European Championhips 2018: IT'S A GOLD MEDAL

Bad qualification might always be a sign of good things to come with Russia and good things came. I watched the team final during my last two hours with the hotel wifi in Cyprus and there couldn't have been a happier ending to my vacation. A gold medal for Russia! And not only a gold medal, but a major team final where Russia hit 12 routines. When was the last time this happened? It's probably better to not check. France didn't exactly falter under the pressure, but their few bigger mistakes together with Russia's incredible hit streak made sure that Russia won by a landfall. The Netherlands was third after a fight with Great Britain. I know the field at Europeans this year is very weak after pretty much every country has had their fill with injuries, but it was an exciting final where everyone genuinely fought for their medals and I really enjoyed watching it.

European Championships 2018: A disappointing start

Yesterday was the first day of competition at the European Championships and Team Russia won the subdivision lottery, but neglected to take advantage of it. I thought that the leo was pretty good, but that's unfortunately it. The rest was not. And I'm not that upset, yet. Because even Queen Aliya herself knew that qualifications are for non-important losers and putting any effort into them is unnecessary and very un-Russian. So yeah, whatever. I wished for something better and will settle for this right now. But if they continue with this shit during the team final, I'll be mad. And France will be very happy.

The European Championships is here, but I'm not!

The teams are now in Glasgow ready to compete at the 2018 European Championships in just a few days. And I'm really excited, trust me. Both teams are actually pretty young, and it seems to be the direction we've been going since the start of this quadrennium. The 2012 quad that has been backing up the team since, well, before 2012 is really struggling to keep up and the young ones are finally given the opportunity for making a name for themselves and being a team. You know, an actual team, instead of a veteran and some young headcases who don't really have to well because the veterans will make sure that a medal is placed around a Russian neck. I'm in no way against the veterans doing gymnastics as long as they want to, but this feels exciting. And scary. It could be a disaster.

I'm still weirded out by Ira in Russian gear

V-Rod Announces the European Championships Team

We all know that Valentina Rodionenko has a habit of announcing a lot of teams in a short amount of time, and she's been surprisingly quiet about the European Championships team. I've been waiting for her daily calls to R-Sport, but it hasn't happened. So this team announcement from her could actually we slightly more reliable than usually, but who knows.

According to V-Rod, the Euros team was selected after recent control training and will be Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Ulyana Perebinosova, Lilia Akhaimova and Irina Alexeeva. I don't know what to say, this is very surprising. The most surprising thing is, that Anastasia Ilyankova was left out. I can't come up with any other explanation except that she's injured. Because I was sure she was a lock. The other person left out from my predicted team is Viktoria Komova. Apparently she failed to prove herself after an unsuccessful Russian Cup by making mistakes on both bars and beam during control training and they just can't trust her on beam. I'm not that surprised about Vika's fate, but which one of these gymnasts can you trust on beam, Valentina, really???

Vika and Ilya's spots were taken by Ira and Ulya. Ira had a minor injury so she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but she's apparently fine now. And I might be just fine with her going, who else could they pick if Vika and Ilya are out of the question. I don't think she's necessarily medal material, but she's fit for the team competition. Ulya however... What kind of dream training did she have? We're not trusting Vika, but I would trust Ulya even less. I actually thought she was injured, because she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but no. She could be used on vault and bars, maybe floor, but she's even more inconsistent than Vika. I guess they're hoping that she hits that wild UB routine of hers for once for a surprise medal.

I'm still a bit weirded out by Ira's sudden return to Russia. I've seen her as basically an American for years now. And now she will be an official part of the Russian team. I just tried to picture Ira wearing a national team leo (like this one), but couldn't.

Russian Championships 2018: The Mighty Melka at the Event Finals

The Russian Championships concluded with 3 more gold medals and a silver for Angelina Melnikova. If this is going to be the peak performance of her career, I will be mad. She could have gotten Worlds medals for these performances, but no, she had to hit almost everything at Russian Nationals instead. I'm not mad that she hit, I'm still really happy, I just wish that she could stay in this zone when it really matters. Maybe she will in the future, even if Simone Biles is going to come back and make everyone else nearly irrelevant. Aliya Mustafina finally managed to run out of stamina and finished without medals. Except for her team gold of course. She had to have that one gold so that the competition was worth showing up to.

Russian Championships 2018: The Queen Is Back

The Russian Championships began with the team competition today and I knew we weren't going to get the repeat disaster of last year, because the class is back. The one and only Aliya Mustafina made her return in her usual way, surprising everyone. No simple layouts, no timers, she had real skills and real routines, less than a year after giving birth. I don't know how, but I never know how when it comes to My Tsaritsa. Because there's no way she would return and not be The Champion again right away, the Moscow team won gold. My Queen is on the top of the podium again. The second team was Central, and third Moscow's second team. Because they aren't lucky enough with their athletes for just one team.

The official livestream doesn't start until tomorrow, so my recap of the day is based on instagram and periscope videos and results.

this is me getting overly excited about a really small meet

The roster for WOGA Classic (on February 18th) was released and IT HAD RUSSIANS! Two and a half of them, to be exact. The two Baby Swans flying across the pond this time are Angelina Simakova and Ksenia Klimenko, who are both competing at the elite competition for juniors. The reason I got really excited is Klimenko, aka Ksyusha, who is currently my favorite Baby Swan. I've probably mentioned this about 100 times before, but she's gorgeous.

Just look at those lines.

Because of her young age (born in 2003), she hasn't competed internationally before, but it looks like that's about to change. Let's hope that someone in the audience appreciates true beauty and records and posts her routines on YouTube. So far it has been a pain to find quality footage of her.

Sima already has plenty of experience and plenty of typical Russian headcasing under her belt, but I'm really happy to see her too. She really underperformed at the Europeans, so hopefully she'll take this chance to really show what she can do. It's early in the season and she's a Russian junior, so probably not though...

The last half from my two and a half Russians is Irina Alexeeva. She's technically fully Russian, but since she has trained at WOGA since forever and is planning to switch nationalities, I'm only counting her as a half. She's the most advanced junior attending, so she's probably going to get quite a few gold medals.