The competition is soon upon us and the team is doing their final preparations before traveling to Bern, which means that it's time to start switching gymnasts in and out of the team in a haphazard fashion. This is seems to always be the way they operate. As I suspected when the team was announced, Maria Paseka won't make it. Like Vika she is experiencing back pain and they don't want to rush her to be ready and risk aggravating it. She'll stay home and keep training for Rio.
You might remember that when the team was officially announced, they put in Seda Tutkhalyan as a traveling alternate. However, around the same time there was another interview with Valentina Rodionenko in which she mentioned Natalia Kapitonova as the alternate. I was pretty skeptical about it since it didn't make much sense, but nothing really makes sense in Russian gymnastics, so now Kapi truly is replacing Beefarm (x).
The team will be:
- Aliya Mustafina
- Angelina Melnikova
- Ksenia Afanasyeva
- Daria Spiridonova
- Natalia Kapitonova
Since I'm all ride or die for Seda, my opinion might be super subjective, but why Kapi?
Paseka's main apparatus was vault. They are losing her amanar for team finals and either a gold or silver at individual finals. Kapi has a FTY, so she'll obviously have to make up for that amanar elsewhere. Hopefully Afan and Aliya are ready to vault.
Kapi's best apparatus is bars, but the thing is, she can't really bring up the team total on bars. I place her equal or a tenth better than Melka. so it's not going to improve their team score.She has a fair chance of medaling on bars, but so do Aliya, Melka and Spiridoz. Yes, they have 4 gymnasts trying to get those two spots in the finals. Spiridoz is a lock for that gold (at least as lock as anything can be in gymnastics), so they have 3 gymnasts fighting for one medal left there. I still believe in Aliya tbh, so I'm not sure what Kapi is going to accomplish here.
Balance beam is where Kapi could score better than Spiridoz. But she rarely does, she's pretty shaky with her execution and rarely cracks 14.
On floor she'll replace Masha alright, but I don't think she'll raise the team score by much. Her floor is relatively simple, but clean so she can get into low 14s.
Line-ups with Kapi:
VT: Melka, Afan, Aliya (-0.9)
UB: Kapi, Aliya, Spiridoz (+-0)
BB: Kapi, Aliya, Melka (+0.1)
FX: Kapi, Melka, Afan (+0.2)
The numbers are a rough estimate on how their score on each apparatus would change from a team with Beefarm. According to the rough calculations, the team final score will be 0.6 less. Not too bad. But let's put Seda in.
Line-ups with Seda:
VT: Seda/Melka/Afan, Aliya (-0.8)
UB: Melka, Aliya, Spiridoz (+-0)
BB: Aliya, Seda, Melka (+0.6)
FX: Seda, Melka, Afan (+-0)
With this team, the score would be maybe 0.2 less, but I wouldn't count out a possibility for a higher floor score from Seda. She can also make vault finals, beam finals and possibly medal on both. The issue of consistency is there, but this year has looked good for her and I think she could make it. On beam I don't trust Kapi any more than Seda. Also, since Seda is in contention for Rio, this would be her last chance to show that she can handle the pressure.
Line-ups with Masha K:
VT: Melka, Afan, Aliya (-0.9)
UB: Melka, Aliya, Spiridoz (+-0)
BB: Aliya, Melka, Masha K. (+0.9)
FX: Masha K., Melka, Afan (+-0)
Masha K. could probably make up the vault score loss with just her amazing beam routine. This would of course again mean that Afan and Aliya have to be ready to vault and Masha would have to stay on the beam. But she has been returning to her old self this year, so I would risk it instead of putting Spiridoz, or perhaps even Kapi on. She could also easily nab the gold at event finals.
So yeah, this is how I feel about putting Kapi in. But these calculations are really rough and there might be some other reason for testing her out, like upgrades or really good performance at the camp.
And this line-up might still chance 100 times, so nothing is sure until we see them marching to that stadium.
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