Birmingham World Cup 2018: My sincere thanks to Melka's spine

Angelina Melnikova competed at a World Cup event in Birmingham and finally managed to get out of the rut she's been in since the Olympics. She actually hit 4-for-4 and won. And gymternet naturally celebrated her gold medal like she just became the Olympic all around champion. She's had such a long rough patch that this feels like the biggest victory ever. Melka herself looked the happiest she's been in awhile and her reaction to her first place really reminded me of Aliya winning floor bronze at the 2014 Worlds. I'm so happy for her, she really needs the confidence boost.

1. Angelina Melnikova 2. Margzetta Frazier 3. Alice Kinsella

The Russian Bitchface Is Strong with This One

I'll have a post about our most victorious Melka when I get off from work, but meanwhile, the Russian bitchface was having a great day at Doha. Ulyana Perebinosova is competing at the Doha World Cup and won silver on bars. It wasn't her best routine, it was messy and missing a connection, but it was still a hit routine and her coach Marina Ulyankina knew it. Look at her.

She's dancing in the judges' faces. Is that allowed? She's a judge herself, so she should know. This was hilarious in itself, but what I really loved, was Ulya's reaction. Look at her ending her routine with her usual indifferent salute and then hurrying off the podium ignoring her coach's antics. When Ulyankina caught up with her and slapped her playfully, she actually lashed out at her coach. Probably playfully as well, but still. She refused to smile and kept her bitchface. Imagine the diva commentary if this was a bigger competition.

This is honestly one of the most Russian things from this generation of Russian gymnasts since Angelina Simakova refused to partake a Mexican wave and I love it. Thank you Ulya, you made my day.

Stuttgart World Cup 2018: Melka's major upgrades

After the disastrous team qualifications I was pretty optimistic about Angelina Melnikova's individual all around competition, because it's not like she could do worse. And I'm happy to say that she didn't challenge me on that, she didn't do worse. Her lowest score was actually "only" 11.776. And that is to say, while she didn't screw up like the rest of her team, her performance wasn't that great either.

She placed 4th with 52.699, less than a point behind the winner Zhang Jin. The silver medalist was Elisabeth Seitz and Jordan Chiles won bronze. Melka's competition was riddled with her usual issues, but she technically only fell once.

Stuttgart World Cup 2018: doing team final the Romanian way

So... Russia competed at Stuttgart and promptly disqualified themselves out of the team final. They're testing my patience. Because they have no excuse. It was not a bad team. Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Ilyankova, Lilia Akhaimova, Maria Kharenkova and Viktoria Gorbatova. Almost all of them belong to the better half of athletes they have right now. How can you go to a meet with a team of this caliber and screw up so badly. How? HOW? I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little bit mad right now. Yeah, the other teams had some Worlds level gymnasts, yeah, it's really early in the season, yeah, the Russians downgraded and are saving their strength for Nationals in order to hit the perfect combination of utter disaster and great potential they so value there. And to be honest, this competition had really strict scoring. But even with these things considered, it was pretty bad.

Throwback Thursday: Gymnix 10 Years Ago

L'International Gymnix has been held every year for more than 20 years, so it's natural that the meet has had some very reputable gymnasts as contestants. For Russian gymnasts in particular, the meet has often given us international debuts of their most promising juniors. The 2008 Gymnix 10 years ago was no exception, we saw 12-year-old Anastasia Grishina and 11-year-old Nailya Mustafina, the Queen's little sister, at the top of the podium. Nastia obviously went on to have a semi-successful (but considering her talent, still disappointing) senior career, but Nailya broke her leg while still a junior and never recovered to compete at her old level.

I might be the only one who finds watching old videos of absolutely dreadful quality even slightly entertaining, but here you go anyway. It's a bit comforting to see that even Grishy had a rough time, so clearly there's hope for the rest of them too. Although, no matter how many mistakes Grishy made, she still looked nothing short of exceptional with the way she carried herself. And Nailya... Such a talent at only 11. I remember many people thought she was more promising than Aliya. I think she was younger and had more difficulty and skills, but lacked Aliya's finesse. Time would have shown, but it wasn't to be.

Round Lake Update: Rumor has it

This is all from my wild and speculative tumblr dash, the sources range from the gymnasts' instagrams to pure fan speculation, so don't take anything too seriously. But let's go over some recent rumors. The topics include injuries, returns and the Queen's marriage.

The one and only Ksenia Afanasyeva is back at Round Lake. The source is Angelina Melnikova, so I'm pretty sure this is true, but to what extent? Is she BACK back, or just visiting for fun? I have a hard time believing that she's fully training, which she needs to be if she's at Round Lake. I don't have a hard time thinking that she's training, but usually gymnasts come back from injuries (and retirement) by training at home and after awhile and only when they're super serious, they go back to Round Lake for evaluation and begin training there if they're far enough in their recovery. Even the veterans like Afan do it like this. Aliya did it like this and Afan has done it several times in the past. If she's back, she has been super sneaky about it. There's of course the complication that Afan's coach is a part of the staff and has a personal gymnast at Round Lake, so she could be forced to return early. I don't know. But I'm excited.

Gymnix 2018: A party for the new Lena and Vika

My Baby Swans competed at the Junior International Cup of the 2018 International Gymnix, as always, and looked like a healthy combination of beauty and hot mess, as always. This year our team consisted of two Gymnix veterans, Irina Komnova and Elena Gerasimova, and two newbies, Olga Astafyeva and Viktoria Listunova. They won silver in the team competition and a few individual medals too. I actually watched all of their routines and was really impressed.

Ira is apparently still coming back from an injury (ankle, maybe?) and looked tired as hell. She has also grown a lot this past year and while she was once tiny, she's now the tallest of the group by far. This combined with her exhausted appearance and weird mistakes made the poor girl look like she was ready to retire. Lena was the most confident out of everyone without any hint of nerves of inexperience. Olya was extremely nervous and shaky, while Vika spent her time looking suspicious and unsure about why she was even in Canada. I was close to laughing every time they showed her face. I was actually a tiny bit surprised about her selection to the team too, but she did really well for herself and absolutely deserved to be there. Or more than deserved to be there, she had the biggest medal haul with bronze on all around, silver on bars and gold on floor. Lena was next with gold on the uneven bars and bronze on floor.