My Bad Stats about the Russian Olympic Team

Now that the Russian Cup is over, we have a slightly better picture of the Olympic Team. We know who they are, we know their routines and how well they can perform them. Unfortunately, we also know how badly they can do occasionally. As of now, the team is Aliya Mustafina, Angelina Melnikova, Maria Paseka, Daria Spiridonova and Seda Tutkhalyan. The alternates are Natalia Kapitonova, Ksenia Afanasyeva and Lilia Akhaimova.

Let me just be happy for a few seconds about my Princess Tut making the team! She made the team! I still don't know why I like her so much, but I do. And I'm so happy!

Thank you for those few seconds, now we can move on. I made these super fancy tables with some scores from this team. I tried to work out something nicer with Photoshop, but soon gave up and returned to the good old Word. Of course I also forgot the red underlining ruining those precious Russian names, sorry for that.

Difficulty Scores of Team Russia

Bold scores are meant for team final, so the line-ups are:

• VT: (Tutkhalyan), Melnikova, Mustafina, Paseka
• UB: (Tutkhalyan), Melnikova, Mustafina, Spiridonova
• BB: (Spiridonova), Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina
• FX: Melnikova, Tutkhalyan, Mustafina

Neither Masha nor Dasha have shown a floor routine this year, so we'll see how that works out. I think they will either scratch, or Dasha will do her routine, but right now all I have are question marks. I also think that Aliya's final floor routine will start a tenth or two higher.

As you can see, their best apparatus is uneven bars, and worst floor. Vault has a lower start value, but it scores higher and not many teams have 4 DTYs and an Amanar, so I count floor weaker. They are also strong on balance beam, but the difficulty scores there drop easily. 

Average Scores of Team Russia

These are the average scores of each individual gymnast from this year. I calculated them by taking out the lowest and highest score of each gymnast in every apparatus and then averaging the rest. The number in the parenthesis is the amount of scores they had this year. You can see for example that Aliya and Masha haven't competed that much, so their averages aren't really reliable at all. The vault averages are calculated with team final in mind, so the averages are from first vaults only (Amanar for Masha and DTY for Seda).

Please notice that the AA scores aren't the average scores counted together. They are official AA scores averaged. If Melka peaks at the right time, she could definitely contend for AA medal.

The Highest Scores of Team Russia

I just had to add this, because why not pretend that the world is all sunshine and rainbows and Russia has actual unicorns doing floor routines for them.

I'm kind of happy that the vault and uneven bars average and highest scores are reasonably close together. That means the girls are very consistent, no big mistakes. Better to not say anything about beam and floor :D

The "D" and "I" in the parenthesis means domestic and international competition, respectively. As you can see, the domestic scoring can get a little crazy. Except for Aliya. Aliya gets her best scores in big competitions, when it counts. Aliya also hasn't had a competitive floor routine all year, so I'm sure that score will rise.

Comparisons to Actual Scores

So, let's compare Russia vs. Russia

• World Championships TF 2014: 171.462
• World Championships TF 2015: 171.964
• European Championships TF 2016: 175.212
• TF with my "average scores": 175.656
• TF with my "highest scores": 182.058

This looks pretty weird, doesn't it? Because according to this, it's enough for Russia to just be mediocre to be better than they were last year, or the year before that. Well, last year they had four falls so maybe I can buy beating that with mediocrity. So if they don't implode, they should be fine. Even if/when Seda falls. Sounds good enough, right? Just perform how you have all year long and everything should work out fine.

What about the opponents? Let's see last year because 2014 is long gone. Romania was 4th back then, less than a point behind Russia. That's how long ago 2014 was.

Russia vs. China vs. USA vs. GB

• USA in 2015: 181.338
• CHINA in 2015: 176.164
• GB in 2015: 172.380

So if Russia had their very best day, they could possibly take down USA. IF USA had mistakes, like they did last year. They counted two 14s and one 13, I highly doubt that 13 will happen at the Olympics. I highly doubt that even many 14s will happen, unless the scoring is extra strict. 

As for China, Russia also needs to have a very good day to get near them. They had to count one 13 and a few less than preferable scores on floor, something I'm sure they will try to fix this year. They have also improved their D-scores a lot from last year, so the silver is out of reach for Russia, if China hits. Unless of course they are perfect and have their unicorns ready for that floor rotation. There is always a chance of total group meltdown with China, and that would surely give Russia a silver, but I'd rather not wish that on anyone. I'd rather see Russia take silver in a hit-hit situation. But they'd really have to hit. In a big way.

What we're aiming for here, is bronze, I think. Anything more is extra, really nice extra though. And to get bronze, Russia needs to have a good performance without major mistakes. Last year GB had one low 13 on bars and two high 13s on beam. I don't think they're going to do that anymore, because GB qualified with 173.363 to European finals in a 3-up-3-count situation. So Russia can definitely take GB, but it's going to be a fight.

I'm not trying to sound pessimistic, because everything is possible in gymnastics, but I'm trying to focus on what's probable. Aaaaand my pessimistic nature always seems to get the best of me.

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Disclaimer: I'm not a statistician. I suck. Not only in statistics, but in everything, life in general. So don't take this seriously. I also calculated the medians in addition to the averages, but I forgot to put them in. That's how bad I am.