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| Viktoria Komova. Courtesy of the RGF |
This afternoon's Russia Cup all around competition at the Burtasy School of Gymnastics, Penza, ended with Youth Olympics Champion, World Vice Champion Viktoria Komova in first place, the first major senior title of her career. 2010 World All Around Champion, Aliya Mustafina, is well on the road to recovery following an ACL tear at last spring's (2011) European Championships, achieving a good finish in second place. Mustafina has not quite regained her full form as yet, particularly on beam and floor where she suffered a few problems today, but she was strong enough to make a close fight of this. This was the first time Komova and Mustafina had competed head to head in an all around at senior level and given the ambition of both gymnasts one can expect a thrilling rivallry in London.
World 2011 team member and beam finalist Yulia Inshina finished in third
place all around. While she does not score particularly highly on any
one piece, she does generally perform predictably and fairly
consistently across all four apparatus, which might make her a good
choice for team alternate.
Anastasia Grishina, who missed Wednesday's qualification competition with a sore leg, was back to performing bars here today, although with a low dismount. At full strength on all four apparatus, Grishina is vital to the Russian team if they are to compete for gold in London. The remaining team members Ksenia Afanasyeva, Maria Paseka, Anna Dementieva and Tatiana Nabieva all had problems here, leaving the team coaches with some difficult decisions to make over the coming weeks. The various control competitions will no doubt be very important for these gymnasts, as well as this weekend's event finals.
Full results are available
here, and I'm reproducing images of the results with some annotations below.
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| Komova, Mustafina, Inshina, Afanasyeva, Pavlova, Myzdrikova, Belokobylskaya |
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| Sidorova, Dunaeva, Rodionova, Polyan, Bizmurkina, Sidorenko, Bodryagina, Stvetkova |
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| Volkova, Cheong, Nabieva (DTY; note the bars score); Paseka (sat down Amanar but still outscored Nabieva there), Dementyeva (good bars score, fell on her beam dismount), Grishina (low dismount and problems on a handstand) |
And as expected girls didn't show full difficulty here : )
ReplyDeleteMaybe they do some extra on events finals or keep it for London
Too bad Masty's floors have problems as usual
Whats going on with Dementieva?
Nabieva couldn't even get a 15 on bars? She is not looking good right now. As I've said I don't want her in the 5 member team. She could be an alternate if anything.
ReplyDeleteDementyeva is close in bar scores to Nabieva! Dementieyva needs to step up though, if she wants to make the team. A 13 on beam (which is Russia's Achilles heel) is not good.
Hopefully Aliya can fix her problems with the spins on floor. She can do much better than the scores she had on beam and floor.
Vika also seems to need to work on floor.
All in all, an ok start for them. They have a month to perfect things.
Everything depends on whether Grishina can do all around for the team. If she can then I guess Paseka and Afanasyeva are the best final two.
DeleteIf she can't I am really not sure at all what the team will look like. Nabieva and Pavlova may even be needed ... but I hope not.
I hope not as well, lol. Nabieva has terrible form and that will cost the team. Pavlova, haven't seen much of her, but she has low difficulty in almost everything except maybe Beam.
DeleteThey just need to clean up on their routines. I really want Aliya to challenge for AA, it would be nice since she is returning from a big injury.
Hopefully Grishina will be alright as well.
I am worried for Aliya. She did much better on FX and BB than she did at the Euros and Penza. She should progress not regress :(
ReplyDeleteI mean she did much better at the trio meet with Sui..
DeleteI think Aliya's right where she needs to be. If she can clean up her floor, continue being solid on bars and vault and get a few more BB routines under her belt, she'll be in good shape. If Vika can iron out her wobbles on beam (fingers crossed! she's so gorgeous when she hits!) she's a serious threat for the AA gold.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for tomorrow events result
ReplyDelete