Although Elena Eremina's face says it all about this meet.
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| AA: 1. Natalia Kapitonova 2. Elena Eremina 3. Evgenia Shelgunova |
Natalia Kapitonova was the surprise winner with a score of (53.432+54.799) 108.231. She didn't do anything spectacular, and compared to last year, her routines were actually downgraded. But she didn't make any mistakes either, she hit. Consistency won. Her FTY seriously lacked power, but it was pretty clean. She lost most of her connections on bars during her growth spurt, but she hit her set nicely. I actually liked her on beam today, I don't remember ever liking her here before. She was clean and crisp, her usual shakiness and ugly breaks gone. On floor she was low and landed her second pass out of bounds, but made it through her routine with a lot more dignity and poise than anyone else. I don't think she could win any medals at Euros with these routine, but today they were just what she needed to take over this competition.
Elena Eremina unfortunately ended up with a silver medal (55.366+52.366=107.732), mostly thanks to her numerous mistakes today. On vault she did a messy Yurchenko 1.5. On bars she made it through her most difficult stuff, nabieva+pak, and a sort-of-laid-out-but-not-enough jaeger, but then had a major timing error on an inbar 1/2. Why, I don't know. Everyone had a new mount on beam and she fell during hers (RO+LOSO). My stream decided to give up and I didn't even get to see the rest of her routine, but it was better that way, because apparently she fell again. Her floor was at least still nice, her performance has improved a lot from when she debuted it last year. Still, endurance seems to be a major problem, she did only three passes (full-in, 5/2+punch front, 3/1).
Evgenia Shelgunova wasn't even in the top group, but sneaked up on everyone and grabbed the bronze (52.765+53.832=106.597). This was just one of those days when she's really on. She started out on bars with a solid routine. She had her usual problems with leg separations, questionable (but at least laid out) pak and dreadful starting pirouette, but the final impression was still good, because there weren't any major issues. Her beam was stellar, no breaks or major errors, just fast connections and fluid movement. I didn't see her floor, but she finished her day on vault, landing really crooked and taking a huge step to the side, but it was enough to get her a place on the podium.
Seda Tutkhalyan also had one of her days. It's just that Shelgie was on and Seda off. She did an okay lopez as her vault. Then she was a bit slow on bars, but her form stayed good (a minor issue with her bhardwaj) and everything looked great until the dismount, which she sat down. She fell on the wolf turn on beam (what did I say yesterday?!?) and was so off on the full, that her feet didn't even touch the beam. I didn't see much of her floor, it looked fine until the dismount, which she touched down. It really looks like she hit puberty after the Olympics and has gained weight accordingly, so it might take a bit of time to adjust. Her performance today (or yesterday) wasn't really anything out of the ordinary for her, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. And I actually wasn't too worried, but she still managed to break my heart while shedding a few tears after floor.
Lilia Akhaimova looked really nervous. She was okay on vault, but then struggled through her UB routine. She has improved, but still not great. I don't actually remember her falling, but her score is reeaallly low, so maybe she did? Or then her difficulty is even lower than I thought. She was fine on beam after a major wobble during her RO+BHS mount, and best on floor, as expected. Her tumbling is miles better than anybody else's, she flies and even her endurance is fine (a miracle tbh), but everything else is just a bit boring. I'm dying at this video, around 1:19 someone (probably Nikita Nagornyy) is going completely crazy about Dasha's FTY.
Viktoria Trikina is a new senior that I have somehow complete forgotten, whoops. She has a DTY on vault, which is amazing. I didn't see her bars or beam, but based on the scores, she fell on bars and was fine on beam. I was pretty impressed with her precision on floor. Her tumbling is clean and really controlled (every landing was near-stuck), but her performance needs a lot of work. She could prove to be somewhat useful during smaller meets.
Angelina Melnikova finished 11th. I know, she really couldn't have done worse even if she tried. She started out with a good vault, but that was the only good thing all day for her. She looked clean and ready on bars right up until the jaeger. Again. You could see that she was fearing it beforehand, because she bent her knees going into it. She was nowhere near catching the bar and instead made some kind of a cat twist landing on her back and then had another go at it. This time she caught the bar, but her coach was spotting her, so obviously this whole spectacle cost her several points and took her out of the podium. My stream completely gave up during beam, so I didn't see any of her routine and looking at her score, it was better that way. Her floor brought another terrible score, but I actually liked it, it has some potential. Her new choreography is pretty good and she really made an effort to perform it. She has a new double arabian to fill out the forward tumbling requirement, but unfortunately she sat it down. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with it, she just didn't open up in time so I'm sure she can get it ready for Euros. Piked full-in was low and she had her hands down on the double pike, so obviously we have major endurance issues, yet again. But she has some time to get the routine competition ready, so I think we have something good there. I'm honestly looking forward to seeing her in Euros. This meet looks like a complete disaster for her, but I think that she'll be ready.
