My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (IV)

So this one should be probably named "My Favorite(ish) Routines", because Russia and floor was kind of a disaster this quad. It was a real shame too considering that they were AMAZING last quad, Aliya, Vika, Grishy, Afan, Belo, Myzdrikova, Semy, Demy...how I miss Russia's 2009-2012 floor. Oh well, since I have to stick with this quad, we might suffer from a bit of an Aliya-overdose. If that's even possible.

It actually took me days to assemble nice routines, and after spending more days looking at them and grinding my teeth over naming this mediocre mess "my favorite", I ended up dividing them into two groups. The first group is dedicated to my actual favorite routines, and the second group are the routines that were highlights in the middle of everything terrible, but not really that memorable. Enjoy. Or not. I don't blame you if you fall asleep after the first group.

FLOOR EXERCISE

My actual favorite routines:

Aliya Mustafina immediately brought on her A-game starting in 2013 with TWO new floor routines. I absolutely love her routine from 2013 European Championships. It's very different from her later routines, it almost reminds me of 2010 Aliya. There's just something understated but captivating about it, and that beautiful pose during her "down to the floor" choreography gave us some great pictures. And look at her execution too, the first tumbling line is pretty much perfect, the other tumbles are very well landed too, and powerful. The spins have control, even the almost "Mustafina". We just haven't often seen the perfectionist side of Aliya on floor this quad, but this performance definitely stands out to me. And the extensive amount of time she spends in the corner breathing and uhm... "dancing" before her last tumbling line, it just makes me nostalgic, such classic Aliya.

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (III)

BALANCE BEAM

The day of the 2013 World Championships balance beam final I was visiting my grandmother with my mother and missed it live, but when I came back, I immediately went to my computer (I wanted to watch the actual competition before looking at the results), but before it was even on, my mother had turned on the TV and yelled at me that they were showing highlights. I ran to the living room and looked at Aliya with her gold and my mother was like "isn't she your favorite gymnast, she won, how nice" and I was like "NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND this is BALANCE BEAM, it's her worst apparatus, SHE'S A WORLD CHAMPION on BALANCE BEAM!!!!". And that was Antwerp summed up for me. Of all the great beam workers in that final, it was Aliya who somehow took the gold. This routine is fucking legendary and it kills me that people who didn't follow gymnastics back then are like my mother and will never understand those feelings. Those two years when Aliya's beam was a complete disaster and she scored 11 at an international major competition are lost from memory and there's nothing shocking about her being a World Champion on beam anymore.

Former Gymnast, Current Fangirl

Maria Bondareva may have retired last year at the ripe old age of 16 (yes Valentina, she retired for real and I don't think you even noticed), but it doesn't mean that she has forgotten her teammates who are hard at work preparing for Rio. She has started uploading tribute videos on her YouTube channel and so far has one for Vika, Nastya D. and Melka and more to come.

While you check her channel for her videos, I'm going to take a moment to pay tribute to her by remembering her better days.

Look at that: beautiful, clean and confident. And not only that, but little Masha had the enviable ability to stay on the beam, no matter the situation. She was also capable of scoring in the 56-57 range in AA when she was 12. You can't say that about a lot of the current senior team and no one there can be trusted on beam, we learned confirmed that in Glasgow.

Let's light a candle for all future talented ingenues from Russia. May they make it to senior level in one piece.