But this post is about the 2nd thought you should be having after thinking about the Olympics: we have brand new seniors! Another batch of pretty Russian babies is all grown up, the 2000 model to be specific. I'm going to introduce you to (or rather remind you of) the most important ones, Angelina Melnikova, Daria Skrypnik, Natalia Kapitonova and Ekaterina Sokova.
Part 1 will focus on Angelina Melnikova and Daria Skrypnik.
Angelina Melnikova (Ангелина Мельникова)
Angelina (also known as Gelya and Melka) is the most important one of these new additions to the senior team. She's the most consistent of them and also a very balanced all around gymnast, something Russia has been lacking this quadrennium. She's both beautiful to watch, pretty unnerved at competitions and has relatively high difficulty across all 4 events and even better, she spent 2015 as a junior outscoring her senior team mates. She has improved steadily every year and the team clearly has payed attention to her abilities and potential.Melka is originally from Voronezh (grew up in the same gym as Viktoria Komova), and her personal coach is Sergei Denisevich. Komova's personal coach, GennadyYelfimov, has been assisting with her training.
Competitive history: She has a lot of international experience and the titles to match it. Junior European Champion on team, AA and balance beam, silver medalist on uneven bars. She's Russian national champion from 2014, and unofficially won the AA at Russian Cup 2015 competing against seniors.
Strengths: All around. She consistently scores over 57 in international competitions and has potential for more. Her best apparatus are beam and bars, with difficulty of 6.1 on beam and 6.5 on bars, with scores usually around 15 on bars and 14 on beam (much room for improvement there). She has great execution with beautiful leaps on beam and typical Russian stalder work on bars. She's also charming on floor, like most of the Russian juniors. Hopefully she can maintain that on a senior level.
Weaknesses: No standout event. While her bars are excellent, they don't stand out among the Russian team, who have many gymnasts with equal or better ability on this apparatus. She won't be much help for the team on floor, she also needs harder tumbling and more difficulty (it was 5.6 last year, although she did show a 6.1 routine at the Voronin Cup) and she has some cleaning up to do for all of her routines (like tumbling on floor and handstands on bars). Her beam is beautiful when she hits and she rarely has falls, but loses points on little mistakes. She's had form problems on vault, but has improved a lot there.
Here are some of her routines from this year:
VT:
UB:
BB:
FX:
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Daria Skrypnik (Дарья Скрыпник):
Like Angelina, Dasha has been one of Russia's go-to junior competitors for years. She has plenty of international experience and titles under her belt. She has had some success as an all arounder, but like her senior counterpart Daria Spiridonova, Skrypnik is known for her beautiful and difficult uneven bars work and lacks consistency on other events. She is a beautiful and interesting gymnast with the body type and leotard selections fit for a rhythmic gymnast.
Dasha is from Krasnodar and coached by Marina Pletinetskaya.
Competitive history: She is a Junior European Champion on uneven bars and won gold in the same team as Melka in 2014. She has several medals on uneven bars from different competitions, but she also bested Melka in Russian nationals 2015 winning the junior AA title. She had an amazing competition at the European Youth Olympic Festival in 2015, where she won a medal on every event, 3 of those were golds in team, AA and uneven bars.
Strengths: Uneven bars. She has a gorgeous routine with 6.6 D-score with great execution, scoring in mid 15s. She is also beautiful to watch on other events, like on balance beam where she has some original (attempted) connections and a beautiful 2.5 dismount. On floor she has beautiful turns and shows some musicality.
Weaknesses: Although she has potential in the AA (her score from nationals is 58.333!), she struggles with consistency (usually scores around 55). Her difficulty is relatively low (for a top level senior) everywhere except uneven bars and lately she has also had difficulties on bars which should be her best event. She has a DTY on vault, but it's inconsistent.
Here are some of her routines from this year:
VT:
UB:
BB:
FX:
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Part 2 will be up later and it will focus on Natalia Kapitonova and Ekaterina Sokova.
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