It actually took me days to assemble nice routines, and after spending more days looking at them and grinding my teeth over naming this mediocre mess "my favorite", I ended up dividing them into two groups. The first group is dedicated to my actual favorite routines, and the second group are the routines that were highlights in the middle of everything terrible, but not really that memorable. Enjoy. Or not. I don't blame you if you fall asleep after the first group.
FLOOR EXERCISE
My actual favorite routines:
Aliya Mustafina immediately brought on her A-game starting in 2013 with TWO new floor routines. I absolutely love her routine from 2013 European Championships. It's very different from her later routines, it almost reminds me of 2010 Aliya. There's just something understated but captivating about it, and that beautiful pose during her "down to the floor" choreography gave us some great pictures. And look at her execution too, the first tumbling line is pretty much perfect, the other tumbles are very well landed too, and powerful. The spins have control, even the almost "Mustafina". We just haven't often seen the perfectionist side of Aliya on floor this quad, but this performance definitely stands out to me. And the extensive amount of time she spends in the corner breathing and uhm... "dancing" before her last tumbling line, it just makes me nostalgic, such classic Aliya.
It's really too bad she fell down during the Antwerp qualifications, I feel like she could have nabbed herself another medal on floor with this routine. I didn't like it (2013 World Championships AA) quite as much as the one from Euros, but it's still great and the way she lands those first two tumbling lines always gives me chills. And here we see the first appearance of the beautifully executed whip+whip+double arabian+stag, and also the hilarious appearance of "the corner rule". A history in the making right there.
This routine from the 2014 World Championships even finals is right in between the two styles of her floor routines this quad (2013 vs. 2015/2016). It was right before she had to take an extended break because of her back and you can see it. She cut her tumbling back to three passes, added a beautiful Gomez and of course "The Mustafina", and had emergency back-up turns scheduled in case of a mishap. Spinstafina right there, more gymnastics history in the making. I like the routine and how it flows and changes pace with the music, few routines can naturally change pace like this and make it work (see every other Russian floor with music that has an identity crisis). This routine was also the highlight of Nanning for me. She had a flu, fell on her double arabian during the all around and lost a medal for it, but randomly made the pass more difficult by adding whips, and then of course nailed it taking a surprise bronze medal at the event finals. So Aliya. And her reaction to the result, if that doesn't brighten up your day, you're made of stone. Stone, standing in rain under a permanent cloud. Finally, take note of how perfect her opening pose is, she's situated right in front a huge sign with her name on it, facing the camera and framing the sign without blocking it. The Queen.
I think I've mentioned for about 100 times how much I love this routine from Seda Tutkhalyan (2016 Russian Cup). I love the music, I love the choreography, and I love her presence. It's the perfect choice of music and choreography for her as a gymnast and it's a standout routine from this terrible quad. Thank you Princess Tut. These landings are probably the best she's managed all year, but of course she had to completely fall on her wolf turn, she wouldn't be Russian if she didn't. What a nice cover-up though.
Princess Tut also makes my list of favorite floor routines with this routine from the 2014 Youth Olympic Games. It's fun and cheeky and a classic good quality Russian junior routine, no complaints. She fell during the AA and still took gold, then watered down her last pass for the final earning a silver. It's memorable to me not only because of the entertainment value, but for the music that stuck to my head so bad that one night during the YOG, it came into my every dream and almost made me crazy. Seriously, imagine hearing this music all night long on repeat, getting desperate to get some rest, some sort of relief from hearing it, but no, no mercy. That said, I haven't watched this routine since, I have consciously avoided it and now I'm terribly afraid that after hearing the music again, it will come to haunt my dreams. Goodbye guys, it was nice knowing you....
Elena Eremina spent 2016, her last year as a junior, giving me young Aliya vibes, not only on beam, but floor too. The music and choreography reminds me a lot of Aliya's 2010 "Hijo de la Luna" -routine, even if Lena doesn't quite yet have the same finesse. It's still so much better than the Russian senior routines of this quad and so is her tumbling. She downgraded this routine for the 2016 European Championships because of the junior D-value caps and requirements, but still scored better than the Russian seniors at the same competition. Light your candles and make your sacrifices to the GymGods, this girl needs to stay alive through the next quad to Tokyo.
