Euros 2016: The Aftermath

I was really exhausted after the European Championships, but now that I've taken some time to relax and rewind, why not have a recap of sorts.

The European Championships was obviously a big success for Russia. They won the most important title, team gold, which is very encouraging considering it's the Olympic year. 4 individual medals is not bad either, especially with the beam gold for Aliya. Russia has been hit hard this year with the doping scandal that just won't go away, so good news like this got a decent amount of media attention. The Russian Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko didn't actually have anything to say about gymnastics itself, but managed to mention the Euros and how the Russians topped the medal standings with everyone passing their drug tests. Congrats team, the most important thing in the competition was that your pee was clear. Well, he did also say that he wanted to congratulate them and would stop by for a visit. I don't know if he dares though, remember when he visited Round Lake and this happened?

I'd be scared. That's what you get for trying to limit the Queen's reign to two Olympics.

There were many interviews, some with the gymnasts, but (unsurprisingly) most with V-Rod. Honestly, it seems like she keeps calling all the publications on a daily basis. Maybe she should just get out of gymnastics and look into public relations. What she lacks in tact she makes up in annoying persistency and lies. Maybe she could be a publicist or an agent?

She mainly praised Mustafina (V-Rod's need to rely on Aliya in every competition still amuses me considering their history) and complained about the uneven bars final and the competition schedule. Apparently Becky's routine was not pretty enough and the judges should have noticed that, Aliya and Spiri were obviously meant to get gold and silver and Spiri definitely made up for that bad routine in qualifications. Aliya was a bit nervous at the start of the competition because of the long break, but then she went to that beam final and performed like a hero. They were not pursuing a top place on bars for Aliya, so third was a good result. And about the upcoming Olympics: the team has some upgrades for the Russian Cup, but not everyone, some gymnasts will instead focus on consistency.

Valentina Rodionenko was also very happy with Angelina Melnikova. She was well prepared and in great shape. She's ready for Rio and should be at her best there. She had a mistake in the beam finals, but she's still young and it was a long competition, 3 beam routines for her. She handles her nerves very well, performs well both nationally and internationally and proved that she's a contender in Rio. She is really strong on every apparatus which is a huge asset to the team and very impressive considering her age. She also has a great coach by her side.

So what about other people... Valentina's husband Andrei Rodionenko had very few comments. And he sounded a bit depressing (being married to Valentina will do that to you).

"If after Rio Mustafina and Afanasieva announce their retirement, that would be a logical step for them to take. Maybe they will want to keep going after Olympics, I can’t rule that out. But there is an objective in gymnastics: if you enter the gym (start training), you shoud be ready to stay for 4 years. In our case - to stay until 2020 Tokyo Olympics. If Kseniya and Aliya decide to keep doing gymnastics, motivated either by positive or negative emotions, they should do so aiming for 2020 Olympics. There is no point in staying for a couple of seasons."

Shut up Andrei, we're trying to avoid thinking about such things. And if there's no other goal than the Olympics, why don't you just stop sending teams to other competitions. Euros have nothing to do with the Olympics or qualifying to it... He managed to sound even more depressing while talking about the juniors.

"After junior competition on Sunday I can say that our potential Tokyo WAG team looks weak. The health of young gymnasts is already a concern. After they go through puberty those problems probably won’t go away.   Weak health makes it hard for girls to  deal with physically demanding training and fast-paced competitions."

"Technique-wise your young gymnasts might look better than the previous generation. But this is because of overall progress of gymnastics as a sport.  Their physical abilities are very limited. This indicates that the younger generation in  Russia has poor health. Kids that enter national team first need to get healthy. If we compare Aliya’s generation with two subsequent ones, the difference is evident."

I'm sad and cynical, but he makes me look optimistic. The saddest thing is that he has a point. Although he shouldn't compare these quads to the 2012 quad. That was so impressive and so deep that there had to be some a lot of luck involved in all of that talent coming to the national team at the same time. But there was also different coaching. So a part of me thinks that this a just a bad excuse for the current coaching staff's failure to bring those talented juniors to senior level, maybe it's not about unhealthy gymnasts and Arkayev and Alekandrov just did a better job. Who knows. It sounds a lot like Romania to be honest.

But back to the European Championships.

Aliya is just like the rest of us and refuses to acknowledge a possibility that she might one day retire:

"I don’t think whether or not to finish my career after Rio. Right now the most important thing for me is what will be before the Olympics."

Don't think about it Aliya, that's how we survive too. Afan was the hero of the day and saved us from A-Rod's cynicism with this comment:

"Recently I told my coach, my mother, my boyfriend, that I will probably take a break after Rio, and then return for the next Games. They told me that I’m crazy (laughs)." 

Crazy? Nah. The next Chuso? Hopefully.

