.
















Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous10 July 2015 at 19:11

    Paseka's Amanar was the best one she has every done. What great progress! Thanks for posting.

    Russiafan

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More thoughts on US gymnastics, Karolyi - and Zaglada

By
I’d like to add some thoughts to my earlier post about USA gymnastics and Bela Karolyi:  1. What Bela did, he did. He would agree that his actions were his responsibility. 2. Abusive relationships in USA gymnastics (and no doubt elsewhere) pre-existed Bela’s move to the USA and still exist today. 3. Harsh training existed and exists in all of the ‘artistic’ sports and dance-related forms - eg ballroom dancing, ballet, ice skating, circus.  The training involved in most of these activities is founded on an assumption of the benefits of early specialisation.  It revolves around  ‘ideal’ forms, shapes and postures that are difficult to achieve without early years training - women especially.   4. Wherever prodigious early talent exists, there are predators whose main desire in life is to take advantage of that talent - music, entertainment, maths, sport.  The boundaries very easily become confused.  Who owns the talent?  Who decides how many hours to work, at what level?  FOR WHOSE BENEFI
Post a Comment
Read more

Komova should have won!

By
It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011. Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Kom
45 comments
Read more

Britain 1, Russia 2 in Junior European Gymnastics Championships

By
Sergei Eltcov, Kirill Potapov, Artur Dalolyan, Nikita Nagorny, Valentin Starikov It was a close-ish competition, but Britain came out on top everywhere as a team, except for pommel horse where the British had a bad day, and rings, a strong piece for a Russia.  In truth, they are two brilliant teams.  Many of these gymnasts will turn senior next year, swelling the ranks of their respective teams.  I can't wait to see them fight for medals at the a Rio Olympics.  Coached by two Russians (Andrei Popov and Sergei Sizhanov from the historic gymnastics city of a Vladimir), the British team carries the classical mark of the Russian school. CORRECTION - The British Junior team head coach is now Barry Collie.  
11 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more