Viktoria Komova is here just for managing to do one elite floor routine all quad, congrats Vika! She made her legendary comeback during the 2015 European Games in Baku and was still strangely her usual self on floor, gathering up as many landing deductions as she could and pouting and shrugging her way through it openly frustrated with herself. I wish they gave her some decent choreography, but no, whatever, at least she made it out alive. And as the commentator said, she has an elegance, even when things are going wrong. She looks pretty and poised just walking around. The one thing that is perfect, are her leaps. She's so powerful, but at the same time so light. It looks as if she does her leaps as an afterthought, with very little preparation in comparison to most gymnasts, but ends up floating in the air forever like a ballet dancer. So beautiful.
And speaking of so beautiful, Vika's only other floor routine from this quad. It's not exactly elite, but it doesn't matter because just watching her do basics is captivating. I take these perfect full and double twists any day over whatever atrocities we're going to see from Russia next quad.
I never quite understand what Ksenia Afanasyeva is doing on floor, she always seems to have her own thing going on and is on a whole different wave length from me, but it doesn't even matter because she always, always sells it. She knows who she is and is one of the few gymnasts who really shows personality on floor. She was also the only notable Russian floor worker all quad. This routine won her a silver medal at the 2015 World Championships.
For the absolute mess that she is, Evgenia Shelgunova is still one of the team's best performers on floor. No matter how much I hate this music, her tumbling and leaps and basically everything, I can't help but watch her and love her, she just lights up the floor.
Maria Bondareva retired in 2015 at the ripe old age of 15, but we still have her junior floor routines to enjoy. She was never much of a tumbler, and her leaps and spins were inconsistent, either perfect or terrible, but she could dance and was usually given a decent choreography to work with. I feel like I basically ignored her back when she was still competing, but now I often go back and watch her on beam and floor and can't help but think what a beautiful gymnast she actually was.
This is pretty much her first and only senior floor, but obviously it doesn't have senior difficulty. But what a beautiful gymnast to watch on floor.
Ekaterina Sokova was expected to rescue Russia on floor in Rio, but in a typical Russian way, she had a bunch of injuries and disappeared. Her floor routines were typical Russian junior material, but she was a charming and lively performer and could occasionally really hit her skills. Here she is at her best during the Russian Junior Nationals in 2015.
And here she is a year earlier, listening to the music and really hitting those notes. I wish more gymnasts did that.
I never quite understand what Ksenia Afanasyeva is doing on floor, she always seems to have her own thing going on and is on a whole different wave length from me, but it doesn't even matter because she always, always sells it. She knows who she is and is one of the few gymnasts who really shows personality on floor. She was also the only notable Russian floor worker all quad. This routine won her a silver medal at the 2015 World Championships.
Routines that were nice, okay or just didn't suck:
For the absolute mess that she is, Evgenia Shelgunova is still one of the team's best performers on floor. No matter how much I hate this music, her tumbling and leaps and basically everything, I can't help but watch her and love her, she just lights up the floor.
Maria Bondareva retired in 2015 at the ripe old age of 15, but we still have her junior floor routines to enjoy. She was never much of a tumbler, and her leaps and spins were inconsistent, either perfect or terrible, but she could dance and was usually given a decent choreography to work with. I feel like I basically ignored her back when she was still competing, but now I often go back and watch her on beam and floor and can't help but think what a beautiful gymnast she actually was.
This is pretty much her first and only senior floor, but obviously it doesn't have senior difficulty. But what a beautiful gymnast to watch on floor.
Ekaterina Sokova was expected to rescue Russia on floor in Rio, but in a typical Russian way, she had a bunch of injuries and disappeared. Her floor routines were typical Russian junior material, but she was a charming and lively performer and could occasionally really hit her skills. Here she is at her best during the Russian Junior Nationals in 2015.
