Pongo’s predictions for Russia MAG in Rotterdam

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 domestic scores suggest. Dukhno won European AA silver with 82.832, Marinov bronze with 81.899, Zaika scored 14.400 for European rings silver, and Usachev 14.399 for European vault silver.  

The mathematics produces a rather striking answer.

My optimised six

Arsenii Dukhno
Daniel Marinov
Savelii Sieedin
Mukhammadzhon Yakubov
Ilya Zaika
Aleksei Usachev — travelling reserve

So, from the three gymnasts you said are already in the squad, the calculation actually puts Usachev rather than Zaika into the reserve position.

The five competing would therefore be:

Dukhno – Marinov – Sieedin – Yakubov – Zaika

The projected 3-up/3-count team-final total is approximately 250.125.

That is extremely close to Russia’s actual 246.158 European silver-medal total, but this model deliberately mixes each gymnast’s most representative recent performance rather than pretending they all produced those scores on one day. Russia’s Zagreb team was Dukhno, Marinov, Sieedin, Zaika and Yakubov, which is interesting because the mathematics has effectively reconstructed almost exactly the team the coaches themselves used at Europeans.  

Optimised team-final line-up

Apparatus	1	2	3	Projected total
FX	Dukhno 14.466	Yakubov 14.033	Marinov 13.800	42.299
PH	Dukhno 13.966	Sieedin 13.966	Marinov 13.666	41.598
SR	Zaika 14.433	Marinov 12.866	Dukhno 12.833	40.132
VT	Marinov 14.466	Dukhno 14.300	Yakubov 14.233	42.999
PB	Dukhno 14.166	Yakubov 14.133	Marinov 14.066	42.365
HB	Sieedin 14.066	Dukhno 13.533	Marinov 13.133	40.732
TOTAL	250.125

There are several things I really like about this team.

Dukhno becomes the backbone. He is in all six team-final line-ups and is one of the three scores on every apparatus. That is completely justified by his recent form: European AA silver, 14.466 FX, 14.300 VT and 14.166 PB in the European team final.  

Marinov is almost equally important. He supplies five of the six projected counting scores and was already European AA bronze medallist. His vault in the European team final was an excellent 14.466, and his 5.9-D parallel-bars routine scored 14.066 there.  

Then you get three very distinct supporting roles.

Yakubov = FX/VT/PB power.

Sieedin = PH/HB insurance and specialist strength.

Zaika = the enormous rings score.

And that is precisely what good team construction ought to do: the specialists complement the all-arounders rather than duplicating them.

Qualification becomes very neat

Because Zaika effectively occupies the specialist position, the other four gymnasts are capable of doing all six events. That allows Russia to satisfy the 4-up/3-count qualification format without contortions.

I would use:

Apparatus	Four qualification routines	Likely dropped score
FX	Dukhno, Yakubov, Marinov, Sieedin	Sieedin
PH	Dukhno, Sieedin, Marinov, Yakubov	Yakubov
SR	Zaika, Marinov, Dukhno, Sieedin	Sieedin
VT	Marinov, Dukhno, Yakubov, Sieedin	Sieedin
PB	Dukhno, Yakubov, Marinov, Sieedin	Sieedin
HB	Sieedin, Dukhno, Marinov, Yakubov	Yakubov

That is a very sensible qualification team because Zaika only has to do rings. Everyone else takes the pressure of filling the remaining four positions.

And this is exactly where Usachev causes a mathematical problem.

His 14.399 European vault silver is excellent.   But if you put both Zaika and Usachev among the five competitors, you are carrying two gymnasts whose value is concentrated heavily in SR/VT. Then only three strong all-arounders remain to cover PH, PB and HB in a qualification format requiring four routines.

In other words, the problem isn’t whether Usachev is good enough. He clearly is.

It’s team geometry.

Zaika + Usachev together make the five harder to balance.

And here’s the fascinating bit: Novikov almost changes the answer

I also ran the same calculation replacing Yakubov with Daniil Novikov.

The five become:

Dukhno – Marinov – Sieedin – Novikov – Zaika

Projected team-final score:

250.091

Compare:

With Yakubov: 250.125
With Novikov: 250.091

Difference:

0.034

That’s effectively nothing in gymnastics.

But their contributions are completely different:

	Yakubov team	Novikov team
FX	42.299	41.566
PH	41.598	41.698
SR	40.132	40.232
VT	42.999	42.832
PB	42.365	42.198
HB	40.732	41.565
TOTAL	250.125	250.091

Look at what Novikov is doing there: all six events.

That is immensely useful in a five-man team. It means that if somebody has a problem during warm-up, the coaches have options. With Yakubov the theoretical maximum is a fraction higher, but the team becomes somewhat more specialised.

The three people I would regard as indispensable

Dukhno — the team’s principal all-around scorer.

Marinov — another genuine AA gymnast plus major VT/PB potential.

Zaika — because Russia simply doesn’t have another comparable rings number in this particular combination. A 14.4-class rings score gives him a very clear mathematical purpose.

Then:

Sieedin earns his place principally through PH + HB. In a team containing Zaika, those are much more valuable specialties than another strong vault.

And Novikov becomes the glue holding everything together.

That gives quite a pleasing construction:

Dukhno — backbone
Marinov — AA + VT/PB
Novikov — reliable six-apparatus cover
Sieedin — PH/HB
Zaika — SR

And Usachev?

This is the uncomfortable part.

I wouldn’t be dropping him because he isn’t World-class. His European vault silver proves that he is.

The problem is duplication.

Russia already has extremely good vault scores from Marinov and Dukhno, with Novikov perfectly usable as the third score. Usachev improves that apparatus, but not enormously.

Zaika, by contrast, fills a real weakness on rings.

So mathematically:

Zaika adds something Russia lacks.
Usachev adds more of something Russia already has.

That makes Zaika more valuable to the team, even though Usachev may be the more versatile individual gymnast.

My six today

🥇 Dukhno
🥈 Marinov
🥉 Novikov
Sieedin
Zaika
Usachev — travelling reserve

First alternate if anything changes: Yakubov.

And I would keep Yakubov right on the bubble until the last possible selection date. If his training hit-rate is excellent, the 0.034-point difference means there is virtually no mathematical reason not to choose him instead of Novikov.

The really interesting conclusion is that the decision between Novikov and Yakubov isn’t about scoring potential at all. Their predicted team totals are essentially identical. It’s a selector’s judgement about risk.

On a World team final with 18 routines and no dropped scores, I would choose Novikov.