So, to sum up:
- Queen Aliya is a BAMF
- She's the Queen of Russian gymnastics
- And the Queen of elevator selfies
- She also the Queen of handstands
- Let's face it, she's the Queen of everything
- She has too many nicknames to list, so you can just call her the Queen
- She tore her ACL in 2011, but came back in 2012 and won the most medals out of any gymnast in London, she's the reigning Olympic Champion on the uneven bars
- She also established herself as the Queen of tie-breaks, #don't tie with Aliya
- And she had eye-makeup that inspired 1000 YouTube tutorials
- Her uneven bars routine in 2012 was so cool that everybody is still doing it
- She has a Worlds medal on every apparatus, 11 all together
- Once she became the World Champion on her worst apparatus, just to mix things up
- She re-invents herself faster than Madonna, whenever an injury prevents her from doing something, she quickly has a new thing she's the best at
- She kept Russian gymnastics relevant for years all by herself
- She performs best under pressure, when she knows she has to fight and she will steal your medals when you least expect it
- She has a bad knee, bad ankle, bad back, bad shoulder and bad wrist, but she will still steal your medals
- She has more elegance in her fingertips than you anywhere
- Even her mistakes look elegant
- You know what, she doesn't make mistakes, only choreography changes
- She has two and a half skills named after her in the Code of Points
- She can kill you with just her stare, Beware the Stare!
Aliya's best event is all around. She's the 2010 all around World Champion , 2012 Olympic all around bronze medalist and 2013 all around Worlds bronze medalist. Her best apparatus changes regularly, because she likes to mix things up. In 2010, it was vault. In 2011, it was physiotherapy (she was injured). In 2012, it was bars. In 2013 and 2014, it was competing out of a hospital bed. In 2015, it was not competing out of a hospital bed. In 2016, it's most likely beam. We're still missing floor, I'm sure it's coming.
Her gymnastics is reminiscent of the old Russian style. She's powerful, but graceful and has had enough dance training to know how have proper body alignment on every apparatus. She's very precise and has a certain finesse in her technique and movement that's disappearing from gymnastics, but she balances it out with occasionally sloppy form. To make things even more complicated, she often manages to hide her bad moments with a very purposeful elegance, especially on balance beam. You're left wondering whether she made a mistake or meant to wave her hand that way. She's also very flexible and has gorgeous jumps and leaps. She's a good performer and has a very strong presence in the arena, something that's often overlooked; no matter what she's doing, your eyes are drawn to her.
Aliya's D-scores for Rio:
- VT: 5.8
- UB: 6.5
- BB: 6.4
- FX: 5.8?
VAULT: She has a great DTY. It's powerful and she sticks it nearly every time, but has leg separation before landing. She will most likely vault during team final. She should get a score above 15.
UNEVEN BARS: She's the reigning uneven bars Olympic Champion, but since she has lower difficulty than 4 years ago, she'd have to have a some sort of miracle if she wants to defend her title. Good thing she's pretty good at pulling miracles out of thin air. She has that calm but purposeful, natural, "Russian" swing that I've been showing down your throats during these Meet the Team posts, she's gorgeous to watch with beautiful lines and you just can't find much to deduct. No one hits their handstands like she does, perfect every time. She also sticks nearly every single dismount. She should score well above 15.
BALANCE BEAM: Like uneven bars, this is a very high-scoring apparatus for her. It was once her worst event, but she won a Worlds gold anyway and never looked back, now she's a regular medal contender. She's beautiful to watch, she moves fluidly, has great execution on her skills and is precise with her movements all the way from her fingertips to toes. She's super elegant and points her toes even during wobbles, if she has any. She's also a master of turning wobbles into legitimate-looking choreography. And here too, she sticks that dismount every time. Her only problem is, that she doesn't go for the traditional acrobatic elements and instead has a really difficult acrobatic series (two D-elements together), so she sometimes struggles to make it, even though it's a routine composition requirement. It's pretty ridiculous, so it's of course a regular gymternet joke now. She changes her routine for every competition, so the D-score I gave was for her previous routine earlier this year. And watch her preparation for the routine, she stands on her toes eyes closed concentrating. It calms me down through the computer screen. She should score around 15 for a hit routine.
FLOOR EXERCISE: This is currently her weakest apparatus, but she has Worlds medals on it anyway. She even has an Olympic medal on it, because she's Aliya and her weakest is still that good. We don't know what her current routine on floor is, because she has a habit of switching things up here as well and she hasn't competed a full routine since 2014 (back then she had 6.2 difficulty). She's trying out new spins, spin-connections and tumbling lines pretty much every time we see her, I guess it depends on what hurts the less any given day. Her tumbling these days is on the easier side, but it's clean as long as she's not twisting. Unfortunately she twists a lot. Because a lot of her difficulty usually depends on the spins, her routines are risky and she loses a lot of points with even a small mistake, which affects her consistency. Her current music is "Moscow Nights" and she has calm, graceful choreography to go with it, something a bit different from the power-tumblers' routines. On floor she likes to prepare by fluffing her ears. I have no idea why, but it's equally entertaining as her balance beam prep.
MEDAL PROSPECTS: TF, AA, UB, BB
IShe should make the AA finals, and could contend for a bronze medal, depending on the day. Her uneven bars routine is a bit easy compared to her competitors, but she tends to surprise. And her clean execution could get her to the medals. On balance beam she has a small chance of getting disqualified from the finals because of the 2-per-country-rule, but if she makes the finals, she can contend for a medal of any color.
My 100th post on this blog and it's all about Aliya, how fitting :)
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