As for the UB group... Anastasia Ilyankova was great yet again (broke one connection at the end though), but both Dashas were bad. Really bad. Spiridoz was much better than yesterday though, she hit vault and floor (when has she ever hit floor?) and also hit beam after almost falling on a full turn, so there's that, but otherwise she's not in full force. I think I said yesterday that she will still make the Euros team and it's still true.
People seem to think of this competition as an unusual disaster, but I don't really think it's any worse than their usual showing at nationals. Add to that the fact that it's the post-Olympic year, their best gymnasts are either retired, semi-retired or still trying to recover from the Olympics and it seems almost appropriate. But I'm also not going to pretend that this doesn't give us a glimpse of Russia without their brilliant 2012 quad gymnasts, and that glimpse is bleak for sure. But it's just the start. Give them a chance.
If I had to pick a team now, it would be Melka, Lena, Ilyankova and Kapi. Seda instead of Kapi if she looks better closer to Euros. Kapi certainly made a stronger case for herself today and she's more consistent, but Seda has two vaults and overall stronger routines if she somehow does manage to hit
them. And more experience, but somehow I think that doesn't really matter with Seda.
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There aren't that many videos as of now, but they're being posted HERE.
Full results are HERE.
Melka can or not can reliability herself in Stuttgart if she still be going there after todays shitshow :/ Poor Aliya forced to see all these disaster being on 6th month of pregnancy ;(
ReplyDeleteEh, she'll be fine. She can just downgrade her routines if she's not ready and the real focus here is Euros. It doesn't matter how she does in Stuttgart.
DeleteWtf Russia?! I remember Mustafina carried the whole team Russia for years on her back!!!! ..... but I didn’t expect it to be that bad.. I was shocked not only D-score-bad, but the E-score is not good at all.. P.S. after watching such disaster i already miss Aliya too ... God please make it real for Musty to came back as soon as possible! Amen!
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly why she had to carry the team on her back. And it was a big hit that Melka, a rock last year at every national meet, has now moved onto the "suck until you absolutely have to hit" category. At least I hope that's where she's moved onto.
DeleteBut their D-scores aren't that bad really, at least compared to what they were previous years. They even had upgrades from their AAs, mainly from Melka (floor and beam), Seda (beam) and Lena (bars and beam). They also have 4 UB routines with internationally good D-scores. And I didn't really expect the execution to be any good. They're always messy at nationals.
Think it's getting worse bcz now even AndreyRod says that team will always need's Mustafina, and he says that she will be back to full trainings in december at Round Lake http://rsport.ru/artist_gym/20170305/1117267865.html
DeleteKapi's probably a b-teamer at best (in an ideal world where the A-teamers actually show up and can hit routines without a meltdown), but I'm impressed with her poise, at least. Though it's also possible that the bar for "Russian gymnast going through puberty" has just been set really, really low after watching Dmitrieva and Skrypnik's struggles, among others. I agree several of the girls seem like they're going through growth spurts right now, hopefully a few adjust all right.
ReplyDeleteCompared to where that puberty bar is, Kapi is a miracle in my books. She was always a bit mediocre, but it looks like she's actually getting better. It also looks like Sergei Starkin has taken over from his wife and is her main coach these days, that could have an influence.
DeleteShe's still B-team on everything except bars, but the A-team is really, really small these days and it's good to know that when everyone in the A-team has back problems or kidney stones or whatever, we still have Kapi to help us out.
That could definitely have an influence - don't know much about his abilities as a women's coach (it was always kind of hard to know exactly who was in charge of Aliya at any given point), but he comes off as a positive, level-headed guy which I imagine would be very helpful. Kapi makes her fair share of mistakes but I've never seen her get rattled or very emotional afterwards in comparison to many of the others. Possibly just haven't seen her enough and not in a super high-pressure situation, but I like that about her and I do wonder if Starkin has an influence there if he's her main coach now.
DeleteI don't know about his coaching either when it comes to technique and such, but as a strategist and personality he seems good. When he first started working with Aliya, she was capable of 4 passes on floor, and had most of her built-in deductions taken out, if nothing else. I don’t think he had much of an influence in her training after 2015.
DeleteAnd his strategy with Kapi was good. They downgraded her routines and focused on what she could do at this point and it worked out really well. She only brought out her full UB routine in the finals and that worked out too. And during the competition he seemed very hands on with her, and Kapi seemed relaxed. Like you said, she doesn't get very emotional, but we've seen her give very nervous performances before, there was none of that this time. Although this was a national meet. Her most nervous performances have been abroad, so maybe they'll come back.