Skip to main content

Pavlova, Mustafina, Afanasyeva, Grishina - four Russian Champions!

Some of the medallists from this weekend's Russian National Championships
The Russian National Championships drew to a close this weekend with gold medals for three of the best Russian gymnasts of the past five years, and one up and coming star, including 2008 Olympian Anna Pavlova (vault), 2010 World Champion Aliya Mustafina (bars), 2008 Olympian and 2011 World Floor Champion Ksenia Afanasyeva (beam) and first year senior Anastasia Grishina (floor).  Full results are available in Russian here.  All members of the 2011 World Championships team competing here (Komova and Nabieva were not) managed to secure a medal in these national championships.

Vault results were noticeably flat this week with only one national team member (Grishina) competing (Maria Paseka is in the reserve squad) in the final.  National team coach Alexander Alexandrov has commented on his team's performance on this apparatus as trailing that of their main rivals, the USA (thanks to Gymnastics Coaching for this link). If this competition is anything to go by, Russia still have to find their consistency, and certainly in this respect they are clearly behind the USA, who must by now be strong favourites for gold in the team event at the London Olympics.  Next week's Troffeo de Jesolo will surely provide more evidence.

Vault

Anna Pavlova           14.49
Anastasia Grishina    14.34
Maria Paseka           14.12

Uneven Bars

Aliya Mustafina         16.22
Yulia Inshina             14.32
Anastasia Grishina     14.24

Beam

Ksenia Afanasyeva    14.98
Anastasia Grishina     14.48
Kristina Goryunova    14.44

Floor

Anastasia Grishina      14.64
Ksenia Afanasyeva     14.18
Yulia Belokobylskaya 14.06

Go-Tribe is doing some brilliant work uploading her home videos of the competition and I believe will be updating her channel over the coming two or three days.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Denial of visas - some background

Can I remind everyone interested in Russian gymnastics that the restrictions imposed on Russia following its state-sponsored doping scandal were quite separate from the restrictions introduced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? The Russian doping scandal came to prominence in 2016, while WADA imposed further sanctions in 2019. Although these sanctions restricted Russia’s participation under its national flag, they did not impose a blanket ban on Russian gymnasts. Athletes who met the relevant eligibility requirements were still permitted to compete. Artistic gymnastics has historically recorded relatively few positive doping tests, and Russian gymnasts were not collectively excluded from international competition as a consequence of the doping scandal. Russian gymnasts therefore continued to compete at the Olympic Games and major international championships, including the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. The situation changed in February 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukra...

Viktoria Komova - back pain has forced me to step down

I awoke this morning to a very simple statement from Viktoria Komova, on her vk.com site, which Papa Liukin has translated (via the IG forum): 'Dear friends, fans, and gymnastics lovers. Unfortunately back pain isn't allowing me to train to my full potential and get ready for competitions. I've made the very difficult decision to stop training and take care of my health. I want to thank everyone for their support! Without your love and warmth it would've been more difficult to go all the way. Thanks everyone and see you soon! Love and kisses.' Well, first of all, good wishes and best of luck to Viktoria, who has struggled since 2012 to re-establish herself fully as a competitive gymnast, whose talent was so great that she secured gold on bars at two different World Championships, four years apart, whose career was littered with controversy, who must be allowed to live her life as she wishes.   I know that the 'gymternet' will now be overflowing...

WAG Senior start lists are out - Afan does one, Mustafina three

Start lists are now available for tomorrow's senior team and event quals.  At present, the Russian roster  looks like this - Beam - Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina Floor - Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina  Vault - Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Afanasyeva  Bars - Melnikova, Spiridonova, Mustafina  Things can still change, dear reader, but this is the most reliable official news we have.    It will be good to see all five members of the team compete - I am relieved that Mustafina isn't doing all four but worried for her legs on floor; delighted to see Melnikova and Tutkhalyan making such a strong contribution; and pleased that Afanasyeva is having a chance to try out her training, despite what might be a small injury.  Spiridonova is also looking good for bars, in fact to me she is underused here.   Good luck!  Udachi!  To all the team.  We are very excited to see you compete and do well! The start lists can be found here - http:/...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more