Russia Rules The Day

 

The 2016 Junior European team final just concluded with Russia, Great Britain, and Romania standing on the podium. I earlier mused that no team could challenge the Russians, and untouchable they were. One thing that really stood out in my mind was how much confidence the team gained by going with conservative routines for Euros. You may not have noticed but several girls did not show the max level of difficulty within their repertoire; in all, only one upgrade was allowed and that was Eremina's DTY. Most of them have competed upgrades over the spring that weren't shown in TF's today, and that's okay. Scaling back was a proactive strategy. I was right on 90% of my predictions; I foresaw Eremina getting into bb and fx, but didn't count on Zubs getting 2per'd out. I also didn't see Uliana having the upper hand over Iliankova going into the last rotation. But didn't I sense bad juju about ending on vault? Let's just say I'm happy junior qualifications is 5-4-3 as opposed to the senior order of 5-3-3. I came to have a good time, not have flashbacks to 2007 Worlds! 


It was a great competition with lots of positives for everyone individually and as a team. Eremina or Iliankova currently sit in 1st place on every apparatus and as a team they qualified to 7/8 EF's taking top spots (1-2) on them all. The competition kicked off in a major way with Sima scoring the first 14 on UB after four subdivisions. She's not impressive to me yet, with very sluggish swinging and close catches but her dismount (double front half out) is a thing of beauty in form, height, and accuracy. Eremina, who went after her, was much improved since the the St.Petersburg Cup; she glided through the routine confidently and had great height on her releases. Finishing in proper handstand remains an issue but some of her pirouettes weren't that late, so I confess to being surprised that she and Sima tied. Iliankova's bars were great but I couldn't help thinking how much some E-rated pirouettes would add to her routine. She's a Russian so obviously those toe-ons are going to become inbars, but I think it's a shame for a gymnast with such good spatial awareness to not attempt pirouettes- she certainly obeys the law of a 90° handstand. I think there's some room to improve on her 14.6 score for the EF's, and she should be careful because Charpy (FRA) and Perebinosova have similar or higher difficulty and they might improve as well. Uliana is the new Nabs- she's not graceful and lithe like a traditional Russian swan but what she lacks in aesthetics she delivers in so much badassery. I want to know how her coaches even conceived of this UB routine. A maloney uprise to stalder half to ezhova...really? However it was done, I am thankful for the ingenuity. Russia's bar rotation had more originality among its quartet than the fourway tie world champions, which further cements my desire to embrace the younger generation and respectfully say goodbye to the old. I'm looking forward to these girls being the new UB trendsetters next quad.

Zubova started us off on beam with a 14.166 which is a bit lower than I would've liked for such a phenomenally packed routine but I suppose all that difficulty is a double edged sword and was bound to affect execution, especially for one so young and inexperienced. Nonetheless, it contributed to the team gold and I'm sorry she was knocked out by her teammates. Next up was Princess Lena who outscored Zubzub with a 14.266. When I heard the score I was furious she was lowballed (she looked solid!) but then I realized her D-score was credited at 5.4 so in missing the first quarter of her routine she probably broke a connection or two (even the parts of her routine that was screened showed some slow connections so...). That means Lena had the highest e-score of the day so I can't be mad with that. Besides, I always knew CV was her kryptonite. But she moves with so much purpose, that one. There's no filler in her routine, every piece of choreography acrobatically transitions to the next skill. It's a marvelous thing when a Rusian is beautiful and consistent. Someone smarter than me will need to justify Uliana's 14.066, though. The camera turned to her performance just in time to see her nearly fall on what I think is a layout. She then had balance checks on her illusion turn and front aerial and a step back on landing. Nonetheless, she scored a 8.366 in execution and I can't understand how. Even putting aside her landing errors, the skills themselves aren't textbook gymnastics: she had some bent knees, and her her hips were too open on her illusion turn. I mean, I'm not gonna go apoplectic about a score that benefits my team, (hell no), I'm just saying...whatsup judges. Iliankova closed out the second rotation with what the judges deemed as good work. I can't say, they didn't show her on the livestream, but having the second highest d-score among the juniors certainly helped her into first position.

Even swans go through the awkward stage

It was refreshing to see floor routines involved in actual concepts, not half assed gestures performed to bad music with lukewarm presentation (ahem, they know who they are). With that being said, what do you guys think of Uliana dancing to a rendition of Oksana Omelianchik's infamous birdie routine? Let's compare: 

Using this non-Euros routine b/c it's clear

It feels like I'm dragging Uliana a lot today, but I swear I like her, it's just this floor routine really does nothing for me, and I find myself repulsed by it because it's a bold presentation of just how pitiful russian choreography has become. Artistry aside, Uliana continued to deliver clutch routines to help the team and Russia was the only team where every girl had over an 8 in execution on fx. There were some problems: Iliankova landed oob while Simakova had too much power- bless her- and took huge steps back, but they impressed me with how quickly they reigned in their errors. They refused to let a mistake toss them to hell. Lena was the perfect anchor, and finally delivered the 14+ routine we'd been waiting for, also the only 14 fx of the entire competition. 

I heard it said on a gym forum that "3 strong, 1 wrong" is a medal winning formula in WAG. It means that if as a team you do well on three events, one mediocre event will still see you on the podium, if not winning outright. It more or less sums up the American Olympic strategy of having three really excellent events to make up for one so-so rotation, which traditionally is bars. I had that feeling going into the last rotation that even bad vaults couldn't hurt us since we got off to such a flying start but trust Russia to almost make a sure thing go sour. If the qualifications had been identical to the seniors' we wouldn't even have a medal right now, because I'm certain the team lineup in a 3 up 3 count would be Perebs, Lena, and Sima. I couldn't have predicted Sima of all people falling on her fhs piked full or Uliana balking but still touching the apparatus. Luckily, it couldn't prevent the girls from a 4 point victory over GBR and ROU, but it still had an effect on finals: it gave Nastia a chance at the AA while ending Uliana's. 

 

I know from social media that Simakova is feeling remorseful about her performance, and Zubzub might be down on herself too, but the girls have nothing to be ashamed of when they are so young and already handling routines capable of contending with the seniors. All of them could be of use to our senior lineup, and that's no small merit because that team is supposed to be a hypothetical Olympic team. I wish the girls to know that despite everything not going smoothly, they learned valuable lessons about the nature of victory, namely that not all victories hail from perfection. Sometimes it's gonna get bumpy when you least expect it, and other times it will be a scrappy fight to the end. The important thing is that you fight as hard as you can to do the the best that you can because your training will not fail you. They are so lucky to belong to the Russian school of gymnastics whose motto is to "win with beauty." But ya know girlies, sometimes it's gonna get ugly, and those victories are just as worthy as when you have it all together. Congratulations to Team Russia on 16 years of continuous European domination!!!

See it and weep:

Full results for beam floor vault bars and AA

(gifs by jordynslefteyebrow.tumblr.com)