who have provided excellent coverage of pretty much every meet this year, thank you very much) streamed some of it on Periscope. UEG had a slightly better stream on their Facebook page. The top teams were all in the last session of the day and it looked like Marta's wonderland with at least 3 teams (including Russia and Romania) wearing the same obnoxious shade of pink.
Russia is never the one to put much effort into podium training, but don't worry, bad podium training and qualification promise good results (just remember Glasgow when the qualification went without falls). Aliya was the MVP on beam with 4 falls, round off single back tuck as a dismount, and she even managed to land it crooked and bounce right off the mats to the hard surface of the podium, like Vika in London. Amazing. Spiridoz was surprisingly the one to stay on with Seda and Melka falling too.
Where things got weird was floor. Melka put her hands down on a double pike, Seda was great and Spiridoz did a dance through with layouts. Afan was a no show and it was Aliya, who anchored on floor, with downgraded tumbling, but otherwise okay routine (for a podium training). The style reminded me of her routine last year. I don't know what the fuck was going on with Afan, she was standing on the sidelines with her clothes on. Aliya also managed to take a bad fall on a mustafina-turn (ironically) and seemed to hurt her ankle a bit, but she walked off afterwards without issues. Meanwhile Melka and Seda were trying to get their wolf turns in order.
I didn't get to see much of vault, the camera was focusing on beam and floor, only a bunch of timers and some blurry DTYs from Melka, Aliya and Seda. No falls. Spiridoz vaulted too, still no Afan.
No one did a full bar routine, only parts. Aliya had her inbars back, but battled with her pak (maybe on purpose, maybe not), Melka face-planted a jaeger and Spiridoz just looked sloppy. You'd never guess how brilliant they are on this apparatus based on their training.
Romania looked solid, especially Catalina Ponor. They actually take podium training seriously. The home team also looked good on floor with Giulia Steingruber as their star and Ilaria Kaeslin having a weird mistake with finishing her routine out of bonds (her ending pose).
Valentina Rodionenko announced on R-sport that Aliya is testing her readiness in AA. Seda and Melka will also most likely do AA. I'll update this post when I know more about what's going on with Afan.
Afan will only do vault, a minor injury apparently. That means Aliya will have to do floor, I'm not really happy about this. They really should have taken Kapi or Masha K. as a traveling alternate to avoid a situation like this...
Here are the startlists for tomorrow:
For Russia it's
- BB: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina
- FX: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina
- VT: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Afanaseyva
- UB: Melnikova, Spiridonova, Mustafina
I don't really agree with this but who cares what I think. I'll tell you anyway... I think Melka should anchor balance beam. Aliya will set the right tone at the start and hopefully not fall, Seda is good in the middle (less nerves) and Melka should make a nice finish. They should also let Spiridoz anchor bars, milk that score to the lasts tenths, they are going to need everything they can get because of floor. Yeah, floor... Aliya probably needs all the time she can get to tape herself together, so let her go last. It's going to get scary no matter what.
Melka said in an interview that she prefers going first, as she has less time to get nervous that way, so maybe the lineups were designed with that in mind.
ReplyDeletehoping to god that they hit & stay healthy. PT was serious Antwerp vibes for Aliya so maybe she'll do alright, but I'm expecting her to bomb something this week like she did during quals that year. Just hopefully not during TF!
My teacher used to make me go at first during piano recitals because I was always so nervous and she thought it would help with that. I thought that made it even worse and preferred to stay comfortably in the middle. I guess Melka is not me.
DeleteThis is terrible, but it gives me hope that she fell twice in the qualifications in Antwerp and came home with 3 medals. And remember Euros in the same year when she almost 2-per-countried herself out of the AA finals by falling twice and scoring 11 on beam, but won gold anyway in the finals. The problem in Bern is, that she can't bomb too badly in the quals, since it's 3 up 3 count this time and they can't throw away any scores. I might have to do some kind of sacrifice to the Gymgods to keep everyone alive. Excuse me while I go and see where I can find a goat on such a short notice...