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| Three golds for Aliya Mustafina! |
Mustafina likes the taste of gold
She is back with that familiar mystical demeanour that makes her look every inch the champion. Mustafina has a distance to travel with her difficulty (apart from bars, where she showed an SV of 7) but seemed confident and strong elsewhere at the Russian Championships. Coach Alexander Alexandrov has emphasised that Mustafina and he have not even begun work on vault and floor.
Grishina is improving all the time
Besides Mustafina's brilliant bar work, the routine of the Championships for me was Grishina's floor - elegant, musical and complex. Grishina ended the competition with medals in every competition, including two golds, so with Mustafina and Afanasyeva she was a leading gymnast here.
Afanasyeva has set the bar high
With gold on beam and silver in the all around and floor competitions, 2008 veteran demonstrated her new found consistency and is the early season leader on the Russian team. Now Grishina has to overtake her if she is to compete all around in qualifications at the Olympics.
There are more questions than answers
The absences of Viktoria Komova and Anna Dementieva are well documented. However, Tatyana Nabieva, Anastasia Sidorova and Evgeniya Shelgunova were all missing from the competitive roster as well, and we don't really know why.
Maria Bondareva leads an impressive generation of tiny juniors
And in the generation above her we see the emergence of Maria Kharenkova. Progressing through the junior ranks, and transitioning to the senior team is so risky though, this might mean nothing come 2016.
Pavlova's gold medal on vault is not the greatest advertisement for Russian vaulting
I do hope the team gets its heads round this one as we approach the Games.
The Jesolo Cup is still to come
It seems unlikely that the advertised team of Mustafina, Grishina, Sidorova, Nabieva, Inshina and Dementieva will travel. I personally wonder if a squad centring on Afanasyeva and Grishina might be more likely, but I suppose we will just have to wait and see.
The European Championships will be a key milestone for the Russians
The Russians won't be taking a holiday now because they have to train for Europeans where hopefully we will be able to gather more evidence of their preparations for the Olympics. Most of the competitions the Russians are participating in this spring and early summer are team based (Jesolo, Europeans and an April outing to Switzerland where they will compete in a tri-meet against Switzerland and Britain).
We will not second guess the Russians
While the American team bluster centres around their highly touted Amanars, the Russians hold their cards to their chest. Rodionenko was very sanguine in his recent interview, reassuring us that the girls had all achieved key goals in their personal training plans. Then Alexandrov erased all certainty by pointing out that the team's poor showing on vault was jeopardising its chance of beating America to gold in London. Surely he's right.
I can never quite decide if sporting PR is a strength or a weakness for Russian gymnastics! But one thing I am sure of - we won't know who is on the team until the last possible moment and we won't know who has won until the competition is over.
Does anyone know what the Chinese are doing?
Surely they are the sleeping tigers ...
From previous observations, I can say the Russians and Alexandrov specifically, are working on it. In 2010, couple of weeks before the worlds, Mustafina and Nabieva launched their Amanars. In 2011, he said he was quite nervous about the Worlds. They ended up with team silver, AA silver and two individual golds & a silver. Now vault, I say they will do it. Looking at this week competition, there is a tremendous improvement in vault techniques of Mustafina, Afanasyeva and Grishina. It is rumored that Sidorova is already "Amanaring". Komova is keeping it low but we all know how very capable of Amanars she is. Rodionenko has talked about individual plans for gymnasts where they "all achieved key goals in their personal training plans". Again, I'd say they are working on it steadly. As per Alexandrov "The Russian team also have smaller “holes” in their technique" but " these are “not so serious" which indicates that he is not so worried about it. Personally, if I was him, I would leave vault till the end, after buffing up the other events. Finally, I agree that the Russians are holding their cards to their chests till July at least where I expect them to reveal secrets similar to Mustafina's UB routine.
ReplyDeleteAlfi
Thanks Alfi :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's not in Russian nature to brag about our strength. We deliver when we ought to, and that's all that really matters. The US make have an advantage on vault, but I wouldn't set it in stone yet. Douglas might have nailed her Amanar at the American Cup but just couple of weeks later (Pacific Rim) she barely even got her hands on the vaulting table. They have high start values on vault, we have a World Champion, World silver medalist, Aliya's 7.0 and Nastia's high 6's on bars. Let's not forget that Weiber won her AA in Tokyo by .033 with Vika's luck of Amanar, loss of the double turn on the beam and a couple of major hiccups on floor. On the international stage, it's still ARTISTIC gymnastics. Weaker vaults or not, we still have what cannot be muscled into.
ReplyDeleteSandra
Very often athletes have been in top form too early in the season. I am sure this is not what Aleksandrov and his team are looking for. There's still room for improvement.
ReplyDeletehttp://rsport.ru/interview/20120325/587639713.html There is an informative article/ interview with Alexandrov here that answers some of your questions. I am translating it, as requested by some people on the IG forum. When I'm finished, you can use the translation if you'd like. :)
ReplyDeleteThanks DanyZ for the refrence, I ran it google on translate and though I was like huh?mm!! er!?what!?, I managed to get a sense of what Aleksandrov was saying. 1) he talked about Komova's Surgery, if i am not mistaken, it is a minor pre-emptive one to ensure no recurring injuries. 2) He talked about top 10 potential Russian Olympic team. 3) He talked about potential AA contenders. 4)Mustafina, is working the hell out of herself and she is overcoming the vault complex.5) He talked Vault issue, and how important it is to have 2.5 twist vaults :). He is upto something :).
ReplyDeleteAlfi
That's it, in a nutshell. He also talked about Nabieva struggling with frequent colds, weight gain and psychological motivation to keep up with the training demand. The interviewer was eager to hear some criticism towards Americans, but Aleksandrov kept cool. He compared Vika's ancle problem to Bross's, and said that Rebecca didn't treat it properly and was in a lot of pain at 2010 Worlds. With Vika, they wanted to get there as soon as possible in order to avoid that.
DeleteSandra
Another interview on The Coach Gymnast about Grishna going Amanar :), I knew it. I could figure it out from the change in the blocking technique in her vault. Afanasyeva will follow soon. Mustafina will do it in June.
ReplyDeleteAlfi
Thanks for all the really interesting posts and links - please keep commenting. I'm busy at work this week but intend to do some blogging at the weekend, including linking to your translation of the Alexandrov interview, DanyZ - thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteOh and we have the Jesolo Cup - an interesting senior team led by Grishina with Inshina, Belokobylskaya and Rodionova (only four gymnasts). The junior team centres on Baturina, Kharenkova and Bondareva - Chemaryeva is injured, so out. I'm still unsure of the status of Shelgunova but she is not going to Jesolo.
I regret to inform you that the Chinese are very fast asleep at present.
ReplyDeleteIs that snoring I can hear??
ReplyDelete