Afan actually gave a really good interview after the competition. She said that competing just vault at the team competition was really bothering her because she wanted to help the team more. Winning a medal on vault made her feel a little bit better about it. She also stated that she was considering an amanar, but since it would have only given her a silver medal and made her injury worse, she decided not to risk it. Gymnastics and injuries are unfortunately very unpredictable, but her mind is set on the Olympics and she really wants to go. Every win is important and she was very emotional after the team competition. She likes Melka a lot, both as a gymnast and a person. When asked about Seda, she said that not everyone is born ready and maybe she's still too young. It took Afan herself a few years to start hitting her routines at competitions, little by little. Maybe it will be the same for Seda.

I wish Afan, I wish.

Aliya was happy too and said that every medal is special. Even though they did well, they still have much to improve before the Olympics. She had to do floor for the team, but was not ready yet. And they actually filed an inquiry about her beam during team final (they though the D-score was missing 0.2) but it was declined. She said she's used to it. Oh, Aliya. She also ended an interview about her gold on beam with "and now back to work". Hold on to your medals people.

Elena Eremina said that the AA was a challenge. She made mistakes on vault and bars and after that there was a lot of ground to cover. It was psychologically very difficult, but she got herself together by the end and gave her best performance on floor and won gold and she was very pleased about that.

Someone actually finally asked the head coach Evgeny Grebenking to give some comments. I was super happy until I noticed that he actually had nothing interesting to say. He just said that the girls did well, their routines were well received by the judges and kept thanking everyone in the team over and over again. The Rods really seem to keep him in check. He was a bit disappointed about floor though. But so were the Rodionenkos. They keep being surprised about the low scores on floor in every competition, you'd think they would have caught on by now. When are they going to stop blaming the judges and understand that it's their routines that get low scores? It doesn't matter if you are pretty if you have easy tumbling, look like you don't care and keep falling out of your turns...

While the team administration and Vitaly Mutko were close to ecstatic about the results (did I say the team passed the doping tests?),  not everyone was impressed, notably Elena Vaytsehovskaya from Sport Express. She thought that Aliya was very underwhelming both on bars and beam, but still names her as the only one with legitimate Olympic chances (Afan is injured, Seda is a headcase and Vika still hasn't recovered from her many, many injuries). She also points out that Aliya was in the same situation 4 years ago, only with a different coach. And then she throws some shade at Valentina by saying that

"At the time Valentina Rodionenko actually said that the new star Anastasia Grishina would make a splash and lead the team at the Olympics. I think we all know what followed." 

Savage.

Vaytsehovskaya praised Dasha's performance, but thought that having only one event, even if that event is great, is not enough for the team at the Olympics. She also thought that Melka was "more than adequate", even though she didn't get any individual medals. Vaitsehovskaya is just hesitant about singing her praises since like most of the gymternet, she thinks that the Russians historically have a major problem in turning their junior talent into successful seniors. Then she drops the ultimate truth bomb:

"Team victory over the British girls means nothing: the main contenders for team medals are outside of Europe and that says it all." 

Ouch. I was screaming to the world how happy I was about Team Russia's success in these championships a few weeks earlier. She's such a party pooper.

So, in retrospect, I'm still happy about the result. And whatever Vaytsehovskaya says, beating the Brits is still an achievement, just think about last year. However, she's right in that their main rivals are China and USA and at the moment they are ahead of Russia at their Olympic preparations. Team China has been working like crazy and if they get their upgrades anywhere near consistent, Russia can't do much to challenge them. Vika had Russia's biggest UB routine and now it's gone. Japan is also looking amazing at the moment and could be a surprise contender if they hit. I just have little faith that they will. And even though the Brits would have still gotten silver even with hit routines at the Europeans, they are still a major threat at the Olympics. And Brazil has the home audience and Russia's former secret weapon, Aleksandrov.

Right now I think that USA will win gold. China might surpass them in difficulty if they use their upgrades, but USA just hits, hits and hits. They haven't made major (or even minor) mistakes in team final in ages. China is always hit and miss, plus they have that "if one falls we all must fall" mentality that Russia fell for in Glasgow. So China will probably be left with silver. It's going to be a tough race for the bronze medal and Russia's biggest scorers are also their oldest and most injury prone. I'm still terrified but feel a bit better after seeing Melka, Aliya and Spiridoz hitting their routines in Bern. There's hope.

I didn't really find comments from Dasha, Seda or Melka. Dasha is a World Champion who won a medal and Melka was the new star so that was a bit weird. But Aliya and Afan are icons, let them have their moment and the young ones will eventually have theirs.
-----
Sorry for not linking every interview, I had like a zillion pages open and got tired. Most of the articles I referenced were from R-sport, you should be able to find them easily.