Russian Cup 2018: All Around Final

I know I'm bad, trust me, but I wasn't going to miss the Russian Cup. So even though I'm a bit late, I'm here with a recap of the all around.

The Russian Cup took place in Chelyabinsk this year, and the arena actually looked like an ice rink based on its shape.That reminded me of this dream I once had. I'm happy to say that the competition didn't turn out like in my dream. Not that I would have been surprised if it did, this is the Russian Cup.

The Russian team has been riddled with injuries as usual, and the most notable missing gymnast today was Aliya Mustafina. She's had problems with her knee ever since Nationals. Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka have both returned to training after their back injuries, but are not yet fit to compete, and probably won't be for awhile. Irina Alexeeva, who just made her return to Russia and has been licensed to compete internationally by FIG, is out with an ankle injury.

The scores from the qualifying competition and team final carried over and coming into the final, heavily taped Angelina Melnikova was less than a tenth ahead of Anastasia Ilyankova for the gold medal. Angelina Simakova was comfortably third only a point behind and I would have actually been very happy with this podium. Viktoria Komova came to the all around in fourth place and the always surprising Tatiana Nabieva was fifth. The last gymnast in the top group was another veteran, Daria Elizarova, after Lilia Akhaimova pulled out of the final due to some nagging injuries.

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Routines

Team Russia had some great routines last year. And plenty of bad ones... But these are my picks for the best and worst routines for 2017. I didn't bother to include that many worst ones, the few I picked just happen to be close to my heart.

The National Team of 2017

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Gymnasts

I decided to reward the team with my own personal awards honorable mentions for the past year. Some are good, some not, but that's the Russian way. Here's everyone who made my list.

The Champion of the Year: Aliya Mustafina

What can I say? She's pretty much the Champion of every year and she didn't even have to compete to win. No, she just gestated and pushed out an entire baby and returned to training only after a few months. Because she's the Queen.

"But I thought it [coming back to gymnastics after giving birth] would be way harder." -Aliya Mustafina

European Championships 2017: Podium training non-disaster

The podium training today was extremely short on disasters, I'm not sure how to feel about it. Russia is supposed to be awful in podium training, be generally lazy and sloppy with no full routines and something like 5 falls for each gymnast on every apparatus, but maybe the newbies haven't gotten the memo. Then again, Beefarm didn't feel like looking like shit either, and she's a hardcore veteran.

Meet the Team: European Championships 2017

The 2017 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships will take place in Cluj, Romania between April 19 and 23. There is no team competition this year and the gymnasts will compete for individual medals only. The federations are allowed to send 4 gymnasts and the team for Russia is Angelina Melnikova, Natalia Kapitonova, Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka. This team is very young and inexperienced with Maria Paseka being the only veteran, and two of the gymnasts having never competed in any major competitions at the senior level. It's going to be interesting to see how they do, and if any new stars will rise.

I thought I'd really quickly introduce the Russian team to those of you not as familiar with them as us gymternet regulars.

Round Lake Update with Grebs and the Euros team

The main news this time is, that Evgeny Grebenkin announced the Russian team for European Championships. I'm going to have to take a guess, that he locked up V-Rod in a closet in order to get to say anything to the media, let alone do something as Valentina as announce teams. Crazy. I'm also going to take a guess that V-Rod already has taken action about this, scratched her way out of that closet and given 100 possibly semi-offensive and probably conflicting interviews to make up for Grebs' one, but I'm not going to even bother to check. Whatever.

The (current, nothing is ever final with Russia) team consists of the main suspects, Angelina Melnikova, Elena Eremina and Natalia Kapitonova, but saw the surprise return of Maria Paseka. Masha hasn't competed since the Olympics. She took a break because of back problems and because after completing two Olympic cycles, she really earned it. But she returned to training in December and was supposed to compete at nationals, but didn't. This is one of those cases when I'm not going to really believe that she's competing until I see her marching to the arena with the audience cheering and music playing, but I'm not opposed to her selection either. Even if she's semi-back, she should be able to medal easily. I just really don't want to see another Moscow 2013 from her. It was dreadful and heartbreaking to watch and please, no more. So I really, really hope that she's ready this time. We haven't really seen anything from her apart from some training footage of a bad DTY.

