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Moscow wins Russian team championships/Mustafina hits a 7 SV on bars! Results, pictures and video links

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The winning Moscow team at this year's Russian Championships.  L to R : Anastasia Grishina, Maria Syrnikova, Anna Myzdrikova, Maria Paseka, Maria Chibiskova, Aliya Mustafina
Moscow completed a convincing win (see results) in the national team championships yesterday, taking the title by more than four points over their rivals from the Central District.  Moscow came first on all apparatus except beam, where Central headed the field with strong performances from Ksenia Afanasyeva, Anna Pavlova, and Yulia Inshina.

There is an excellent report on The All Around, who have transcribed the results seen below:


In the unofficial all around, 2008 Olympics veteran Ksenia Afanasyeva came first with an impressive 59.733, ahead of Anastasia Grishina who managed a score of 59.1 despite a fall from beam. Third placed Yulia Belokobylskaya redeemed herself somewhat from the previous day's competition, improving her performance by almost three points to score 56.967 including a 14.6 on floor and 14.833 on beam.  There are some very good pictures at the website of the Russian Gymnastics Federation.

The internet is alive with the return of Aliya Mustafina to top level competition, particularly as yesterday she performed a very dynamic bars routine starting from a value of 7, only the third woman of this Olympiad to achieve that (Beth Tweddle and He Kexin are the other two).  Mustafina's style on bars is very pretty: soft and fluid, unlike many of the other top bars workers who appear stiff as a board.  You will find a video of her bars here, or can watch it below.



Other videos of the Russian Championships can be found on the channels of Graptemysnpiggy, DanyZ2012, and Yannagym.

A number of news stories have appeared about Aliya's return to competition. This is the latest one that I've seen. Aliya says that this was her first serious competition since coming back from injury. She managed to do everything she had planned, and all went well. She was not at all nervous.



Good luck to the juniors, who this afternoon compete for the title of all around champion! And we look forward to seeing the senior team again over the weekend, for the event finals.
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