Russian Cup 2018: Event Finals

The event finals of the Russian Cup were pretty underwhelming, it seemed like everyone important was already over this competition and thinking about getting some rest before the European Championships next month. Melka only competed in the uneven bars final which was a good decision in my opinion.

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.

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.

Baby Swan Graduates: Varvara Zubova

Varvara Zubova (Варвара Зубова), Varya, or ZubZub is from Moscow and represents the city at national competitions. She is coached by Vladimir and Elena Kuznetsov/a. She became gymternet famous when she was just a teeny tiny gymnast, so I still can't actually believe that she's a senior. Not only was she gymternet famous, she was also noticed by the national team when she was just a tiny baby, so her international career is very long, illustrious and occasionally strange. I swear she was once sent all the way to Asia just for a compulsory floor routine.

Her many, many medals from Russian Nationals include 2014 gold on floor and silver on all around, 2015 gold on beam and bronze on all around, 2016 gold on floor and bronze in the all around and 2017 silver on floor and bronze in the all around. Internationally she's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion. Her other international competitions include the ever traditional Gymnix, Jesolo and European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won bronze in the all around.

Baby Swan Graduates: Class of 2018

It's 2018 and some brand new former Baby Swans are braving the Russian senior team. This year we have technically six gymnasts that have been or are national team level (most of them have spent a decent amount of time injured during these past few years), but two of them I count as more promising ones and two more the most promising. We'll still go over each one of them individually to wish them the very best. May they all exceed expectations and survive the dangerous-for-little-Russians transition into senior.

With our well-wishes out of the way, here they are: Angelina Simakova, Varvara Zubova, Aleksandra Schekoldina, Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk. We'll remember you in our prayers to GymGods!

Angelina Simakova and Varvara Zubova

Aleksandra Schekoldina and Valeria Saifulina

Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk

More posts about these Baby Swan Graduates to follow.

And just because... Here's an ask that I received last year that made a reference to one of my Baby Swan Graduates posts from 2017. It unfortunately went unanswered like most of my asks last year, partly because I'm a bad person and partly because tumblr's asks were having this bug that made new asks invisible to me, but I'm really sorry for not answering and thank you so much for sending it to me. It made my day when I finally received it.

Yes, she really did it. I'm so proud.

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

Russian Junior Nationals 2017: The Invisible Competition

Junior Nationals was last weekend and I was hoping for some videos to appear before going over it, but there are still not that many and I'm not sure if any more will show up. The story of this blog, it seems. There aren't any pictures either, it's like the whole thing didn't even happen. I added some pics from Jesolo instead.

So there's not that much to write about, scores and "she usually looks beautiful on this apparatus" only go so far, but here's a quick recap anyway. As usual, the juniors are split in two groups based on Russia's national sports merits, MC (the older and more accomplished girls) and KMC (younger and less accomplished girls, mostly those born in 2004).

From front: Varvara Zubova, Ksenia Klimenko, Anastasia Agafonova and Valeria Saifulina. Look who's hiding again, what a surprise.

Russian Hopes 2016: Get your hopes up for Klimenko and Simakova

Russian Hopes was held in Penza at the end of November and I've been waiting for videos to show up to make a post about it. There still aren't that many videos, but by now it's probably all we're going to get, so let's see what we have to look forward to during the next quad.

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.

Euros 2016: Golden Baby Swans!

The Russian junior team won team gold ahead of GB and Romania with a huge 4 point lead. I'm so proud! Just look at the happiness and let it fill you, because tomorrow might not go as well.

My baby swans started on their best apparatus, uneven bars, with hit routines.

say 'hi' to the bear!

The girls are finally in Bern, all in one piece. Bless the tape that holds those fragile ankles together. We should be especially grateful to have Afan there, because apparently she thought that this was a good idea:

Video, jonka Ксю Афанасьева (@ksenia3333) julkaisi 25. 05ta 2016 klo 2.26 PDT

I need to have a serious conversation with you, Ksyu. It's about the Olympics and my poor little fangirl heart that can't take a Russian disaster which you might cause with this sort of behavior. Stop it.

The Baby Swans for European Championships

Firstly, I don't know how I feel about the scheduling of the junior competition of the European Championships (it's every two years, even-numbered years). On one hand, I like seeing the juniors during an Olympic year because the quadrennium is ending and it gives a glimpse of what is to come during the next one. But on the other hand, the upcoming Olympics takes all the attention away from the juniors because we are so focused on the seniors who are either trying out their upgrades for the Olympics, or battling it out for the last few spots on the teams.