The selection of Kapi, Melka and Lena makes perfect sense and I'm happy that for once the veterans are (nearly) gone and we're seeing a young team of 2000-2001-born girls. It should give them some motivation and the opportunity to rise to the occasion and prove that Russia is not just Aliya Mustafina. That they can achieve something without her and don't need her, Ksenia Afanasyeva and to some extent Viktoria Komova to carry their entire team and earn all of their medals. Of course there's a 90% chance that they will only prove that Russia is yet again nothing without the veterans, but let's stay optimistic.

Viral Infections and City of Jesolo Trophy 2017

It's only appropriate that right when the Russians make their grand return to Jesolo, Flo blocks everything. Gone are the days when Italian Gymnastics Federation streamed everything for everyone and we had hours and hours of footage from the meet. Ugh.

1. USA 2. Brazil 3. Russia

But first... The Russians didn't have the best time leading up to this competition. In another WTF RUSSIA?!? moment less than two weeks ago, their training base Round Lake was closed and the athletes evacuated after a rotavirus epidemic hit the base. Apparently during the same morning, around 50 athletes from several different sports (the training base has several national teams training there) fell ill with vomiting, fever and diarrhea. Because the athletes were from different sports and training halls, they suspected that the food in the dining hall was contaminated. I guess it could be a swimming pool too. There are some conflicting reports about whether or not any of the gymnasts were sick too (because when are there not conflicting reports about team Russia?), but they were evacuated along everyone else on the base to some old camp grounds, obviously not good for training. I don't know whether or not to laugh or cry. V-Rod tried some stupid bullshit about everyone traveling to different countries and catching the virus there, but obviously when there's so many people falling ill exactly at the same time, the source is somewhere on the base. She probably herself infected everyone on purpose to make them lose weight. But the training halls were inspected and disinfected and they resumed training fast.

Stuttgart World Cup: Spiri as a vault specialist?

Russia won the Team Challenge! But let's not get too excited...

1. Russia 2. Germany 3. Spain
This was the only picture of the podium, sorry Spain :(

The DTB Pokal Team Challenge final was yesterday and Russia showed up in one of my favorite leotards. They were promising me good things with that leo, but didn't deliver. They did win by several points, but it was not because they were really good.

Stuttgart World Cup: Not getting surgery this time

I always find it a tiny bit confusing when the Russians go to Germany and it's not for some medical treatment. But this time they're in Stuttgart, Germany, trying desperately to prepare for Europeans. Natalia Kapitonova, Elena Eremina, Daria Spiridonova and Lilia Akhaimova are competing at the Team Challenge, and Angelina Melnikova is taking part in the World Cup competition. The original team included Seda Tutkhalyan, and switching her with Kapi probably means that Seda is a lock for Euros already. They're testing Lilia, Lena and Kapi (and Spiri) trying to figure out the rest of the team.

The team with American Infiltrator Morgan Hurd

Russian Championships 2017: Post-Competition Round-Up

Now that the competition is over, let's take a look at what we saw. You also sent me plenty of links, so I think I'll go over some of them too. Oh, and Valentina Rodionenko has obviously announced the European Championships team that will change 1000 times before the actual competition, so we'll get to that too.

But let's start with a short interview about Aliya's impressions of the competition, because she managed to sum up my own opinion too:

Not Drawn to the Podium

Let us remind you that Aliya Mustafina is in a great position for a girl - the 22-year-old athlete is pregnant and taking a break from her sports career. At the Russian Championships in Kazan, Aliya was not only the guest of honor, but also did commentary for the competition. 

-How does it feel to be only in the role of a cheerleader and commentator? You don't feel drawn to the podium yourself?
Not yet, doesn't temp me [smiles]. I'm content with what I have. I'm very glad that during this pause in my career I still have the opportunity to be around gymnastics.  

-What kind of impression did the championships in Kazan leave?
The organization of the event was of the highest level. I liked everything, and from the athletes' point of view, I can tell that they agreed. Kazan gave a great opportunity to prepare for the upcoming international competitions. It was evident that the girls who competed at the Olympics are still getting back in shape. But those who are only aspiring to get to the national team, showed quite good results. This is just the beginning of the season, there are new rules it is too early to make any conclusions. 

