Jesolo 2018: Senior Event Finals Medal Fest

Today was the final day of Jesolo and it included all of the event finals, both senior and junior. While the juniors basically dominated the competition, the seniors did good too. Angelina Melnikova is finally starting to look like herself and competed in every event final today, winning 3 medals, silver on vault and bronze on bars and beam. Anastasia Ilyankova took the gold medal on bars as expected. Even Eleonora Afanasyeva was able to shake off yesterday's disappointments and won bronze on vault.

Here's a recap of the competition:

Vault:

Despite her yesterday's performance, Eleonora made vault finals and hit her DTY easily today. The Lopez didn't cause any problems either and she was able to finish her competition on a good note with a bronze medal. Melka's vaults were her usual quality and earned her the silver medal less than 2 hundredths (yes, hundredths) behind China's Liu Jinru.

Uneven Bars:

Melka made the uneven bars final despite her fall yesterday and came back with a revenge. She hit an absolutely flawless routine and stuck the landing to finish. I'm getting the feeling that she's finally getting out of her slump and being her beautiful self again. Thank you Birmingham! Never lose your confidence again, please. I couldn't stand to watch another round of sad and defeated Melka. She won bronze for her comeback. Ilya wore the London team final leotard and evoked all sorts of feelings in me. There was some nostalgia, but I still don't like "outsiders" wearing it. The London team was something special and so was the team final, so the leo should be reserved exclusively for them. And even then at least saved for bigger competitions. I might have to forgive her though, because she hit her routine cold. I don't think it was necessarily one of her best performances, but a "normal" routine from her is still great and worthy of a gold medal. The Russians were on chalk duty on bars and were pretty aggressive about it. I had to fear a few times that they'd get a huge deduction, because Ulya and Nastia were basically running for the bars the moment another contestant's feet hit the ground on a dismount.

Balance Beam:

The final I was dreading for. Weirdly enough, we had two Russians to worry about. Melka again made a final despite a bad routine in the qualifications, but she earned her spot with a better routine this time around. She had some broken connections and a few wobbles, but hit her piked full in dismount this time. Her head was close to knee level, but she took one step and stood it up easily. I still think that her incredibly clean double pike would score better, but she seems determined to upgrade. Another bronze for her. Ilya would have scored well enough to medal with her yesterday's routine, but fell today. Twice. Her first mistake was a really weird one, she underrotated a front tuck. Her second fall was on the side aerial+LOSO combination.

Floor Exercise:

This was the fourth final of the day for Melka and unfortunately she wasn't able to finish her competition with a medal in every final. Her tumbling was really high and controlled today and her routine was one of the best she's done this season up until her last pass, a double pike. She opened up too late and fell backwards. 4 out of 4 sounded too good anyway.