And here she is a year earlier, listening to the music and really hitting those notes. I wish more gymnasts did that.
*sigh* What happened to Anastasia Dmitrieva might be the biggest Russian mystery of this quad. In 2013 she was supposed to be the next Afan, a very promising tumbler, a brilliant dancer and performer sassing her way in to rescue Russia on floor, in 2014 she lost her double arabian, in 2015 her attitude, and in 2016 whatever was left. I'll stay here and dream about her hitting a routine with her whip+double layout tumbling pass. *sigh*
Natalia Kapitonova only just turned senior, but still managed to consistently outscore her teammates on floor during 2016 simply by being clean. Her tumbling has great execution and basics, so I think she should be able to add difficulty while still remaining clean, her spins are nice (I wish she'd decide on which spins to do though and not just spin until she falls) and she's a beautiful dancer. Her performance lacks personality and presence, but she's still young and there's potential. And this routine was definitely nice among the weird/terrible ones.
I always felt that Angelina Melnikova's routine was somehow lacking, but I'm still not sure what it's lacking of... It's very generic, but I don't really mind because it has more dance and choreography than most Russian routines this quad and she even puts some effort into presenting it. And this is a hit routine for her, great tumbling (for Melka), excellent landings, okay spins, just one bad memmel weighing her down. So...what's the problem...? I think it's her presence, she doesn't really have a strong presence, she doesn't command attention. That's my in depth analysis.
I don't even know how many of Varvara Zubova's floor routines I watched trying to decide which one to pick, but I'm not regretting a moment of it. She truly is something entirely different, a remnant of a long lost era of gymnastics. I wish her "old-timey" charm would extend to an "old-timey" virtuosity and beauty in skills too, but I just have to take what I can get.
I'm ending this with Queen Aliya and her 2016 floor routine, to "Moscow Nights". She never quite hit the routine in international competition and her tumbling is even less than it was in 2014 and 2015, but the choreography and music is beautiful and perfect for her.
I always felt that Angelina Melnikova's routine was somehow lacking, but I'm still not sure what it's lacking of... It's very generic, but I don't really mind because it has more dance and choreography than most Russian routines this quad and she even puts some effort into presenting it. And this is a hit routine for her, great tumbling (for Melka), excellent landings, okay spins, just one bad memmel weighing her down. So...what's the problem...? I think it's her presence, she doesn't really have a strong presence, she doesn't command attention. That's my in depth analysis.
I don't even know how many of Varvara Zubova's floor routines I watched trying to decide which one to pick, but I'm not regretting a moment of it. She truly is something entirely different, a remnant of a long lost era of gymnastics. I wish her "old-timey" charm would extend to an "old-timey" virtuosity and beauty in skills too, but I just have to take what I can get.
One more good routine from Aliya and one leftover routine from Grishy to make you forget what a bad floor quad it was:
This is technically cheating, because this is actually Anastasia Grishina's leftover floor routine from the 2009-2012 quad, but since she performed it at the 2013 European Championships, I pronounce it eligible for this post. What a beauty she was...
I'm ending this with Queen Aliya and her 2016 floor routine, to "Moscow Nights". She never quite hit the routine in international competition and her tumbling is even less than it was in 2014 and 2015, but the choreography and music is beautiful and perfect for her.
Chatty anon is back again & extra chatty this time. I have many thoughts haha and the post-Olympic slump is too real :) Anyways I think this was a pretty terrible floor quad for most of the world. There are not a lot of routines that scream rewatch and the Rio floor final was super blah. I blame the FIG micromanaging everyone with the new composition and corner rules, the stupid "choreo" workarounds people do like Tinkler's egregious one this year are way worse than just letting them set up for tumbling runs normally. I think to some extent Russia's choreo woes are overexaggerated and they're no worse than what most people are currently doing - but yeah, they're terrible compared to how amazing they've always been before. Difficulty wise there's no question they're behind, and the overall impression is mediocre.