-What can you say about the changes made to the rules of artistic gymnastics, the evaluation of difficulty in particular?
I cannot say if it will make the athlete's job easier or more difficult. The fact that they lowered the baseline of difficulty score 0.5 points has no effect. And as for the connections, you can get used to everything and it will all work out. [note: I have no idea if I translated this sentence anywhere near correctly, probably not]

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.

Russian Championships 2017: Your regularly scheduled "everyone is injured or dying" -pre-competition update

Russian sports journalist Natalia Kalugina wrote a facebook post about the Russian team ahead of the National Championships, taking place in just a few days, and as usual with Team Russia, the situation is nothing short of dystopian.

That's it. The cycle has ended. Another began. On Tuesday the team will leave for Russian Championships in Kazan. Almost none the Olympians will compete at the start of the new season. Head coach Andrei Rodionenko softly says: "And what did you expect? Olympic Games - that's the way it is, right?"

Finally some wise words from A-Rod.

Kalugina only mentioned the men's team in her original post, but in the comments someone asked about the women and she didn't have much good to say. To her it seems that the burden of leadership has fallen upon Angelina Melnikova. Seda Tutkhalyan is somewhere up there with her, but Daria Spiridonova has not yet recovered from the Olympics. Natalia Kapitonova is in the middle of a growth spurt, and [her coach] Starkin is currently trying to figure out how to adjust her routines and technique accordingly. Elena Eremina has some very bad (but unspecified) health issues. In any case, she'll miss the first half of the season. This is a bit surprising, since we just saw Lena training as usual, and she also posted a picture of herself on her way to Kazan. We have no official word on any health issues, where did this come from??? I really don't know whether or not to believe Kalugina on this one, we will see on Wednesday. If it's true, it's going to be very bad news for the team this year.

The only ones still alive.

Round Lake Update

There was a new interview with Valentina Rodionenko, published today, and it actually had a tiny bit of real insight instead of her usual ramblings.

First she discusses their outstanding success at the Olympics (okay...) with the interviewer and how she accurately predicted their good results (okay...). Then she goes all soft and mushy thanking everyone on the team about their hard work. This is the most human she has been since bursting into tears when she heard that the team could actually compete in Rio after the threat of a blanket ban. She also mentions that 2017 is a chance for the gymnasts to show their individual capabilities, but the goal of 2018 is clear, qualification for Tokyo. They're building the team with that in mind.

But then it gets more interesting.

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. 

Out and About

I've been trying to write Meet the Team: Aliya Mustafina for three days now and it's so difficult. No matter what I write, I feel like I can't adequately describe how amazing she is and why. Maybe tomorrow is my lucky day. I'm also considering splitting it in two parts, Part 1 would be her long career history and Part 2 would be what we can expect from her in Rio.
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The team had some time off yesterday and went sightseeing. It's probably frustrating to get to visit all of these amazing countries and cities and spend most of your time sweating in a training hall and stressing about whether your back can take a few more weeks of torture. So it's nice that they at least had a day to do something else. They took the opportunity to visit Christ the Redeemer and take a stroll on the beach.

Dasha posted a short video of their trip, looks like Aliya has the panda with her in Rio <3

It's technically winter in Rio (yes, the Summer Olympics takes place during winter), but both the water and air temperatures stay above 20 °C. How nice. It's actually summer in here, but much colder. I need to move to closer to the equator.

We haven't had much news about the training, but maybe it's better that way, because whenever there's news about Team Russia, it's always bad. The doctors are evaluating Beefarm today and we should know by Wednesday whether or not she can compete. Fingers crossed. Kapi is their first alternate, but I was trying to imagine her in the team and I couldn't figure out a place for her. Masha would only do vault and Kapi has a FTY, so she obviously can't replace Masha there. Melka, Seda and Aliya have DTYs so they could just go as a 4-member team without Kapi. Perhaps if they want to take some of the load off from Melka and save her and her bad hamstrings for the all around, they could put Kapi on floor instead of her. They'd lose a few tenths though. Kapi also has a more difficult bar routine, but I would rather rely on Melka, she's more consistent and has much more experience. And the only way they could use Kapi in qualification on bars would be at the expense of Seda's all around, I'm not sure if I'm okay with that. And let's face it, Kapi is terrible on beam, so even injured Melka would be better there.

