From Russia to Rio: Floor Exercise

4th and final installment of this series, unless I suddenly get super inspired and do a separate one just for individual AA.

FLOOR EXERCISE:

Floor is where Russia loses most against their main rivals. They are lacking in difficulty and creativity (and conditioning) and most of the team struggles to break 14. It's been like this the entire quad and they've done little to fix it, while other teams have made the gap even larger year by year. We can only hope for better results next quad, but if the team administration doesn't change (they currently focus on complaining instead of working), I don't see any major improvements coming. It's starting to look like the situation with Romania and I really don't want Russia to end up like that next quad.

Because this is floor, I'm going to include some subjective (even more than usual) evaluation of the "artistry" of the routines. With difficulty I'm going to count attempted difficulty and mention possible risky elements (mainly difficult turn combinations) that could easily end up lowering it.

DV: 6+

• Angelina Melnikova: Difficulty of 6.4, one very difficult turn combo included. She's pretty consistent and has cleaned up her formerly very messy execution a lot this year, I was really impressed by that. She's very precise and expressive with her dance and performance (reminds me a bit of junior Vika, same song too), but her music and choreography are very juniorish to me. I had hoped for a new and more mature routine this year but no such luck. She gets mid-14s for a hit routine.
• Aliya Mustafina: Difficulty of 6.2, risky turns, but she usually has 100 backups... We haven't seen her routine for this year, but this is the difficulty of her 2014 and 2015 routines (although both had different compositions) and I'd expect her to do her best to get it up there for the Olympics. We all know about her twisting form, but her execution is good otherwise. She has decent dance, a lot of that Russian "arm-waiving" choreography, but she makes up for it with her amazing presence. The judges seem to usually like her style and score her well. She's consistent, but her D-score might drop a few tenths if she doesn't make her turns (E-valued Mustafina and Gomez mainly). I've loved 3 of her 4 routines this quad and hope that the 5th one is great. She should score mid to high 14s.
• Ksenia Afanasyeva: Difficulty of 6.1. She wasn't at her best during Russian Nationals (ankle problems), but usually she's consistent, has great execution, great routines with original and cheeky dance, she has great presence and her ability to give an entertaining performance is something out of the past Russian glory. That is, when she feels like it. When she doesn't, her seemingly complete lack of effort is equally entertaining. But come Olympic final and I'm sure she will put out her best performance. She's still the best scorer in Russia with many high 14s.
• Maria Kharenkova: Difficulty of 6.0. She has clean tumbling except for a scary triple twist and occasionally some other questionable landings. I actually really appreciate the fact that they've build up her difficulty with combination tumbling, she has no big skills, but good difficulty considering that. She has decent dance, nothing terribly special, but high jumps and leaps and a lively performance, she's charming to watch. She's a bit inconsistent though. She usually scores around 14.
• Seda Tutkhalyan: Difficulty of 6.0, a few questionable turn combos included. I really like her routine this year, it has expressive and energetic dance (a rarity in Russia) that suits her style and I think she performs it really well and has nice presence, although her performance (mainly her seriousness that many consider lack of expression) seems to be debatable among gymfans. She's consistent and has nice execution on her elements, but struggles with wild landings and out-of-control rebounds that often end up out of bounds. This takes a toll on her scores and she usually gets high 13s.
• Anastasia Dmitrieva: Difficulty of 6.0 with underrotated triple twist and two questionable turns. She has been upgrading steadily and presented upgrades at nationals too, but her execution has really gone downhill, as has her performance quality. She was such a performer when she was a junior, just amazing to watch. Unfortunately the magic seems to be gone with the arrival of the expectations of senior level. She scores low to mid 13s.

DV: 6-

• Viktoria Komova: She had difficulty score of 5.9 last year. Her execution can be amazing, but once things start to go wrong, they keep going wrong, mainly in the form of sloppy landings. I can't say much about consistency since she hasn't performed floor regularly in ages. Her main consistency problem during her senior years in 2011-2012 wasn't falls, but that occasional sloppiness I already mentioned. She's absolutely beautiful dancer and performer when she tries, but it tends to be "hot and cold" with her there too. She should get into 14 for a decent routine, higher if she's "on".
• Evgenia Shelgunova: Difficulty of 5.9. She inconsistent and super messy, but a surprisingly lovely performer. She has her own style, moves well instead of just waiving her arms and actually looks alive out there, performing and enjoying what she does. Her domestic scores are off the charts considering the mess that her tumbling is, but internationally she gets high 13s for a hit routine.
• Natalia Kapitonova: Difficulty of 5.8. She's beautiful and elegant with super clean tumbling and gorgeous turns, a lot of potential for greatness. But I just find her a lifeless performer. Even when her music pics up, she still just walks around and has no presence. I might be a problem with her choreography, so hopefully she'll get a different routine that takes advantage of her beauty without being boring. Her great execution gives her a scoring advantage and she gets good scores considering her low difficulty, so she gets often above 14.
• Daria Skrypnik: Difficulty of 5.6. She lacks stamina and has messy landings everywhere, her jumps and leaps get heavily deducted too. Her performance can be okay when she's not looking tired as hell, but most of the time she is. She's usually in the mid 13s.
• Maria Paseka: Difficulty of 5.4. She's pretty clean, her tumbling is mainly twisting, but her form is relatively good, only minor leg separation. Unfortunately she has a terrible wolf turn that she never gets around without stumbling. Her dance and performance are decent, she's consistent and she looks like she makes an effort and likes performing, at lest when it counts. She scores mid to high 13s.
• Daria Spiridonova: Difficulty of 5.2. She has beautiful leaps, but she's inconsistent and her tumbling in messy. Internationally she keeps scoring 12s.

Possible upgrades:

• Viktoria Komova: She could probably get her old dance skills, like double L and jumps after tumbling back.
• Aliya Mustafina: Who knows what kind of surprise turn combinations she has in her repertoire. Hopefully we'll also get her double arabian back, maybe even the whip+whip+double arabian+stag combination, if she's in shape.
• Seda Tutkhalyan: I wouldn't be terribly surprised if she upgraded her whip+whip+double pike back to whip+whip+piked full in. She had that before changing to double layout and it looked really nice. Upgrading her 3/2+1/1 to 5/2+1/1 would probably be too much to ask?
• Natalia Kapitonova: She has a mustafina-turn that occasionally makes an appearance. Her tumbling could also get some upgrades, it seems easy enough for her.
• Daria Skrypnik: She has also showed a mustafina.

Highest scoring TF lineup without any upgrades: Melnikova, Mustafina, Afanasyeva