ICYMI
Girls at the Euros banquet with Team Italy:
Russian-born Sazanova Realizes Her Olympic Dream in Iceland. A 52.931 qualified her to Rio. She has a very nice floor routine from what I remember. Congrats, Irina.
See the preparation that went into the women's team gold medal. The girls were doing comp routines and getting provisional scores by Ksenia Semenova (Ulyankina provided additional references).
For those who wondered where YOG champion Irina Annekova had gone to, she is still on the National team but is training in Sochi and Rostov instead. Sadly, she is injured...I think every YOG champion in gymnastics is cursed with a mediocre senior career or no career at all.
World Cup Guadalajara concluded with Mamun winning her second title this year. She and Sasha are now even with two apiece while Yana has three. All three girls will be in Holon, Israel to train for the European Championships taking place there, but only Mamun and Kudry will compete. This makes their Olympic bid much more likely, but Viner has assured us she won't decide anything until the Rio training camp. In her experience, vast improvement and degradation can come from desperate circumstances and she wants to wait until the last moment to see who is best for Rio. Even though she isn't competing, Sasha will stay as alternate to Kudry who still has health issues. Her bid for a Euros berth was hampered by persistent mistakes in the AA at several World Cups, including Guadalajara. Mamun, on the other hand, has gained notorious consistency once her spot was under threat!
Yana Kudryatseva observes her rivals: "My coach and I were pleased regarding my results at WC Sofia. We just have to work more on little things. I skipped WC Guadalajara because, last year, I took part in nearly every competition, so it might have caused my ankle injury. That's why we decided to skip some competitions this season before the Olympics. Honestly, my injury doesn't hurt me anymore! Just sometimes I feel for a second a pain, but it doesn't matter to me. This year, many gymnasts improved, especially Anna Rizatdinova. Her exercises are more and more controlled. Staniouta showed that she's strong too. I am happy they improved, because it pushes me to do better and better! I have to admit that, more the ECh are getting closer, more stressed I am! But the hardest work will start just after these championships, because we will get closer to the Olympic Games."
Some good news for WAG fans is that Viktoria Komova and Maria Paseka have been training again at Round Lake, so we will see them at the Cup in a month's time! Yayyy.
Three time European champion, Anastasia Ilyankova, was given a hero's welcome when she returned home with her multiple gold medals. See that video here.
Valentina Rodionenko calls Melnikova Russia's "trump card" for Rio. Even though she had a mistake in the beam final, Valentina thinks it's more important that Melka showed stability and high scores over the entire week of Euros, and proved she is control of her nerves.
Russian-born Sazanova Realizes Her Olympic Dream in Iceland. A 52.931 qualified her to Rio. She has a very nice floor routine from what I remember. Congrats, Irina.
See the preparation that went into the women's team gold medal. The girls were doing comp routines and getting provisional scores by Ksenia Semenova (Ulyankina provided additional references).
Photos of everyday life at Novogorsk (RG National Training Center) show the cafeteria, dorms, and TENS machine:
For those who wondered where YOG champion Irina Annekova had gone to, she is still on the National team but is training in Sochi and Rostov instead. Sadly, she is injured...I think every YOG champion in gymnastics is cursed with a mediocre senior career or no career at all.
World Cup Guadalajara concluded with Mamun winning her second title this year. She and Sasha are now even with two apiece while Yana has three. All three girls will be in Holon, Israel to train for the European Championships taking place there, but only Mamun and Kudry will compete. This makes their Olympic bid much more likely, but Viner has assured us she won't decide anything until the Rio training camp. In her experience, vast improvement and degradation can come from desperate circumstances and she wants to wait until the last moment to see who is best for Rio. Even though she isn't competing, Sasha will stay as alternate to Kudry who still has health issues. Her bid for a Euros berth was hampered by persistent mistakes in the AA at several World Cups, including Guadalajara. Mamun, on the other hand, has gained notorious consistency once her spot was under threat!
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| 1. Rita Mamum (RUS)76.550 2. Alexandra Soldatova (RUS) 75.700 3. Anna Rizatdinova (UKR) 75.150 |
Btw, WC Guadalajara had the most amazing crowd! Ukraine's Rizat was the clear favorite of the people. Her clubs routine, where she broke 19 for the first time, below:
Some good news for WAG fans is that Viktoria Komova and Maria Paseka have been training again at Round Lake, so we will see them at the Cup in a month's time! Yayyy.
Three time European champion, Anastasia Ilyankova, was given a hero's welcome when she returned home with her multiple gold medals. See that video here.
Valentina Rodionenko calls Melnikova Russia's "trump card" for Rio. Even though she had a mistake in the beam final, Valentina thinks it's more important that Melka showed stability and high scores over the entire week of Euros, and proved she is control of her nerves.
you really need to watch sahsa routines to know how was the clear favorite
ReplyDeleteYeah they were crazy over her and Anna. i was actually going to say that, but Rizat was on my mind because hers was the last routine I saw on the playlist. I think Sasha and Rita elicit such a wild response from the audience in a way Yana never has or will. Rita is a performer and Sasha is the trickster.
DeleteI know there was some fan uproar about the decision to replace Melka with Daria in the bar final. Do you believe Melka genuinely agreed to it, or not? I don't buy the story about the "rip" for a second. Very sorry for her that she did not medal individually, but I agree with Valentina (for once) that she deserves nothing but praise for her stability and performance.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I'm surprised there was such an uproar over a strategic move that is commonplace in our sport. I remember in 2013 when Kyla Ross made FX finals over Maroney many people assumed, and even hoped, Martha Karyoli would switch them. I think the question of fairness comes down to the situation. Did Melka expect to make the UB finals? No. Did she have more to gain by competing UB finals than Dasha had to lose by not proving herself in UB finals? Nope. As Valentina said, Melka made her case for Rio (and secured it) when she did the AA twice in quals and TF successfully. Dasha's fight was to prove her worthiness as a one eventer, so when she didn't qualify many thought her stock went down. The Rod's decided that quals was a blip, and gave her one more chance.
DeleteMelka isn't some American with only one chance at an international assignment because of insane depth. She is one of the best in Russia and will probably make many Euros UB finals over the coming years. But presently, the big picture was to find out if Dasha had maintained her status on bars, and by winning silver the Rod's learned that she was not competitive enough for Rio because two people in the world now hold higher start values than her. This means they don't have a positive chance of gold by taking her as a one eventer (which was their previous justification). But moving forward, Dasha knows what she needs to do to become competitive again. So the whole switch was not just consensual among the girls, but a valuable learning experience. If Melka won a bronze medal, nothing new would've been learned about Russia's standing in Rio. They might even have continued to believe Dasha's 6.7 would've beaten Downie had Melka competed instead.