Skip to main content

Congratulations, Russia!

By
Another gold medal for Russia's team in artistic gymnastics at the European Championships.  Russia now rules the sport in Europe, both men and women.  15 year old Angelina Melnikova scored the highest of all competitors across four apparatus; exactly as her team captain, Aliya Mustafina, did six years ago in her own major senior competitive debut.

Aliya waved her magic wand here and somehow helped the team to summon up courage to fight the effervescent British team.  Angelina was a strong start off gymnast on every piece, just what the team needs to settle them.  In her own quiet way, 'Gelya' makes as much difference to this team's fighting spirit as Nikita Nagorny does to the men.  

In the end, the working order put paid to a close fight.  Under pressure, Britain showed uncharacteristic errors and finished more than six points behind Russia.  EF tomorrow will tell a different story, I suspect.  Russia's victory was down to solid teamwork as much as individual brilliance.  Strong work on bars and beam gave the girls a cushion on the other apparatus, where there is less of a margin.  It should be noted, however, that the girls are landing their tumbles with far more confidence - this could be to do with the appointment of Sergei Zelikson as tumbling coach at the national training centre.

Congratulations to all the girls - and good luck now, as you prepare for Rio!





Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous4 June 2016 at 21:31

    Melnikova upped her AA score by full point, she scored more than she did in Qual. in all apparatus except VT where she repeated her qual. score, she is gaining experience and confidence rapidly, and she has put her name on the quad list for Rio.
    I'm looking for the dual fight between Melnikova and Alyia on UB and BB final tomorrow
    John

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown4 June 2016 at 22:07

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who really won the WAG All Around?

By
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...
70 comments
Read more

No Paseka for Russia in Berne

By
Barely two weeks will elapse before the WAG European Championships begin in Berne, Switzerland, and the news we had been fearing has been confirmed : world vault gold medallist Maria Paseka is  off the Russian team while she nurses a back injury.  This leaves Russia significantly weakened for the coming competition, with co-star Viktoria Komova also missing from the line-up.  It is a little disappointing, but it seems the right decision to rest the gymnasts so that they can be at their best when and where it really matters. Who will replace Paseka?  Valentina Rodionenko says that the youngster Natalia Kapitonova, who trains in Penza, has been chosen on the basis of her solid performances at national championships.  Well, we will have to wait and see - these announcements often turn out to be unreliable.   I personally would prefer to see the dynamic Seda Tutkhalyan be given a chance at this level, but Kapitonova has certainly shown herself to be more reliab...
41 comments
Read more

Sport, friendship and the Olympics - reflections on McLaren report implications for Russian gymnastics

By
BREAKING - President Putin on the McLaren report -  http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52537 What is happening today, is perhaps the end of an era.  The end of an era when sport was truly playful, and international.  Will we ever see our athletes in the same way again? The findings of the McLaren report are devastating to me.  They made me think about the value and meaning of the Olympics.  People have written whole books and volumes of books about the history of the Olympics. I am not going to try to unravel all the different strands of the history of the Olympic movement from the Ancient Greeks to the present day.  I'll just reflect here on the current values of Olympism; you can see below an extract from the new Olympic Charter , which was published in 2015. I certainly am inspired by the values of Olympism; I have followed the Olympics all my life.  But unfortunately it seems that they have been under attack, not just in Russia b...
24 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more