If you're unfamiliar with the competition, Russian Hopes is a national meet for Russian juniors. The competition format is like other big competitions (QF, TF, AA, EF). The juniors who take part in it compete in two groups, Candidate Master of Sport (KMC) and Master of Sport (MC). KMC is for the less established gymnasts, MC is for gymnasts with more experience and success. Gymnasts from the national team level usually have enough success to get merited with MC before their last two years as a junior, so the best KMC gymnasts tend to be very young. Even though MC is technically the "better" group, the best and most promising KMC gymnasts can easily outscore the MC group. There's a third group for the best pre-junior girls (class 1), who compete both compulsory and optionals, but it's risky enough to get invested in Russian juniors, so let's leave the pre-juniors to fend for themselves and see later on who makes it (although, check out Nelli Audi if you're still intent on hurting yourself).
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| MC AA, 1. Angelina Simakova, 2. Valeria Saifulina, 3. Viktoria Panchuk |
The star of the meet was Angelina Simakova, as expected. She's a 2002-born long-time national team member (and Junior European gold medalist) who's best on vault and floor. I was hoping that we'd get to see her at Top Gym, but Hopes was too close to it and more important to the Russian juniors, so they didn't send anyone. She won the AA (MC) with 58.200, and also took first place on vault (14.533), bars (14.000, it was a bad day for everyone) and floor (14.300). She's actually pretty good on beam too and could have easily taken the gold there too considering what a splat fest the final was, but she didn't qualify, whoops. She was also responsible for the most exciting news of the meet, a RUDI FROM A RUSSIAN JUNIOR.
She's the only FHS vaulter of the national team and for awhile it looked like they were trying to convert her to yurchenkos, but I'm happy she's back to what she's best at. This already looks very promising, and she still has plenty of time to get it competition ready. And yeah, that's all the videos we got from her despite her having an amazing meet. Ugh.
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| KMC AA, 1. Ksenia Klimenko, 2. Anastasia Agfonova, 3. Varvara Zubova |
The second star of the meet was Ksenia Klimenko (also as expected), a 2003-born beauty who's probably the most promising Russian junior since Melka. She could have won several medals even if she competed in the MC category, but she won AA (KMC) with a 57.633, and took gold on beam (15.066!), bars (14.400) and shared silver on floor (13.800). I cannot tell you how much I love her. She seems to have grown quite a bit this year, but still looks beautiful (those knees and feet!) and has already adjusted her routines to fit the new code. Her new routine on bars is really unpolished with form breaks and out of control pirouettes everywhere, but has a gorgeous and high double front half dismount, E in the new code.
Of course we don't have a video of her best piece, beam, but here's floor as a consolation prize.
Our tiny Beam Queen, Varvara Zubova, was in Penza too and competing in the KMC category for god knows what reason. She's a European Champion and has several national titles so it doesn't make sense, but does anything in Russia make sense? That is the real question. She didn't have the best meet, but won bronze on AA (54.867) and bars (13.233, as I said, a bad final for everyone), silver on floor (13.800) and gold on vault (13.633). That obviously means she didn't hit beam in the finals (it's not like she had any chance against Klimenko and Agafonova anyway), but her beam from the AA was her best in awhile (14.200). She's been terribly inconsistent all year.
Bars was a struggle for her, but they always are. It's just that... how long has she had a full-twisting double layout dismount? Have I missed it because I hardly ever watch her on bars? Or is it new? I'm too tired to go back and look, but wow. BTW, she's so tiny that she can swing between the bars without any modifications.
I had high hopes for Aleksandra Schekoldina to rival Sima, so of course she had to prove me wrong by having terrible quals and pulling out of the finals. Viktoria Panchuk took up her place, winning bronze on AA (54.533), gold on beam (14.400) and silver on floor (14.134). She's tall and leggy, so her beam is beautiful to watch, but she takes a loooooooooong time to set up for elements.
She has a beautiful and high double arabian on floor and the rest of her (relatively easy) tumbling is high too. Her presentation is very nice too, I feel like we might have something here. Of course her music has to be a very standard Russian junior techno-something... She's a 2002-girl like Sima and ZubZub.
Anastasia Agafonova (another gorgeous 2003-girl), also had a good meet. She's not quite as accomplished as Klimenko yet, but she's equally beautiful and I really, really hope that we get to see more of her in the future. She won very close silver on AA (KMC) with 57.433 and silver on beam (14.633). Her beam routine is beautiful and has a side aerial+LOSO combo, but there isn't any footage of it because we can't have nice things. Here's a picture instead.
A new find for me was Daria Belousova, who was 4th AA (54.567), won bronze on beam (14.233) and gold on floor (13.934). There aren't any videos of her either, but it will be interesting to see if she's going to be a major player in the future.
Other medalists included the usual suspects, such as Valeria Saifulina, Viktoria Gorbatova (who unfortunately didn't have a very good meet) and Elizaveta Kochetkova.
-----LINKS:
Full results are HERE.
More videos HERE.
More pictures HERE.
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