PT & Startlists & New Skills

Podium training was a mixed result between the juniors and seniors. The juniors were at full strength, with the shakiest moments coming on beam and floor. The seniors had a rough day, counting 12 falls by the time I stopped tracking them with the periscope and UEG stream. Here's the rundown:

Aliya did a 5.2 floor routine (missing leap requirements) and attempted a 6.6 beam routine. This is the most I've seen her struggle on beam since 2013 when she had a flu at World's. The skills are presentable but she's not had enough time to learn how to connect them successfully, especially since she's going after those forward to sideward to backward type connections- the amount of directional changes in her routine is insane! One thing is for sure, I will love her beam if and when she gets it under control. She's always been candid about hating the tedium of repetitions, so her natural disdain for that type of training plus the limited timetable she's working with means she's disadvantaged in comparison to her teammates and especially top international competitors. 

Aliya might do AA, the situation being forced on her since Afan has a slight injury, and Russia is not sending in a replacement. Why is Russia always willing to put their gymnasts in situations they were honest enough to admit just a few weeks earlier wouldn't be a good idea? I notice it's become the norm to talk publicly of putting the health of the gymnast first, then throwing that to the wind when they're in a crunch. The silver lining? Aliya doing the unofficial AA means she is in contention for the Longines Elegance Award, her last opportunity to win it!
UPDATE: No AA. Afan is on the start list for vault, but Aliya is still doing floor which is the greater risk to her recovery.

Melka and Seda have ugly DLO's, especially Seda's, ugh it's so low and un-floaty, with terrible form at that. Neither girl looked awful but they weren't amazing either. Falls on beam and general lack of accuracy mired their training session. From PT it seems we will be seeing a replica of the programs they did at Nationals, nothing new.

For once, bars was not Russia's friend. Aliya fell twice and was visibly upset, while Melka fell on her jaeger. Daria did a wonderfully easy set, so I would bet on seeing her in finals. The livestream didn't happen to catch Seda on ub.

Valentina jinxed the Olympics when she named the team in November, didn't she? Every girl whose spot is supposedly assured is injured or recuperating.  

How surprised are you that Russia is not subbing Kapitonova in? Last year, they flew Paseka in at the final hour but presently, with more time for a replacement to get situated, they're acting like they don't have options.

In any case, here's the senor start list:
BB: (Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina)
FX: (Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina)
VT: (Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Afanasyeva)
UB: (Melnikova, Spiridonova, Mustafina)
Russia is using the same strategy as in Baku where they had Vika go up as anchor for everything in quals because she was still regaining her health, and having the pressure off her after two hit routines seemed to help calm her. This strategy depends on Melka and Tut basically slaying their events so Mustafina can know what she needs to score to keep the team leading while not having too much pressure on her to be absolutely perfect. 

The juniors will compete today for- forgive the arrogance- an easy gold medal. No team can touch the superb combination of talent Russia's sent to Euros. There are no weaknesses on any event and making 8 out of 8 finals (not including AA or TF) is realistic. They're up in the last subdivision with all the top teams: France, Germany, Romania, Switzerland, Great Britain. Italy and Belgium. In rotation 1 they start on bars, a strong event, capable of setting a punishing tone for other teams if the girls do their very best work here. In the next rotation they head to beam, where I expect we'll see Eremina and Zubova make EF's. I'm unsure why they decided against Zubzub anchoring the event. Ahem, she's kinda amazing? Floor, in rotation 3, will bring in the lowest scores although it should still be a breeze for this high energy high impact group. Sima and Lena are my personal highlights here (still crying that Uliana is doing floor over Zubs). The comp ends on vault, which should be stable and predictable because it's vault, right? Well, some of the girls are testing new DTY's so I'm a little nervous but I think all will turn out well. Truthfully, this is an A+ team so we can absorb more than 1 fall if it comes to that. But I'm not worried, I trust Russian juniors lol. 

UB: (Simakova, Eremina, Iliankova, Perebinosova, Zubova)

BB: (Zubova, Eremina, Perebinosova, Iliankova, Simakova)

FX: (Perebinosova, Iliankova, Simakova, Eremina, Zubova)

VT: (Iliankova, Simakova, Eremina, Perebinosova, Zubova)

Zubova is submitting a C skill for consideration (note: it can't be named after her until she's a senior even if she does it correctly here). The skill is seen below at 0:17. I'm ready for the Zubs.

I've seen Vasiliki's new leap and Jurkowska's new G-rated gainer dismount, and it looks like Fragapane is trying to butcher another dance skill after failing to get the double twisting butterfly named after her heehee. The only thing that makes me anxious is what I'm NOT seeing on the list and that is Giulia Steingruber's tsuk double. 

That's it for now. I think we're all feeling a bit like Afan after PT:

For the fourth time this quad, I wish you a speedy recovery, Mama Afan