Russian Cup 2018: All Around Final

I know I'm bad, trust me, but I wasn't going to miss the Russian Cup. So even though I'm a bit late, I'm here with a recap of the all around.

The Russian Cup took place in Chelyabinsk this year, and the arena actually looked like an ice rink based on its shape.That reminded me of this dream I once had. I'm happy to say that the competition didn't turn out like in my dream. Not that I would have been surprised if it did, this is the Russian Cup.

The Russian team has been riddled with injuries as usual, and the most notable missing gymnast today was Aliya Mustafina. She's had problems with her knee ever since Nationals. Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka have both returned to training after their back injuries, but are not yet fit to compete, and probably won't be for awhile. Irina Alexeeva, who just made her return to Russia and has been licensed to compete internationally by FIG, is out with an ankle injury.

The scores from the qualifying competition and team final carried over and coming into the final, heavily taped Angelina Melnikova was less than a tenth ahead of Anastasia Ilyankova for the gold medal. Angelina Simakova was comfortably third only a point behind and I would have actually been very happy with this podium. Viktoria Komova came to the all around in fourth place and the always surprising Tatiana Nabieva was fifth. The last gymnast in the top group was another veteran, Daria Elizarova, after Lilia Akhaimova pulled out of the final due to some nagging injuries.

First Rotation:

We began the competition the best way possible, with Nabs. She did a powerful DTY with a very Nabsey take-off, better than any vault the actual national team produced today. She really was a force to be reckoned with in her youth (actually, she's still a force to be reckoned with), I'm forever sad that her senior career didn't do her justice. After her vault she casually took her bag (yes, she had an actual handbag in a competition) and walked away. Amazing.

And speaking of people with an underwhelming senior career, Kapi was first up on bars. Her heavily downgraded routine had plenty of small mistakes and a double tuck dismount. It's crazy to think that last year she had one of the best bars routines in the world. Vika managed to crank out a DTY, but it was aggressively piked in order to get it barely around. She also looked half dead after just vaulting, but she was still smiling. I love her smile. And I love her original round off. I always miss it when she's gone.

Polina Fedorova on bars looked actually pretty decent after Kapi, which says more about the current state of Kapi than Polina. Melka was not quite herself and did a less than stellar DTY. It almost had a flare after the second twist and she down right refused to pike the landing so she almost ended up on her knees. Maybe don't try to be so fancy the next time and go for a safe landing girl. I'm worried about those knees. Trykina meanwhile had a meltdown on bars and Ksenia Artemova on beam.

Zubs had her usual struggles on bars but fought through the "are-we-sure-she-is-Russian" ugliness and ended with an ugly but still impressive full twisting double layout. I hoped that Viktoria Gorbatova would cleanse my eyes afterwards and she nearly did at first, but ended up having a bunch of small form errors. Spiridoz had a really weird fall on beam on a needle (I'm not sure what to call the skill), probably a concentration error. And after all of this non-important coverage we didn't see Sima or Ilya vault. Sima didn't seem to warm up a Rudi anyway, and I'm sure they would have been told to show it if she did a vault like that.

Melka was a bit ahead of Ilya after the first rotation, but the real news was that Nabs was third, those three would have made the weirdest podium. Two relative newbies with sweet personalities and very stereotypical current Russian gymnastics and Nabs with her Aleksandrov-era awesomeness and bad-ass personality.

Second Rotation:

Sima began the second rotation with her usual clean bars (except for those ankles), but I'm still very underwhelmed by her on this apparatus. Vika was next up ready to show her what Russian bars is supposed to look like and did just that. It wasn't her best routine by any means and her inbars still aren't back, but even okay Vika means beautiful bar work.

How to look in the middle of a Shaposhnikova 1/2

I surprised myself by not being worried about Melka on bars. What a bad memory I have. Or maybe I have just chosen to aggressively forget a whole era of Melka's gymnastics. She had also chosen to forget and performed an absolutely beautiful and confident routine. I love her inbars. It feels like it's time to upgrade though, she's had this routine since forever and it looked a bit too easy and effortless. But bad knees means good bars, Queen Aliya showed us that.