I found this news clip, but they show only conditioning and beam choreography from the girls. What's interesting though, is that Dasha is shown on floor and beam, so they are probably not going to risk 3-up-3-count in qualification and use Dasha instead.

A Normal Day for Russian Gymnastics: Injuries, injuries, doping problems

I told you that it would be a miracle if Valentina managed to stay quiet until the Games. So she had statements and as usual, you're not going to like what she had to say.

Maria Paseka is waiting for doctor's approval to compete. Her back problems are back (if they ever left) and she's not training full loads right now. The doctors will decide August 3rd whether or not she can compete. I want to remain optimistic because she only has to do vault, but since I'm not an optimistic person, it's difficult. That's a huge score in team final, and likely individual medal that they would to lose. I'm just going to hope for the best.

The Three Musketeers Troublemakers

Angelina Melnikova pulled her hamstring way back in Russia and still hasn't recovered. She's also not training with full loads, and they are working to simplify her routines. That is bad, because she's extremely important to the team. She's supposed to do AA in qualifying, team final and individual final. Not to mention this could also ruin her chances for individual medals. Last time when she had hamstring problems, she looked terrible on beam. She should be able to compete, but remember Yao Jinnan in London with a similar injury? Yeah, that was heartbreaking. Melka is the future of Russian gymnastics and I don't want her first and maybe only Olympics to go that way. She deserves so much more. Again, I'm just going to hope for the best.

The third bad news to come out today, is about their reserve, Natalia Kapitonova. The FIG has been working hard to clear the Russian gymnasts for competition, but since Kapi hasn't competed internationally in any major competitions, she has never been tested for doping. Or if she has, the testing has been done in Russia and isn't considered reliable because, well, state sponsored doping programme and Sports Ministry approved sample contamination in RUSADA. There's nothing official yet, so they might be able to clear Kapi and this is just a speed bump.. It's not like she has any convictions either. For the third time, I can only hope for the best. With Beefarm and Melka and their problems, it's not good for one of the alternates to get banned from competing. UPDATE: The FIG cleared her.

We know that Valentina loves drama and isn't usually right about anyone's health (or anything else for that matter), so this might be just her usual shenanigans and there's absolutely nothing to worry about. For the fourth time, I can hope that is the case.

So, what a typical day for Russian gymnastics. All drama all the time.
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Sources: Tass and R-sport

You will want to click on those links just for the pictures of Valentina ;) Deer-in-the-headlights "I don't know no doping!!!" and evil grin "just wait for my next announcement, I have even worse news for you".
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the obligatory olympic village pics i was waiting for

UPDATED WITH MORE PICTURES!
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Yes, they are here. I already posted Aliya's, but here it is again, because she made it. And what a struggle it was, last year it started to look like it wouldn't happen. But she's there and ready to compete. And I'm happy.

I expressed earlier some relief over those rings being on the ground instead of elevated like in London (it inspired a bit too hazardous climbing), but I'm still nervous to see Aliya up there. They're gymnasts, super strong and incredibly coordinated, so they have a far better chance of surviving that climb than me, but I don't have Olympic medals to lose if I fall down. Here's Aliya and Masha tempting the fate:

Russian Cup 2016: Event Finals

The Periscope streams we had were terrible and mostly focusing on the men, so I can't really write much about the event finals. Click read more for my short recap of the events.

But more importantly, Andrei Rodionenko announced the Olympic team (yes, again, this the 100th team probably) after the event finals, and it's currently:

• Aliya Mustafina
• Angelina Melnikova
• Maria Paseka
• Daria Spiridonova
• Seda Tutkhalyan
• Alts: Kapitonova, Afanasyeva, Akhaimova

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Here are the event final medalists: 

Vault

1. Maria Paseka 14.867     

2. Seda Tutkhalyan 14.734

3. Tatiana Nabieva 14.234 

Uneven Bars

1. Natalia Kapitonova 15.333  

2. Angelina Melnikova 15.033

3. Daria Spiridonova 14.933    

Balance Beam

1. Angelina Melnikova 15.400

2. Seda Tutkhalyan 13.967      

3. Evgenia Shelgunova 13.867

Floor Exercise

1. Lilia Akhaimova 14.367      

2. Natalia Kapitonova 13.867  

3. Angelina Melnikova 13.733