A Look at the 2018 Russian Junior Nationals

Now that the Russian Cup is over, we can take a loot at the Russian Junior Championships that were held together with it. Together with Spartakiada, it gives us a pretty good idea of who's going to the Junior European Championships. I've had my team in mind ever since Jesolo and while this competition didn't have any huge surprises, it made me reconsider some things. The good news is, that the junior team has plenty of depth and they pretty much kicked the seniors' ass during the Russian Cup.

As usual, the competition was divided into two categories, Master of Sport (MC) and Candidate Master of Sport (KMC). The first group has the older and more accomplished girls, while the second generally has the younger girls. This divide is however not purely about age, success has a lot to do with it too. And this divide certainly does not always reflect the scores, as Viktoria Listunova showed us. She was born in 2005 and competed as a KMC, but during the team and all around competition, she scored 55.665 and 55.099, respectively. Moscow won team gold and Vika won the all around competition. Her all around scores were not only higher than anyone else's at the Junior Nationals, KMC or MC, but they were higher than anyone's competing at the Russian Cup. Yes, she beat the seniors. And she's a gorgeous gymnast too. She's graceful, has beautiful lines and difficult dance skills. And she's good on everything. She finished her event finals with gold on bars and floor, silver on vault and bronze on beam. Dominating the competition unfortunately doesn't mean that she's going to the Junior Euros and win the all around gold (which she totally would), she's still too young to compete there. So we'll have to settle for the older girls. But fear not, they're pretty awesome too.

The MC National All Around Champion was unsurprisingly Ksenia Klimenko. If you've read this blog, you know that I love her and would pretty much give up my own ankles to make her succeed as a senior, she's that beautiful. While she didn't score as high as Listunova, she still beat the seniors (boo you seniors) with her all around scores of 54.999 and 54.532. Unfortunately event finals didn't quite go her way. Besides beam, she didn't really make any big mistakes, but gave up enough points to place fourth on floor and fourth on beam. Even her insane uneven bars routine lost by a tiny bit to Irina Komnova, and she had to settle for silver there.

Vladislava Urazova (MC) continued her year of excellent performances and really gave Klimenko a run for her money during this competition. She even beat her during the second day of the all around, but mistakes on bars and beam during the first day held her back and she ended up winning silver with scores of 52.932 and 54.998. She really made up for that silver in the event finals, taking the gold medal on vault, beam and floor. I just love watching her gymnastics. She's so calm and collected that it makes me forget about the stress that Russian gymnastics usually causes. And I'm still not over her incredible performance at Jesolo. I can't wait to see her at Euros, she could medal on pretty much anything on a good day.

Olga Astafyeva (MC) competed well as well and won bronze in the all around with scores of 54.566 and 52.233. Her low score for the second day was caused by some mistakes on beam and floor. She continued with the same theme in the event finals and took the bronze medal on vault, bars and beam. I think her gymnastics is still occasionally pretty rough, but she has great skills and potential for anything.

Elena Gerasimova (MC), one of the top juniors in the team, unfortunately seemed to be struggling with an injury. She competed the first day of the all around pretty well with a score of 53.499, but pulled out of the floor exercise during the second and only competed bars at the event finals. She has been inconsistent all year, but she was still on my Euros team. I hope she recovers fast.

Irina Komnova (MC) has been struggling with injuries all year and only competed bars. She did start a beam routine, but didn't finish. This is very unfortunate for her, but whatever injury has prevented her from training fully, has been a miracle for her bars. I never took her for an UB worker before, but her bars are looking beautiful now. She actually has a nice swing and rhythm now, and she managed to beat Klimenko to the gold medal.

Daria Belousova (MC) only competed bars this week. She just competed at the Youth Olympic Games qualifier where she looked fine, so I'm not sure if she's injured or if they just wanted to rest her. Klimenko was at the YOG qualifier as well and they didn't rest her, so who knows.

Yana Vorona (MC) finished just out of the medals for the all around with scores of 52.699 and 51.666. She obviously made a lot of mistakes, but I think she's still on the brink of making that Euros team. She did better at the event finals with silver on floor and beam.

Nelli Audi (KMC) is still not quite able to execute all of her incredible skills, but did well, finishing third all around and second on floor. Sofia Koroleva (KMC) won silver in the all around and balance beam and bronze on vault. Yulia Nikolayeva (KMC) won gold on beam.

As for my Junior European Championships team, I think Klimenko, Urazova and Astafyeva are locks and will probably all do the all around. The remaining two spots will be between Gerasimova, Komnova, Vorona and Belousova. If you asked me a few months ago, I would have said that Gerasimova was a lock as well, but I'm not sure anymore. As I said, she's inconsistent and seems to be injured. Komnova could help out on bars, but is a hazard on beam and isn't competing anything else right now. Belousova could do any apparatus in the team final, so she's a safe choice, but not a guaranteed event finals contender. Vorona could really help out on vault, and she's not bad on beam and floor either, but she's inconsistent on everything. I really don't know what to do here. What do you think?

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Links:
You can find the full results HERE.
More pictures HERE.

Notes:
Fun fact: One of Viktoria Listunova's listed coaches is Raisa Ganina, Aliya's old coach/choreographer. Yana Vorona is coached by Viktoria Komova's coach, Gennady Yelfimov.

Also, do you like me postimg about juniors? Or rather, do you follow the Russian junior gymnastics? Because the posts always get a lot less traffic than my posts about seniors and I'm left here wandering if anyone really cares about them. Because I love following the juniors, especially if they're as talented as this bunch.