I hoped that Ilya would continue the excellence on bars with her new routine, but after two beautiful and sky high releases she yet again failed on the Ezhova. The rest of her routine was great as usual, but Nabs still had to have a stern talk with her afterwards. Elizarova's solid vault was followed by a solid bars routine. I'm really starting to appreciate her. Nabs had some struggles and general Nabsyness here and there, but it was a hit routine and she blew some kisses and took her bag and moved on to beam without greeting the beam judges. Elizarova didn't do the line-up either, I guess the veterans can do what they want.

Usually we make it to third or fourth rotation before the cameras stop pretending that there are gymnasts outside of group one competing, but they were fast this time. So sorry Zubs and Spiridoz.

Third Rotation:

Vika was first up on beam and started out looking beautiful and confident. Her stride broke after a wobble on a side somi and she fell on a split jump half. Yelfimov was not happy. On a positive note, her dismount was actually nice, definitely not dangerous anymore. Melka also struggled on her side somi, but the rest of her beam routine looked like pretty much a walk in the park Round Lake woods for her. It just looked easy, like she wasn't even really trying. A weird combination, but it resulted in a nice and solid routine with no flare. It was also not as beautiful as she sometimes is, I think it was because of some soft knees. Her coach was even less happy than Yelfimov though, and her score was low, below 13. Ilya fell on her split full which was unfortunate, because the rest of her routine was pretty good for her and she nearly stuck her dismount. She continued the series of wobbles on side somis though.

Elizarova was definitely not solid this time and fell and wobbled. Although her side somi was actually fine. Nabs looked unsure and careful throughout, and fell on a layout. Maybe Melka could have a stern talk with her this time. Wait... Something about Melka and a layouts on beam just rose from my intentionally forgetful memory. Sima looked really good until she wobbled and touched the beam on a side aerial and then actually fell after her new (?) double stag.

Fourth Rotation:

Melka very wisely downgraded her floor routine (her first pass was a double layout and the third a simple layout full). The routine was nowhere near her best execution-wise, but she made it through the all around alive and that's all we needed from her at this point. Ilya had a brand new routine with beautiful music and okayish choreography. They could have done a lot more with it in my opinion. Her dismount was really low and she actually landed out of bounds on a cowboyed combination double tuck pass.

Elizarova looked really messy with her second grade floor routine that reminded me of Russian floor in 2015 for some reason. Nabs' landings were all over the place, but she looked to be actually trying, which is something we haven't seen from her on floor in years.

Sima was solid and either her jumps and leaps are getting better, or she was always good and I just haven't noticed before. But I still don't know how to feel about this routine. She looked really unhappy afterwards next to a smiling Melka, I guess she was hoping for a medal. Like Nabs, Vika was trying this time too, but her stamina wasn't enough and she sat down her last pass. She's a great dancer, but I wish they'd stick to a style instead of splitting her routine up in half. I'm sure that by now you all know of my opposition of floor music with identity crisis.

By the way, I really loved the floor entrances today, I'm glad they're back.

Melka of course won with a very comfortable lead of three points. Because of her good qualifying score, Ilya managed to get silver despite having a bad day. I'm so happy to see her doing all round this year. Vika beat Sima and took the bronze medal.

1. Angelina Melnikova 2. Anastasia Ilyankova 3. Viktoria Komova

The competition today wasn't a total disaster, but the pool of gymnasts Russia has is getting thin and the ones remaining are nearly as injured as the ones already out. Melka has trouble with her knees, Ilya has near permanent problems with her back, Vika has a broken toe and catches every illness that comes near her and Lilia tore some ankle ligaments last spring and obviously is still not fully back. Not a good situation to have with European Championship's coming in just a month. To end this post on a weird note, it seems like Nabs is getting really serious about coming back, which could help during Worlds, as ridiculous as it seems. I have a feeling that we're going to lose more gymnasts by then and she came through in 2014 too when Russia needed her.
-----
The writing on this post was all over the place, I know, forgive me, please.
-----
Links:
You can find the entire competition HERE.
More pictures HERE.
The full results are HERE.
Vera Kiryashova (the coach of Eremina and Nabs) commentated the competition and Luba Baladzhaeva tweeted some of her interesting commentary, read a recap HERE. There's lots of inside information about the gymnasts and their training.