Day 1 At The European Championships

The 33rd European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships has commenced. Considering it's this one continent that dominates the sport, the implications of its winners and losers is of paramount relevance for World's. The format is as it's always been but there have been some new rules. I'll quickly go over them: in odd numbered years there’s only a team all around final while the unofficial individual all around results serve as a qualification for the top 24 contenders at the next Euros. Qualifications count toward apparatus EF's for both individuals and junior groups. The one change they have this year is that the team score will combine both the junior groups and senior individual results for one massive overall total. 

Eight scores count toward the TF and they can broken up in any way a nation sees fit. So Soldatova and Dina Averina did 3 events each and Arina did two. Comparatively, Belarus used two gymnasts -Halkina and Harnasko- to do four routines each (only three events need to count towards the AA to qualify for next year). Sasha is not the only Russian in AA but she's the only who had two events on Day 1 so she's in the lead with 37.250. She competed ball and hoop on Day 1 and will compete ribbon on Day 2. Dina competed hoop on the first day and will perform with ribbon and clubs on Day 2. Arina, her sister, only had ball on Day 1 and will do clubs on Day 2. All three are working on their strongest events, even thought I don't necessarily enjoy Dina's or Sasha's ribbon and I think ball is Dina's second strongest event after clubs not hoop. But depth never makes anything easy, does it?

The day started off kinda sub-par when Dina's hoop performance only scored a 17.650. She's very capable, if that's the right word, but she's always looking at what she's doing instead of building a connection with the audience, and it has me wondering if there's any difference between her podium training and competition performance. To add to that general critique, today she had a number of incorrect catches and small directional adjustments, plus an inaccurate throw that had her scrambling on the mat to make the catch (which she thankfully did). The biggest deduction that I could see came at 1:20 in the video below; she normally does three rotations with a direct catch coming out of a forward roll to balance but instead caught it with her hand (as shown below).

Her normal vs. her Euros catch. Costly.

If it sounds like I'm dragging Dina, disengage the thought; I could see Soldatova scoring a 14 with this routine because she wouldn't know how to improvise something difficult on the spot and she'd make it super obvious that what you saw was a mistake. Dina thinks as quickly as she moves and that's why she still managed a 9.0 difficulty and qualified to the final, whence she can make everything right. She summed up her Day 1 here.

Sasha had a good day and advanced the team's surge to No. 1. I thought her moves were dynamic, and for once looked delicately done, but she's not getting any lift on her leaps:( This might have something to do with the weight loss regimen she endured after GP Moscow. Her hoop's been causing her problems all year but at least she looks somewhat comfortable with the skills now, even though the routine is still badly made up (Shumilova what are you doing?). My only real complaint is that her handling is getting worse, as evidenced by the static hoop whenever she's not throwing it. While she's doing all sorts of crazy stuff her hoop goes through whole moments of actually becoming a prop -on the floor, in her hand, behind her back, everywhere it's lying dead! And when it is moving she's jerky with her grasps and catches, and it's just not working to combat her reputation as a sloppy gymnast. I mean, we all know apparatus handling is her sore spot so no revelations have been unearthed- but it is deteriorating, and that can't be a good sign for the next three years. She's looking more nervous when she's the most experienced on the team and ought to be leading them. I thought ball was her highlight performance, where I witnessed beautiful body skills and- excepting the always problematic backscale pivot- stability and completion in her rotations. But she dropped the ball...and scored 9.050 in execution. Sasha has built in deductions so she's not a gymnast who should be scoring these numbers with such an egregious mistake. To make it worse, Arina qualified first into ball with the same execution. Tsk tsk judges.

Arina made the biggest impression on fans because she only had one event and blew our minds with it. Truth be told, she's done ball better elsewhere but she was the cleanest of the the three and barely lost any difficulty from her 10+ start value so that qualified her into first for ball ef. At this point, I'm just happy people realize she can be as good as Dina. So anyways, she had a great ball routine and tried to get into character, an attempt I appreciate even if the result falls flat. I really do like this routine, I think it's well constructed, sufficiently uses all the carpet space areas, and is balanced between body skills, DER, and masteries. It's exciting and I feel she can do much more. But than you for removing the backscale pivot.

Our junior group team is better than our senior team lol. They were in complete synchronization for at least 90 percent of the routine, and it can't get higher than that when you're doing their level of difficulty (unless you're Blessed Bulgaria). But I wasn't feeling the music. One, "I will survive" is overplayed. Two, the remixed version they came up with has an overpowering tempo that I guess I'm a snob against in RG. But visually I thought the group looked stunning and showed bright prospects for the future. And with the way our senior team looks , we'll need new blood and the kind of chemistry these girls have to stay at the top of the podium.

A  routine that caught my eye was Alina Harnasko's ball which scored an 18.4, a huge personal best for her and a number rarely reached by any but the Russians. Makes me even more upset when I think this scored lower than Soldatova in execution.

Results for qualification hoop, ball, and groups 10 clubs.