Russians on the Move!

It was a busy week for the Russians, both juniors and seniors were back to competition all over Europe and naturally kept falling everywhere like only Russians can. Melka was struggling on beam, yet again, and Seda's block on vault was wild, yet again. Oh, and two juniors had a collective meltdown on beam. A typical week, really.

Angelina Melnikova was extra busy and made appearances in both Arthur Gander Memorial and the Swiss Cup. She won the Gander Memorial, competing on three events of her choice, vault, beam and bars. Her vault was just as usual, but she was nervous on beam, fell and even her leaps seemed a bit off. It could be her hamstring acting up again. She came back with a vengeance on bars though. She performed her usual pretty solid set with some questionable handstands, but started it with a perfect bitchface on salute and finished with a gold medal. Good job.

The Swiss Cup was a team competition where pairs competed against each other in a strange format of rounds and apparatus selections and repetitions, I'm not entirely sure on the finer details because I only realized that there was a stream during the last 10 minutes of the competition. Russia (Melka and Ignatyev) placed 3rd after Oleg Vernaiev and Angelina Kysla of Ukraine, and Kim Bui and Marcel Nguyen of Germany. They could choose which apparatus they wanted to compete, Melka opted for floor, beam and uneven bars. She actually did her full difficulty floor routine, pretty admirable for post-Olympic slump season. Her memmel and the spin out of it reminds me of 2010 Aliya...

Her beam was much better this time, although still a bit off, but the dismount was picture perfect.

I don't know what the hell was up with her bars. She scored 13.600 during her first time up and it only got worse during her second time on bars (they could repeat an apparatus during the final round), she had a form break on her inbar half and fell on the jaeger right after. 

By the way, if you watch the videos closely, you'll see that she lost her saluting bitchface between Gander and Swiss Cup bars... Could it be related to her worse performance? I think so. A Russian without a bitchface is a weak Russian.

Seda Tutkhalyan competed at the 2016 Joaquin Blume Memorial in Barcelona. I'm jealous because I love Barcelona and wish I was there. Good thing I wasn't though, because Seda scored 54.250 and placed third after Nina Derwael and Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos.

Her vault has been a huge issue ever since she turned senior and while she has hit her DTY in all major competitions, bless her heart, this time she came up short again. I'm not a technical expert, but since her form on block looks terrible, I'm blaming that. I have no idea how she managed to get that around, keep her ankles intact (Russian ankles that can take that kind of landing? Clone her!) and stand up instead of falling on her face, so congrats.

Her bars looked good until the dismount, she scored 13.700 on beam so I'm guessing she fell, did a downgraded routine or had some other struggles, but she hit floor in her usual messy way and looked really disappointed afterwards.

Princess Tut will compete in the Masters Massilia competition next weekend with Spiridonova, Eremina and Ilyankova. Hopefully she'll get her head together for that, imagine this team's potential for a collective meltdown on beam.

The 2016 Tournoi International Combs la Ville in France had two B-team Russian juniors, Elizaveta Kochetkova and Anna Subbotina competing. As I mentioned, both of them had huge meltdowns on beam (one of them had 3 or 4 falls based on execution and difficulty scores), and Kochetkova finished just off the medals (53.650), with Subbotina way behind (50.550). You can see some pictures and videos HERE.