Rhythmic Season Kicks Off

I haven't written an in-depth article on an RG competition since Rio so let’s have a look at the 2017 Moscow Championships & All-Russian Championships, with a focus on the girls poised to make the headlines this quad.

Before I get started here’s the new CoP for RG. Some gymnasts will suffer, some will benefit. To sum up:

More judges on the panel

Maximum score remains at 20

Gymnasts can now improvise after a mistake without incurring deductions.

No limit regarding the number of masteries

No limit on risks (minimum of one must be performed)

Nine difficulties maximum

Dance steps can last up to 10 seconds instead of 8 

Body elements have been reduced to a minimum of three

No set scoresheets. RG will mimic Artistic Gymnastics and have the judges write/credit what they see instead of using scoresheets as a rubric for determining the difficulty (this might get tricky b/c according to Viner, some judges have admitted to not knowing how to score very difficult routines without the scoresheet to tell them what the gymnast is doing. They say they can’t judge Russia because they move too fast and are so intricate. However, RG didn’t use scoresheets for most of the 90’s- (I think)- so it can work)

Okay…

First up, from Moscow, we have Polina Shmatko. Shmatko is a 3-time European Junior Champion, and as she is only 13, is one of the leading candidates to represent Russia at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. I posted all four of her exercises down below. As you can see she’s energetic, but her facial expressions are a dramatic overdose. I loved “the fierceness” when it suited her routines last year but she needs to pay attention to the music and listen to what it's actually requiring. She could learn from Rita in one respect: how to manifest her power while characterizing softness (or vice versa). Polina’s aggressive fiddling with the ball are not in harmony with the grace she's meant portray or the delicacy of the tune. And across all the apparatus she’s doing a lot of writhing when I’d prefer to see real dancing. This is a sore spot for most Russians, somewhere I feel they could benefit as a whole from the Bulgarian school of RG. In Bulgaria, gymnasts use their full range of motion when interpreting evocative dance moves and apparatus work. No gimmicks for them. Anyways, artistry aside, Polina was a MESS. She’s always been sloppy in the feet but her poor apparatus handling is new. It's early in the season and I tend to think she's pretty clever with her handling, if not consistent. I think she'll get better as her comfort level increases but I have to admit... I'm not into her 2017 program. 

Next up we have firecracker, Lala Kramarenko, who is trained by Laysan Savitskaya and Lina Gnirovskaya. For me, she was the strongest performer at this Moscow Champs. Lala has incredibly beautiful arched feet, supple and strong, along with high extensions that appear to be perfectly placed for one so young. I could rave all day about her relevé but I most adore how she moves and controls each apparatus with such confidence and conviction.

  

Last December, the official senior team was named: Vedeneeva, Selezneva, Pavlova (!!!), Soldatova, D. Averina, A. Averina, Kuznetsova. There are several prominent girls not named to this team and I think Viner is waiting for the season to get into full swing and judge who should be placed where. Keep in mind Kudry was not named to the official 4-man team in 2013 and ended the year as World Champion, so this list is arbitrary and just names the top ranked girls from Nationals after you take Mamun and Yana out of the equation. UPDATE: Alina Ermolova is injured and is on crutches at the moment so that's why she wasn't named to the team.

Her posture is so weird to me.
Might be her knee to hip ratio.

At the All-Russian Championships, we got to see Soldatova (top ranked gymnast) exhibit her new hoop and ball routine. Sasha had a successful outing for her debut but still managed to upset a lot of people by using Yulia Barsukova’s legendary (and I do mean legendary) Olympic ball music for her ball routine as well. Now we all know Sasha is hyper-extended and super flexible but she’s occasionally clumsy in her apparatus handling and ungraceful with her catches so I did wonder how this attempt would work. I’m really on the fence about what she showed, which is to be expected- it’s early in the season and I haven’t seen the best of her ability to perform it yet. 

