New and Old Rules at the Gala

Aliya Mustafina, Angelina Melnikova and Daria Skrypnik performed at a gymnastics gala in France over the weekend. Apparently no one was interested in seeing poor Melka and Dasha, but we have a Periscope recording (with a quality of an old potato) of Aliya, because the Queen is not to be ignored.

I feel like screen recording another screen recording in order to post the routines here would be a bit too much, so I'm just posting the links this time. Here is her bars routine to New Rules by Dua Lipa and her beam routine, unfortunately without a sound.

We obviously have new rules on bars, because there's choreography! And old ones on beam, still no acro series. And I know the routines are just for exhibition purposes at a gala, but still. I'm actually really impressed about that bars routine. Her stamina is not there, which is expected at this point, but she still managed some good handstands and a dismount. The first half of the beam routine was pretty terrible, but she eventually seemed to get the hang of it. And she had a new element, a split ring jump.

The only footage I found of Melka is this one, but it's shot from far away. She fell on the layout, because she always falls on the layout (GET RID OF IT ALREADY), but the rest of the routine actually looks pretty good.

If someone has better footage, or anything from Dasha and Melka, let me know.

Russian Championships 2017: Finally a good day

Today was Day 1 of event finals, and we had a high quality stream again. Too bad that whoever was responsible of the stream, didn't really care about WAG and kept the cameras on the men. They actually tried to show both by having a tiny box in the corner of the screen with a different footage, but gave up on that within two minutes and went back to MAG. The Russian WAG team is much more accomplished than the men, just saying. At least show both tomorrow.

I would have really loved to see more, because it looked like the girls were finally, finally getting their life together. Not only did we have plenty of acceptable and good performances, but there were even a few brilliant ones. 

As a plus, we had Aliya Mustafina commentating. She has such a relaxing and soothing voice that I think she could make even beam finals less nerve wracking. She will be put to the ultimate test tomorrow.

Russian Championships 2017: It got worse

Today was the AA final and we actually had the best stream we've had in awhile. Too bad the performances weren't able to match it. I'm really missing Aliya right about now. She usually looked fabulous no matter how small a meet, and even when she wasn't ready for a competition, she failed with poise and elegance. I can't really say the same about this lot. When they suck, they just suck. Ugh. But it wasn't really as terrible as it seems, I still think that they can get their shit at least somewhat together by Euros.

Although Elena Eremina's face says it all about this meet.

AA: 1. Natalia Kapitonova 2. Elena Eremina 3. Evgenia Shelgunova

Russian Championships 2017: Sluggishness AND upgrades aka Best of Both Worlds

So I predicted either sluggish B-grade gymnastics or surprising upgrades and I got both? Thank you Team Russia!

Melka is eyeing the position of a new Russian Queen now that Aliya is out of the way. 

Russian Championships started out with a combined team competition and individual qualifications with Moscow taking the team title ahead of Central (2nd) and St. Petersburg (3rd), and Elena Eremina leading the all around with a first day score of 55.366. Clearly Kalugina had her confused with someone else as she looks relatively injury-free and right now is a serious contender for the Russian European Championships team. She's actually a serious contender for the European AA podium with the way things are going.

Best and Worst of This Quadrennium

Someone asked me to pick my "superficial favorites" and "podiums of shame" on tumblr and I originally meant to add those posts to the series about my favorite routines from this quadrennium, but forgot. But good thing this a blog, not a newspaper so I can just forget stuff and then post it whenever I like. So here we go. The categories were a part of the request, not picked by me.

SUPERFICIAL FAVORITES

BEST LEOTARD

1. Aliya's "lucky blue leo". This leo had some great moments (its Worlds medals include 2013 BB gold, 2014 BB & FX bronze), and it' pretty too. It was definitely one of the favorites among the team too, worn by many.

2. Euros 2016 Team QF. I first wasn’t quite sure about this leo because the rhinestones that go right across the chest looked a bit awkward, but now I actually love the design. Very simple, but still something different. And the color is amazing. The "antlers" on the neck line also good because of the coloring, I'm not a fan of the design when they stick out too much.

3. Baku TF day 2. I just love simple, sporty leos and this one is great. A+.  The patriotic colors are nice and don't seem "forced", and the leo looked good on anyone who wore it, a rarity. I guess this is technically from last quad (they wore it in Jesolo 2012), but I’m just going to ignore that.

