Not that I've established The Queen's superiority in looking good, whatever the situation, let's move onto the actual competition.
Team Russia started their competition on balance beam and Seda did what I was afraid she'd do, take herself out of the Olympics. She looked a bit careful going into her layout full instead of going all out and it backfired. She still scored 13.833 which is just salt to the wounds. Without the fall, Russia would have taken GB easily, and Seda would have qualified first to the balance beam finals with a big lead.
Melka, who was first up, started with the best wolf turn she's ever done, but had a major balance check after her layout, and a few minor wobbles. She looked pissed after her routine and I liked that, because it wasn't even a bad routine. She is usually very calm, but this time showed that she's obviously very ambitious and I appreciate the fire. She knew she could do better, and next time she will. She has a calm and understated power in her high jumps and leaps, and the dismount. I love it. Aliya went last and had a great routine, very steady, but put her hands down on her second front aerial. Her questionable aerial series didn't matter to the judges, they gave her the benefit of the doubt, credited her with FHS stepout and she got the highest score of the competition qualifying first into balance beam finals. Her dismount is not yet quite what is used to be, but whatever. All hail the Queen!
Coming into the competition, floor was a major problem problem piece for the Russians and remained so. Melka and Seda both made several minor mistakes (turns for Seda, turns and bad landing for Melka) that came back to haunt them in both their D and E scores. Aliya looked good and gave a great performance, all struggles from podium training forgotten, but had a low D-score of 5.3 with her usual twisting problems and the rotation ended with embarrassing scores for everyone, no floor finals and not even a single score breaking 14. Even the juniors all scored better than that.
Melka and Seda had their usual vaults and scores, but Seda took herself out of the vault finals with her second vault, bouncing back and taking several steps on the landing. Afan saved the day with the best score for her DTY and made vault finals, but I still won't forgive her for leaving the team hanging on the floor. It's not her fault she's injured, but let me have my irrational grudge, okay!?! The team administration should have brought a traveling alternate like Kapi or Masha K. if there was any question of Afan being able to compete.
Bars was where this team was supposed to shine with 3 world class bar workers. Taking the lead from GB should have been easy for them. Extremely easy with the generous scoring of the day on bars (and everywhere else). Melka and Aliya did their job, qualified to the finals with Aliya having the top score of the competition, 15.166. Melka scored a respectable 14.866, but Spridoz surprised everyone with an underwhelming performance. She's currently the best bar worker on the team (I give the title to Vika if she manages to get moderately consistent) and should have scored 15.3+ easily. She is the World Champion, was brought to the competition only to compete bars, give the team a huge score in team competition and take the gold in individual. But she downgraded her routine, had an uncharacteristic form break, scored only 14.766 and got 2-per-countried out of the finals by Aliya and Melka. What the hell happened? I hope Dasha goes the to team final with a thirst of blood and vengeance. She is so much better than this and she needs to show that and blow everyone's minds.
Team Russia qualified to the team final .102 behind GB. So winning is very doable. I hope they are ready to fight, no mistakes allowed in the finals. And remember that good quals usually mean bad team final for Russia. Bad quals, good final. You can do it girls!
Switzerland, led by Giulia Steingruber had an amazing showing and qualified 3rd even with several falls on balance beam. Romania was 4th with Germany less than a hundredth behind them.
The competition doesn't actually have an all around, but Melka would have qualified first with 57.732.
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LINKS:
Full results are HERE.
Pictures of the qualification HERE.
High quality videos of the routines HERE.
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Good luck to Lena and Nastia! They are competing in the all around today at 7pm Bern time.
It's kind of weird because while my initial impression of quals was bad (lolz@floor), Russia's score is over a point better than either of the last two Russian worlds teams managed in TF.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think the judging was that far off world standards for the most part either...there's a handful of individual ??? e-scores (Steingruber UB, Ponor BB & maybe FX as well, Aliya FX, FRAGS FX), but for the most part I thought it looked comparable. I mean on bars only 3 girls even broke 8.5 E! (Mustafina, Downie, & a swiss girl w/ a 5.1 D score - side note, Swiss are definitely getting some home score boost but I don't care because I'd love for them to snatch bronze & Giulia's VT/FX are swoon-worthy)! And I thought the non-Aliya Russians got slaughtered on floor a bit undeservingly, I was literally too nervous to watch beam or floor live so I was expecting those routines to be worse than they were after seeing the scores.
Oh look, I wrote you an essay and I'm not even done yet. Sorry lol. I think GB will take this one, but I also think they have their shit together way more than Russia does at this point, much like in 2014. Both teams can be a good bit better though.
And as for Seda...I actually don't think this hurt her Olympics chances per se, because I didn't think she had any chance to begin with at being more than an alternate unless Maria or Ksenia aren't available. She is the best vaulter of the younger girls besides Melka, & that alone keeps her relevant as long as she's not habitually crashing vaults. I still maintain she'll end up on the team if one of those two aren't healthy enough to go - they would have been screwed without her in Bern. So it's a tragedy she didn't hit & shut up the haters, but I don't think it actually changed her Olympic chances since those have never really been in her own hands this year.
Sorry for the essay. I have many many feelings. Why did I ever think becoming a Russian gymfan was a good idea?
OMG don't remind me of Frags' and Giulia's E-scores! But I agree with you about the Swiss, let them take bronze. And I love Ilaria, I'd give her a bronze on BB too, she's so pretty to watch there.
DeleteAnd yeah, GB and Romania (the old Romania, sigh) are pretty much always much more ready at team Euros than Russia. And I'm not exactly too surprised that Russia topped their Glasgow score (1 fall against 4), but what was weird was that the 2015 score was higher than 2014 score (I think they fell twice maybe?). Progress.
I'll give Seda a chance to hit in team final, that's what's most important, but I'm afraid that her Rio chances are significantly diminished. I have a hard time believing that Aliya/Vika/Afan/Masha are all going to be healthy enough for Rio, so I think there's going to be room for more youngsters than Melka. The problem is, that the team decisions aren't always the most rational (like taking injured Afan and one-event Spiridoz to Bern and then downgrading Spiridoz' routine), if you're on Valentina's shit list, it doesn't matter that you have a DTY. And if Kapi gets a DTY, Seda is screwed. The Rods like Kapi much better.
Anyway, I hope that Melka and Seda have now shaken off their nerves and score a bit better on floor. Aliya usually tends to get better scores on floor as the competition progresses, so I'm hoping for a less embarrassing rotation. Beam is always a toss-up, but I'd bet for a much better team score on bars and about the same on vault. GB has a knack for getting their "groove" on and if that happens, it's going to be very difficult for the ever-erratic Russia to top them. So I agree that GB has a slight edge.