Like with juniors, I wrote this post while I watched the competition to save some time, so mistakes and bad grammar (even more than usually) will follow.
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Russia is starting their competition on floor. Ilya is first and stays alive. I have no idea how she managed to keep her double tuck in bounds, must be magic. It reminded me of McKayla Maroney's magical double tuck, only Ilya's was much messier. Ulya goes next and has a few sketchy landings, but she looks fine. Melka survives as well, though we saw one really bad landing from her too. Eleonora is anchoring, but falls on her first pass, and stumbles on her second. But 3 hit routines from Russia on floor is enough. I just watched the juniors, so I can't help but compare. And the juniors really beat the seniors on floor today. They had so much more poise and overall just better presentation. The seniors look like exhausted stumbling turtles compared to them. Yup, elegant but slightly lost gazelles vs. determined but exhausted stumbling turtles.
Ilya begins on vault, even though she didn't warm up. The situation is bad if your back can't take enough vaulting to do one timer. It's like Aliya in Rio. She still hits her FTY, no need for warm up. Ulya goes for a DTY and is way off, almost lands sideways on one leg. She doesn't really fall, but takes more steps off the podium than Vika in London. Melka's DTY has a huge hop, but it's a breath of fresh air after Ulya. Her Lopez is fine as well. Eleonora basically repeats Ulya's performance, but falls instead of running off the podium. She hits her second vault, a Lopez.
Uneven bars warm-ups look rough. Melka falls on a jaeger and while she's lying on the ground, Grebs jumps over her dead body to get the bars set for Ulya. He's done with your shit, Melka. Melka falls again during her routine, which is sad, because this is the best routine she's done all year. The pirouettes are a lot better, her handstands are on point and I already celebrated during the second it looked like she caught the jaeger. But she peels right off the bar. Ulya decides to confirm my meltdown prediction and falls twice. Ilya tries what she can to save the day and hits beautifully. For a second she looked like she lost the Ezhova in the air, but no. Not today. Eleonora doesn't do bars, so they can't toss out Ulya's score and end up counting 3 falls. This is why I said they should have gone with an all arounder like Masha.
Eleonora is off the beam on her LOSO mount. And a second time on a layout. She fell 4 times during the competition. This is her first international competition (I think?) and I don't think she was prepared to compete. Ulya miraculously stays on, but touches the beam. Melka has a few wobbles and then stays on, because they replaced her layout with a BHS-LOSO. Finally. Then she nearly ruins the moment by throwing her piked full in dismount landing basically on her feet and knees. I'm not sure how they're going to score that. Ilya performs a slightly hesitant but still lovely beam routine. She looks like she is determined to hit that routine, she finishes every landing with a pause and a death stare.
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So. Ilya hit 4-for-4, and somehow miraculously it was enough to save the team from her very Russian teammates, so they still finished 1st ahead of Brazil (silver) and Italy (bronze). It was a valiant effort, I'm sure Aliya would be proud. Of Ilya, not the others. Ilya's good day also got her a bronze medal in the all around. She was only a few hundredths ahead of Melka, whose beam wasn't scored as terribly as I expected (she even made the finals). Emma Malabuyo and Ragan Smith took gold and silver, respectively. Earlier today Vlada didn't understand that she won and this time the entire senior team was lost. After they were announced as the winners, they stood and looked completely confused, until my sunshine Flavia Saraiva rescued them by showing them number 1 with her fingers. I love them and I love Flavia.
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