A special mention for these two throwback leos:

Vika’s leo gives me those good 2010 vibes, but with a new color. And it must be even luckier than Aliya’s lucky blue one, because Glasgow was the only major competition Vika competed in all quad and this leo got her through alive with a gold medal to top it off. And it looks beautiful on her.

Seda’s vintage leo has survived 3 quads (baby Aliya included), and it actually looks great on her. I love it. 

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (II)

Since the uneven bars is obviously the team's best apparatus, this post is going to be a longer one.

UNEVEN BARS

My favorite has to obviously be Queen of the Uneven Bars Aliya Mustafina just being herself  and taking what's hers, the Olympic gold to be precise. She successfully defended her gold on the same apparatus from London, which is an incredibly difficult feat in gymnastics. She also won Russia's only gold in gymnastics, just like she did in London. After struggling with injuries and low difficulty all quad and being counted out from the race to the Olympic gold, she brought her best to Rio, because that's what mattered. She actually ended up having the highest difficulty score out of all the contestants in the final, and since her execution is always impeccable, there was no stopping her. 

Rough Going at Varna World Challenge Cup 2016

Evgenia Shelgunova and Daria Skrypnik competed at the Varna World Challenge Cup in Bulgaria, and managed to win 3 medals, gold for Dasha on bars and silver and bronze for Shelgie on bars and floor, respectively. I wouldn't go ahead and call it a successful competition though, despite hitting two bar routines, Dasha especially looked really rough. I was in pain just watching her floor from qualifying.

She scored 12.700 for a routine without a fall, so she managed to get deductions for pretty much everything. She looks like she's really winded from the beginning and I have no idea how she managed to land the tumbling, pure grit I suppose, and I really congratulate her for that. I must have taken a lot of willpower to get through that. She obviously could use some a lot of conditioning, but her beam didn't go any better. She fell on her Y-turn, downgraded her dismount and looked close to tears afterwards, so maybe she was hurt? She didn't limp though, and the fall didn't look ad at all. Or maybe it was just a really, bad horrible no good day and she didn't feel right. Sometimes you just have one of those days.

From Russia to Rio: Balance Beam

Third part part of the series, it's time for the terror of women's gymnastics (be scared, be very scared)...

BALANCE BEAM:

This is where things get really unpredictable. The best gymnasts Russia has on balance beam are currently nowhere near actually making the team, so the lineup is not going to be ideal, no matter how things work out. But when you can only take 5 gymnasts, you can't have the best everywhere. Not to mention that if things go wrong on balance beam, they go really wrong, even if they can put the best gymnasts up.

I really don't think Russia should have any problems putting up a good beam rotation. But they shouldn't have had problems in Glasgow either but somehow managed to screw it up. So we won't know until it's over.

Russian Nationals 2016 - Event Finals (Welcome back Seda and Afan)

I really have nothing to say. Most gymnasts performed just as well or bad as before, except for my dear Seda, of course. And Afan who returned from the dead to show everyone that she still has it when she bothers to care.

From Russia to Rio: Uneven Bars

And we go on to the second part of this series of Team Russia's routines for Rio, time for uneven bars.

From Russia to Rio: VAULT

With the Olympics approaching fast, I thought I'd take a look at what Team Russia has to offer for Rio. This is the first part (1/4) in the series.

The Babies Are All Grown Up (part 1): Melka and Dasha 2.0

The year just changed, 2016 arrived and do you know what that means? 176th age crisis for me? Most definitely. But even though my ever increasing years on this earth was the first thing on my mind, you were probably thinking about the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. If you weren't you're a bad gymfan and I and the gymgods condemn you! Watch Nadia's perfect 10 uneven bars routine 10 times to be forgiven.

But this post is about the 2nd thought you should be having after thinking about the Olympics: we have brand new seniors! Another batch of pretty Russian babies is all grown up, the 2000 model to be specific. I'm going to introduce you to (or rather remind you of) the most important ones, Angelina Melnikova, Daria Skrypnik, Natalia Kapitonova and Ekaterina Sokova.

Part 1 will focus on Angelina Melnikova and Daria Skrypnik.