Skip to main content

Kharenkova takes two medals on final day of Cottbus

Image
By
Russian gymnasts in Cottbus last weekend - from left to right - back row - Polina Fedorova, Maria Kharenkova, Daria Spiridinova; front row - Yulia Inshina (Azerbaijan), Anna Rodionova, Marina Nekrasova (Azerbaijan)


In her first senior international, Maria Kharenkova secured two medals last Sunday, taking a silver on beam, and a bronze on floor.  Not a bad result considering the jitters she suffered in the early part of the competition, and one that underlines the worth of a strategy that favours the selection of young gymnasts for these smaller competitions.  Russia now enters the pre-Europeans preparation with two more tried and tested medalists on its roster (Rodionova, remember, gained a silver on bars on Saturday), and this can only add to an impression of strength in depth, greatly needed in the run up to the major competitions this year and beyond.  

Kharenkova's performance was not as confident as she had presented during her medal winning routines at the 2012 Junior European Championships, but she still has some impressive routines and the fact that she made fewer errors as she progressed through the stages of the competition suggests she may have a 'big match temperament' and is still finding her feet at senior level.  Russia has found it difficult to transition its junior gymnasts to senior level in the recent past, so any indication of progress from this youngster from Rostov on Don is a matter for optimism.

Less encouraging is that Russia could field no gymnast at all on WAG vault ...

In the men's competition Ablyazin made a small but costly error and couldn't follow through with a second day gold to match his first day victories.  However, he did enough here to signal his determination to use this year to best effect as he prepares for the a Rio Olympics.

Russia continues with its preparations for Europeans with the Russian Championships in Penza, beginning on the 1st April with the first stages of the women's competitions, junior and senior.  Good luck to all the gymnasts!  

You can view videos of many of the best routines from Cottbus (MAG especially) at this YouTube channel http://m.youtube.com/user/jackmcpheepr/videos?sort=dd&shelf_id=2&view=0

Judith Radloff, hero of the gymternet, was present at the competition and took the trouble to video routines live - a big thank you, Judith!  Her videos, including Maria's floor and beam finals, can be found here https://www.facebook.com/judithradloff?ref=ts&fref=ts.

You will find the final results here, or can view them below.  http://cottbus-2014.dtb-liveticker.de














Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who will travel to Berne? A Russian mystery

By
Aliya Mustafina and team candidate Seda Tutkhalyan - both from Moscow Five days left before the MAG European Championships open in Switzerland, and Russian gymnast Nikita Nagorny is posting videos of himself practicing a full twisting Roche vault - I wonder if he will compete it in Berne?  The men's team seems fairly well prepared and ready to travel as announced some weeks ago - Kuksenkov, Belyavski, Ignatyev, Nagorny, Ablyazin.  But the composition of the women's team, who will travel to their first major competition of 2016 next week, seems somewhat undecided.  Will Natalia Kapitonova make her major senior debut in June, or will Seda Tutkhalyan, her dynamic yet unpredictable rival, grace Russia's team?  Or will other gymnasts be brought into play; will further, unexpected, changes be made? If head coach Valentina Rodionenko's recent announcement is to be believed, it is a simple case of replacing the injured Maria Paseka (a vault specialist) with Natalia ...
22 comments
Read more

Nelli Kim - 'Russian gymnastics has closed in on itself' - Lupita translates

By
Lupita has translated this ITAR-TASS interview with Nelli Kim.  It's controversial, to say the least. Ed's note : much of the initial response to this interview - both here and in the wider gymternet -  has focussed on the detail of Kim's words and especially her comments about Viktoria Komova, and smiling.  But I think these have to be taken in context, and not too literally. Don't forget that just a day ago Andrei Rodionenko complained bitterly about the judging in Antwerp, calling Kim's behaviour 'aggressive'. Kim is responding to this here, and to the wider current context of Russian gymnastics.  What she is essentially saying to the Russian coach is 'get your own house in order, produce confident, disciplined, well trained gymnasts - stop complaining, do your job, and I will do mine.'   She goes about saying this in a somewhat long winded way and says some things along the way that seem contradictory, unfair, inappropriate even for th...
30 comments
Read more

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

By
It was a Sunday morning.  I was drinking my coffee and contemplating the day ahead - a workout at the gym, shopping for groceries, an evening reading a book, or catching up on last night's episodes of crime thriller The Bridge .  How nice it was not to have to think about work for a day. Then I saw it - a story about the history of doping in The Observer .  Interesting reading. Of course, cheating is as old as the hills.  It is, unfortunately, human nature for some people to try to gain easy advantage in any kind of competition.  That is why we have laws, rules, ethical guidelines.  People who cheat should face justice and shouldn't complain when they are found out. But the story about pregnancy doping bothered me.  Hadn't that been found to be fictional?  The author began with Olga Kovalenko's allegations made in 1994 - but the rumours had started way back in 1991 with the documentary series More Than A Game .  The practice...
3 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more