Skip to main content

Mustafina 'wants to test herself in the AA'

Image
By
    Courtesy of vk.com

Aliya Mustafina plans to try out her skills on all four apparatus in this week's European Championships, says Valentina Rodionenko.  Also going on all four apparatus will be newly crowned Russian Champion, Angelina Melnikova.   Daria Spiridonova will compete bars, where Mustafina is also currently very strong.  

In podium training today, Mustafina walked through a floor routine and was closely spotted by head coach Evgeny Grebyonkin.  2011 World floor champion, Ksenia Afanasyeva, did not warm up floor, looking on forlornly while her team mates, including Daria Spiridonova, practiced on her favourite piece.  There is no news yet as to Afanasyeva's competitive status here in Bern.

Official start lists for the competition will be published late tomorrow.  As with all competitions, believe what you see.  This year's Europeans is a team competition with event finals and no official all around competition, although there will be significant interest in whoever can perform well on all four pieces, with Angelina Melnikova presumably competing alongside Britain's Ellie Downie and defending Euro champ, Giulia Steingrueber, for the highest total.  

In my opinion, if Mustafina does go on floor, it will be because Afanasyeva can't compete.  With all due respect to the former world champion, this could be bad news for Russia's prospects in the team final.  Fewer than four weeks ago Andrei Rodionenko completely ruled out Mustafina's participation on floor, saying she would not be able to build enough stamina in the training time available to her.  There are no miracles in gymnastics, although I will be willing all the girls to perform their best and maintain their good health.

Valentina Rodionenko interview - http://m.rsport.ru/artist_gym/20160531/927762276.html

Labels:

Comments

  1. R.31 May 2016 at 18:11

    Podium training videos are up on the UEG page. Aliya is clearly not ready on floor and shouldn't be doing it. I don't know why Afanaseyva is even in Bern if she is not doing floor or beam, as Spiridonova did beam in PT. The place should have been given to Kapitonova or Kharenkova instead, since they can at least perform BB and FX. I highly doubt Aliya is performing on all events because she desperately wants to. She looked exhausted in PT.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous31 May 2016 at 19:55

      Can you provide links of podium training vids please?

      Delete
    2. Catty1 June 2016 at 09:55

      It is on Youtube now.

      Delete
    3. Milo3 June 2016 at 02:22

      Afan's ankle is probably hurting, but Aliya is also risking reinjury if she competes. This is where Seda would have been useful, why bring Kapitanova if you're not going to use her floor?

      Delete
  2. Russiafan31 May 2016 at 21:00

    I agree; based on podium training video I watched, Aliya is not ready for floor. She looks tired and not in good shape. She struggled on bars too. On beam she is doing her 2013 set with some more connections. I don't understand why they would send Kapitanova - she could do floor instead of Aliya. I do love Aliya's floor music. I really hope Aliya does not do floor and vault. She is not ready!

    The links to the training videos:
    https://www.facebook.com/UEGymnastics/?fref=photo

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1 June 2016 at 10:38

    I love Aliya's new composition floor and music choice! It is so classic and at the same time so balletic, but also so so sassy :P

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous1 June 2016 at 14:41

    I love Aliya's floor music and choreography, but if she is in pain - which it looked like she was - she shouldn't be doing it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mustafina, Melnikova and Afanasyeva - Russia’s three divas train together to the tunes of Michael Jackson

By
M elnikova, Mustafina and Afanasyeva take creative control at Round Lake.     You can see the video on Angelina Melnikova’s YouTube channel. They are discussing a new floor routine for Angelina; she wants to dance to Michael Jackson. Afanasyeva, 2012 Olympic medalist and a world champion on the floor, has been a choreographer for the national team for a few years now.    She says, ‘Gel, first we need to understand the plan—what we’re actually doing.’ They discuss how many tumbles Angelina will perform, and where the tumbles will come in the routine.    Angelina says, she likes ‘Billie Jean’, it’s her favourite … But Afanasyeva has other ideas, linking into the dance shapes she has seen in a video: ‘Thriller . Start with  Thriller . It begins with that image, right from the beginning when it starts.’    She shows us the dance. ‘I suggest taking a 1.5-minute or 1-minute segment of the dance directly.’ They promise to be in touch by email. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Russia - back to training

By
Valentina Rodionenko reports that the men's team is in full training at Lake Krugloye. Denis Ablyazin hasn't needed a break and is training 'at full strength' - (and if you subscribe to his Instagram account you will see him practising routines on p bars and high bar). David Belyavski joined training a little late, as he has been abroad on his honeymoon. Maria Paseka is returning to training on the 4th December after taking treatment for a back injury. Rodionenko says that Aliya Mustafina is excused training for the time being - Liubov Baladzhaeva helped with the translation here.  Apparently the gymnasts, as salaried athletes, cannot just take time off without permission from the Federation.  I understand that this means no change to Aliya's competitive status, ie she will not be training or competing for the time being, until such time as she gets bored and decides she wants to make a comeback!  From her Instagram account, Aliya is currently suf...
30 comments
Read more

Pongo’s predictions for Russia MAG in Rotterdam

By
Pongo is my AI assistant.  Read here his calculations of who might make the best Russian MAG team at the World Championships in October.  Please do feel free to disagree audibly, in the comments and note that Pongo admits, even he makes mistakes.  I don’t generally write such statistical material, so this may be a one off. With apologies for any errors, mine entirely and I wrote the brief.   Yes. I’ve treated this as a genuine team-construction problem , rather than simply taking the six gymnasts with the highest AA scores. For the calculation I used the most recent strong competitive score available for each gymnast: the Spartakiad scores for Yakubov, Novikov and Kisel , and mainly European Championship team-final/final scores for Dukhno, Marinov, Zaika and Sieedin , supplemented by Russian Championship scores where a recent European score was not available. That matters because Dukhno and Marinov, for example, were substantially stronger in Zagreb than some earlier...
Post a Comment
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more