European Championships 2013 - men's qualifications

David Belyavski's hard working and rather elegant hand. Courtesy of the RGF

It has been a fascinating day at the Olympiski stadium, watching the new order of world gymnastics battle it out for places in this weekend's all around and event finals. I am not sure that things went quite the way the Russians would have wanted today. As ever, large errors found them missing out on final places to which their gymnasts, on capability, should easily qualify. They lead in three out of the six finals, but surely with fewer errors could have topped the qualification stakes, and seen a greater proportion of their team represented in finals.

In Europe, at this present time, it seems to be a fight between three countries - the ambitious and competitive Ukraine, determined to vindicate the disappointment of a fourth place finish in London; relative newcomers Great Britain, whose steadiness and strength in depth point to a bright future; and Russia, the team who will perhaps always seem slightly disappointing, compared to their mighty past under the aegis of the far larger, far more confident Soviet Union. (At this competition Germany did not present its strongest face - we will have to wait and see if this is training strategy or a downturn in their fortunes.)

The British team qualified the highest number of gymnasts to event finals, six, while Ukraine managed to match Russia's five. I mentioned before that Russia lead three out of the six apparatus finals. Ukraine and Britain share one lead each (the remaining apparatus, pommel horse, is still the domaine of Hungary). Russia's efforts rely on only three gymnasts out of their six nominated performers, as do Ukraine's, but Britain qualify four. Britain qualified no gymnasts to parallel bars, rings or vault finals, while Russia's real bug bear, as ever, was the pommel horse, on this occasion a highly competitive final with no score of less than 15 in the top 13 places. Britain did in fact score highly enough to finish in the top eight on vault, but only one of their gymnasts presented two vaults, Theo Seager, who fell on his second attempt. Ukraine's real strength appears to be parallel bars, where their gymnasts stand in 1st and 3rd position with some stunning and original work.

Russia could have improved their qualification status if only both David Belyavski and Nikita Ignatyev had not sat down their vaults (the first thing I saw on entering the arena), and if Ablyazin and Balandin had not suffered severe landing errors on floor and rings respectively. (Ablyazin's floor work is astounding for its difficulty but I must question the wisdom of a Code of Points that rewards a floor exercise that is essentially a composite of back to back tumble runs with barely even a second for anything else. Remember the rhythmic, linear work of such greats as Artemov?) At the same time, Ablyazin must be congratulated for his amazing work on vault, a piece which he has been unable to train at full strength since recovering from his injury; and on rings, a new strength of his since the same injury gave him time to work on upper body strength. He leads both these pieces, while Emin Garibov leads high bar.

Friday's all around final promises much, with a top four (Whitlock, Verniaiev, Belyavski, Stepko) who should provide a beautiful podium and a great advertisement for European gymnastics. Nikita Ignatyev adds to Russia's efforts with his seventh place finish in the all around, while Daniel Purvis's 8th place finish means that all but one (Theo Seager) of Britain's men have made a final of some kind or other. The British team are trained by Russians, Andrei Popov and Sergei Sizhanov, and it shows.

Men's all around qualification results