ReplyDeleteFor a Russian gymnast I don't think Melka has particularly good movement quality if that makes sense, it's decent but not something that comes naturally to her as opposed to Seda or even Shelgy (who I think is actually quite fluid if not so polished). I feel the same way about her beam, most of her skills are nice and precise but she moves between them a little awkwardly at times. I think she'd do better with something a little faster paced on floor. She reminds me of Izbasa, who also wasn't the most natural dancer (esp. when she was younger) but usually had choreo that worked for her, she even had a Kalinka routine too. Melka's slower routine doesn't do her any favors.
And I love that Afan routine, I've never understood why people rag on it. She's one of the only gymnasts who could actually make that so-bad-it's-good music work.
It's interesting that in the last two years or so Russia has completely abandoned the double arabian and everyone is now doing full-ins, even Aliya and Kharenkova ditched their double arabians this year and none of the juniors are doing them either. I guess it makes sense since the silivas is overvalued and is a good goal for some of them. TBH it was my dream upgrade for Aliya for years since she's definitely powerful enough for it if she ever manages to be healthy. I also wish we could send Seda to Italy or Japan for a year so they could fix her floor, there's no reason why she should struggle so much to break a 14 there even with her form issues.
You're right, choreography and floor routines were definitely an international problem this quad and Russia was no worse than the others. I'm just super hard on them because they used to be so good and just can't live up to their past standards. And because their tumbling was so much behind, I really wanted them to make up for it with great choreography and dance, but they didn't, and instead went with easy tumbling and mediocre choreography. Ugh. Although I will say that their music selections are just plain bad :D
DeleteYou might be right about Melka, I hope they can improve her routines to fit her strengths better. And I was wondering about the missing double arabians too. I feel like Russian juniors have had full ins for quite some time, but they were often bad and were replaced with something else when they became seniors, but now everyone's doing full ins and Aliya and Masha aren't even the only seniors to ditch their arabians. Silivas' D-score upgrade since last quad definitely could be a big reason, but I also think that Zelikson's appointment as their tumbling coach had an impact. I can't help but remember that it was Grishina who had a Silivas in 2012.
They used to at least try both double arabians and full-ins, but it's weird that they've stopped the arabians altogether, and with people like Kharenkova it just seems unnecessary to have her switch to a sketchy piked full-in. Just an interesting trend. I hadn't thought about Zelikson. He hasn't been around for very long, so maybe the fact that the newbies are tumbling a little bit better this year (imo, earlier this quad was plain dire and now they look the slightest bit better I think) is also his influence. Although Grishina was also famous for camping out forever in the corner so maybe he won't be much help...
DeleteCompletely agreed on the music, 2014 in particular was the worst! So many weird and badly cut choices and especially awful compared to all the nice music we got in previous years. It's improved some this year, now everything else just needs to get there lol. I really liked Seda's routine this year too, and I think I would like Aliya's more if it wasn't so hard to watch knowing that the tumbling was so watered down for her :/ Stupid injuries. I wonder if it would've been better if she had another two months to actually train floor (so worlds timeline), but it might have been too big an ask for her this year anyway.
I wrote an awesome reply and then my browser crashed and it disappeared. But I think I mentioned a fond memory of that time Grishy stood in the corner for so long before her last tumbling pass that she finished after the music ended because of it. Whoops. But at least she had some decent tumbling to go with her corner lurking ways. I take decent tumbling and camping in the corner any day over the current FIG-imposed flamingo stance and fake choreo with mediocre tumbling.
DeleteAnd I somehow feel like a couple of extra months would have taken Aliya and her shoulder/back/wrist issues out of the bars contention. And she didn't exactly improve her tumbling between Euros and Rio, so maybe what we got was really all she could offer this year. It was heartbreaking to watch 3-time Worlds/Olympic floor medalist struggling to break 14s at the Olympics, but yeah, stupid injuries :( I just wished she could have hit her turns, stumbling out of everything really affected the overall impression (and difficulty...) of her routines in Rio.