I couldn't catch the live feed because I've spent 60 hours of this week at work, but I'm trying to write this post based on scores and any videos I can find. As of yet, no one has posted the full coverage to YouTube.
Vault:
Tatiana Nabieva won with a great DTY for her (only minimal Nabsyness) and pretty piked but solid Lopez. The rest of the DTY crew came right after her, Viktoria Trykina in second and Eleonora Afanasyeva in third. Of the Euros vault contenders for Russian, Lilia Akhaimova was fourth and Angelina Simakova last. My wild guess based on the scores is that Lilia had some major issues with her DTY and Sima fell on her first vault.
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| 1. Tatiana Nabieva 2. Viktoria Trykina 3. Eleonora Afanasyeva |
Uneven Bars:
Angelina Melnikova won gold with another great routine. She had a few incomplete handstands, but overall her bar work has been amazing in this competition. Viktoria Komova got silver after breaking a connection and fumbling with her grip at the end of the routine, which resulted in bailing on a dismount and a form break. Not her best work. Sima's easy, but consistently clean routine got her the bronze medal and Nabs continued her good performance for fourth place. Anastasia Ilyankova's routine was nearly identical to her routine from the all around. She hit her feet on the ground on the Ezhova, and her handstands were unusually bad for her. She was fifth. Daria Spiridonova performed a solid, but heavily downgraded routine which earned her the sixth place. Natalia Kapitonova finished last with a hit routine and made me sad all over again.
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| 1. Angelina Melnikova 2. Viktoria Komova 3. Angelina Simakova |
Balance Beam:
The beam final was a the usual splat fest with everyone falling, which resulted in a very unusual podium. Daria Elizarova took the gold with a solid routine with only a few minor wobbles. She started crying right after her routine though, so I'm not sure if she hurt herself somewhere there. The dismount was maybe a bit of an ankle stinger, but I can't figure out anything else wrong with the routine. A new senior Elizaveta Volodina won silver, but I couldn't find a video of her performance. Ilya came in third and I couldn't find a video of her performance either, but based on the score I'd say it wasn't a particularly goof routine. I wouldn't even count out a fall. Varvara Zubova fell twice, they really need to get rid of that...umm..."Onodi". Maria Kharenkova fell on a layout and generally spent a lot of time wobbling. She also finished with a scary dismount landing on her hands and knees.
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| 1. Daria Elizarova 2. Elizaveta Volodina 3. Anastasia Ilyankova |
Floor Exercise:
Sima, who's proven to be the most consistent floor worker Russian has, took the gold medal with another clean routine. Lilia stumbled her way through her routine, but her ankle didn't fail her and she won silver. She's nowhere near her peak condition and I don't know if she's going to get there in time for Euros. That ankle is really unfortunate for Russia. Ilya's landings were a bit low, but her routine earned her the bronze medal. Ksenia Kamkova had several sketchy landings and she finished fourth. Zubs had another bad final and crashed her first pass. She wasn't quite on during her performance either and was sixth. Vika was seventh after a few stumbles and sitting down her double arabian. And Masha K. really, really made me sad this time by failing most of her passes. She only landed one, putting her hands down on two and falling on one. She was understandably last.
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| 1. Angelina Simakova 2. Lilia Akhaimova 3. Anastasia Ilyankova |
Is it me or is Ilya just extremely unhappy in every picture? Can't really blame her, I would be too after losing that UB gold to Melka.
As I said, the event finals weren't really anything special. No one did their best and it's not like they needed to. At this point the European Championships team is pretty clear and unless Irina Alexeeva surprises or Aliya Mustafina suddenly recovers, I just don't see any other options. It's going to be Angelina Melnikova, Anastasia Ilyankova, Angelina Simakova, Viktoria Komova and Lilia Akhaimova. And if one of these gets injured, we're screwed. This is the easiest time I've had of picking a team in years and it's not a good thing. I'm actually having a lot more trouble picking the junior team because right now they have considerably more depth. They had their own Nationals at the same time with the Russian Cup and I'm going to write a post about it in a few days when I have some time off.
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Links:
More pictures HERE.
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