So there's not that much to write about, scores and "she usually looks beautiful on this apparatus" only go so far, but here's a quick recap anyway. As usual, the juniors are split in two groups based on Russia's national sports merits, MC (the older and more accomplished girls) and KMC (younger and less accomplished girls, mostly those born in 2004).
From front: Varvara Zubova, Ksenia Klimenko, Anastasia Agafonova and Valeria Saifulina. Look who's hiding again, what a surprise.
Master of Sport (MC)
The expected star was my favorite Baby Swan and as such "most likely to break my heart", Ksenia Klimenko. She won the MC all around competition with very respectable scores of 54.466 and 55.129. And yes, she would have won the Russian Senior National all around title with those scores a month ago. BY OVER A POINT. You can decide for yourself if that means that little Ksyusha, who still has 1.5 years of junior competition left, is just very good, or if the seniors are just very bad. She also won gold on bars and beam, and bronze on floor, which easily made her the most decorated gymnast of the competition. I was especially happy to see her bars. Still a bit sloppy, but much, much improved from what they used to be. I didn't much like her on bars before, but now she has gotten this routine enough under control, that you can see her style and I love it. Her swing is effortless and natural, but she's aggressive too. That jaeger and the dismount are a dream, both so high and flighty, just beautifully timed. Her stalders and inbar are gorgeous with her flexibility. If she fixed her handstands and managed to get her midsection under control (I have back pain and whiplash just from watching her swing), she could be something spectacular.Klimenko got some good competition from another one of my junior favorites and possible vampire, Anastasia Agafonova, who took silver in the AA with also respectable scores of 54.128 and 53.532. She was right behind Klimenko in the event finals too, taking bronze on bars and silver on beam. She was also 4th on floor and we even got a video of it. It's such a gorgeous routine too, traditionally Russian with some classical music and dance to take advantage of her elegance. And look at that spin combination before her second tumbling line. Unfortunately, she keeps landing her tumbling low. It's not a good sign to be already out of stamina at this age.
Varvara Zubova took bronze, but was significantly behind the top two on scores, scoring around 52 on both days. Based on scores, she was quite inconsistent as usual, but she did manage to take silver on floor and in the event finals with a very good routine. I've watched this several times now and I still love it.
From the other top juniors, Daria Belousova took gold on floor and Valeria Saifulina on vault. Viktoria Gorbatova took silver on bars and bronze on beam.
Candidate Master of Sport (KMC)
The battle for the KMC gold medals was mostly between Irina Komnova and Olga Astafyeva, both born in 2004.
Astafyeva medaled on every apparatus and took home the most coveted prize, all round gold. She ended up being the silver princess of the event finals with silvers on bars, beam and floor. She also won bronze on vault. There aren't any videos of her from this competition, too bad since she did so well and I would have liked to see her progress.
Komnova had a very good competition too, she is definitely progressing. She took silver in the all around (only a hundredth behind Astafyeva with a 2-day-score), gold on bars and floor, and bronze on beam, a very good haul for one competition. On bars she has a really nice layout gienger, a rarity in Russian gymnastics, but she balances it out with something very Russian, basically every inbar variation you can get, with a hefty side of toe-ons and stalders to go with them. Those inbars are pretty good considering that she's so young. Otherwise her work looks very muscled to me.
On floor she looked great, her spins look incredibly effortless and very precise for such a young gymnast and she's not a bad performer either.
Elena Gerasimova took bronze on all around, gold on beam and another bronze on floor, but no videos of her either. She's really beautiful on beam and floor, so I would have really liked to see her. Arina Strukova (from the recent Jesolo team) took bronze on bars.
Here's Astafyeva with her many medals and trophies:
Here's Astafyeva with her many medals and trophies:
-----
LINKS:
Full results are HERE.
I'll add videos if I ever find them.
No comments:
Post a Comment