I need to make a confession: I'm still living in a world where Yana rules everything, or sometimes Rita. I need to adjust to new talent and not draw parallels between competitors from different quads (even though Sasha competed last quad, her climax will no doubt happen between now and Tokyo). With that being said, what I will miss most about Yana is how she regarded posture as a component of movement, whereas other gymnasts detach themselves from proper form when they're not holding a static position. Yana was so damned perfect it's going to be hard to forget that she was a revolution, not the standard. Soldatova only seems messy because she's coming after Yana, but she's more polished than Dmitriyeva or Kapranova, gymnasts she's constantly compared to. I really like her hoop routine: good music (never expected Sasha to be a Rachmaninov fan), difficult risks, exciting compositions, and an unusual but beautiful leotard make this a hit for me. Going off these two routines, I'm not that excited about her clubs and ribbon since I think she's looking to play it safe this year and rehash old things. Hopefully, what we see in return for lack of originality is refinement. I'm going to need that from her if I'm to stay in her camp for four years.

The Averinas also competed at this meet. According to their coach they've been preparing these routines even before Rio so expectations were high and I've gotta say they've definitely come into 2017 expecting to get two tickets for Worlds. The bad news is both girls are still suffering under the allusion they know how to do a backscale pivot . Let's start with Dina. I appreciate that she's crawling out of her comfort zone because she's musically challenged. They always give her folk, samba, or fast paced music and while classical doesn't seem to suit her I can't admit to her excelling in any of the aforementioned genres either so I hope she continues to challenge herself in that aspect. The thing with the Averina's is that they have 0.003% artistry and are very nervous to commit to expressive choreography. I've always liked them despite the kitschy music and "dances" because it's rare to see such well rounded gymnast in RG anymore. Dina crammed her routines with so much difficulty there wasn't any breathing time, which left her running after the apparatus rather than the apparatus working its way back to her (that is to say, you do have to go after the apparatus but the illusion of control, of the apparatus seeming to follow your mental commands, should always be evident). Some of her body elements weren't followed through to completion but again, it's the early season and Dina always improves as the back to back competition season advances. I'm surprised at the amount of vitriol the fans are giving to these girls for looking rough in February. Arina's exhibition performances had some blusters as well but I thought she presented cleaner execution than her twin despite drops. Please watch her ball routine for the first throw: from foot to one handed catch to rotation to blind trap! This is what I love Russia for; they don't always have the cleanest work but it's difficult and done with a confidence that belies the complexity involved.

I wanted to review Pavlova and the new group exercises but as GP Moscow is upon us I will wait for the clearer footage from that competition to discuss them. Another competition, LA Lights, happened in late January. I was distressed to see Ukraine continue to play the fool with grotesque pop music choices for every gymnast regardless of suitability or personality. When fans said 'Ukraine, modernize' they meant training and skill composition not adapting America's Top 40 hits! Not only are they abusing the optional lyric rule by picking the worst parts of terrible music, they neglect to compose versatile choreography that parallel the songs. I feel so sorry for the girls on Team Ukraine; they're lovely but inept at utilizing their graces. Belarus is the team to keep an eye on. Their junior team almost defeated the Russians at Euros, and with Halkina stepping her game up, an AA & team medal seem within reach for her. My only concern about Halkina is that she always chooses to build her difficulty through a connection of risky elements, so she's constantly getting deducted more than safe players. Katsiaryna is an artist, but with so many catches between the knees or feet (while being in various positions) she has more built in deductions coming to her than those who balance/vary their difficulty better. I hope I'm proven wrong, but risk intrinsically looks dirty unless you are on a Yana-type level of handling.  

Russian Championships was a testing ground for the big event happening this weekend. The juniors took it a lot more seriously, hence we saw less mistake riddled performances from them. Moscow won the team event by five points over St. Petersburg, led by stellar girls Lala Kramarenko, Alexander Skubova, and Anastasia Guzenkova. Below is a picture of Lala with her two teammates, Olga and Daria. Congratulations ladies. I hope to see much of you in the future. That's it for now but GP Moscow is beginning so let the beautiful performances and bickering from fans commence!