Having juniors at the Euros during odd years would also make sense, because it would give the girls who become seniors during the Olympic year (e.g. Grishy and Melka) a chance to perform on such a big setting before being thrown into the pressures of the senior level right before the Olympics. Most of the Olympic year seniors do get to go to junior Euros, but I think that going two years before becoming senior is entirely different than one year, it makes it less real to me. If that makes any sense. Probably not. Why don't we just have the junior competition every year to settle this out? And while we're at it, the whole AA vs. team situation doesn't make any sense when they still have individual event finals every year. Just seems lazy to me. I remember that there was a good explanation for this weird arrangement, but I don't remember it. Please enlighten me if you know it.


And now I've written half a page before even mentioning anything about the team, it's:

• Anastasia Ilyankova AA (2001) 
• Ulyana Perebinosova AA (2001)
• Elena Eremina AA (2001)
• Varvara Zubova BB/FX (2002)
• Angelina Simakova VT/UB (2002)

This team will definitely try to defend their team gold and fight for top spots in the AA and UB. They should be able to nab some other medals too.

My favorite out of this bunch is Lena. She's very pretty and promising, but unfortunately didn't do her best at nationals. And poor Simakova... She is actually one of Russia's most promising all arounders, but performed pretty underwhelmingly at nationals and wasn't picked for AA. This also means that she won't get to perform on floor, her best apparatus and best chance at finals. Ksenia Klimenko, who basically outshined everyone on this team during nationals, will have to wait for 2018 since she's still too young for Euros. And another great junior who missed the team is Aleksandra Schekoldina. She has the same strengths as ZubZub (BB/FX), but less experience.

Baby Russians at Gymnix and my shower thoughts (nothing creepy I swear)

So I was going to write about the Russian babies at Gymnix sooner and I failed. Surprise. I got caught up playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. And I actually went to school yesterday but my failure was mostly caused by gaming as usual.

So Gymnix? It didn't go so well, but it wasn't a disaster either. The Americans dominated as I suspected, but my little swans managed to grab a few medals, team silver most importantly. The Canadians won bronze in front of a home audience.

(Is it just me or do the Russians look a bit cranky there? Practicing that Russian bitchface I'm sure. Can't move to senior level without it. But I'd be cranky too if I was wearing a leo with weird boob tentacles.)

The Americans also swept the all around podium even with their best gymnast, Jordan Chiles, having an incredibly rough day and finishing way down the standings. Anastasia Ilyankova scored highest out of the Russians, but came in 4th after a low score on uneven bars, her best event. Event finals ended with gold for Nastia on uneven bars, and silver for Varvara Zubova on beam (yay!).

This week in Russian gymnastics

I've had a busy week filled with working on my final thesis and procrastinating. Mostly procrastinating, because whenever I should be doing something important I remember that I have Cities: Skylines. I start playing and notice that the city I built and played for hours and hours has been broken because of a new update. I use mods on plenty of games, but that shitty game is the only one that always, ALWAYS breaks. And then I have to start all over again. It's so frustrating. What was I talking about again?

Oh right, gymnastics. I was trying to explain why I didn't post anything about gymnastics this week. But nothing too important really happened, just a lot of little things so I'm just going to scramble together all the news here in one post. We have lots of great instagram action from Round Lake, Shelgie being Shelgie and Valentina not knowing what's going on. So just the usual.

Let's start with the most important: Rio. Rio Test Event to be precise. Actually, there's no test event for the Russians, because they are not going.

Russian Team for Gymnix

It has been 8 years (two whole quads) since Nailya Mustafina went to Canada and had one of the best competitions of her short lived career there. It was way back when the two Mustafina sisters were just tiny Russian baby swans taking over the world together.

8 years later and it's time for new Russian babies to take that important step on their way to becoming A) a star (someone like Khorkina, Aliya, Afan) B) Russian regulation hot mess (everyone else on the senior team) or C) one of those amazing Russian juniors who never make it to seniors (Nailya). Let's hope this year's Gymnix team belongs to the category A. Or at least B. Although, there's a 99% chance that they'll end up in C...

But I love Gymnix. It's one of those really rare competitions where we can see (always plenty of videos) gymnasts from youth to junior national team level competing together and the Russians actually attend every year. This year's Gymnix will be held 3-6 March with Anastasia Ilyankova (b. 2001), Ulyana Perebinosova (b. 2001), Valeria Saifulina (b. 2002) and Varvara Zubova (b. 2002) attending. These are not their top juniors (except for Ilyankova, this is actually her 3rd Gymnix), but this is another reason why I love Gymnix, we get to see gymnasts we don't usually see so much of.

I'm going to post more when we get to see some videos, but here's quickly a few things that I'm looking forward to:

• Ilyankova's amazing bars. She's seriously amazing on this apparatus and her routine isn't the usual cookie cutter Russian style.
• Ilyankova's everything else. She's a headcase, but what else is new. I'm hoping she gets her shit at least somewhat together for this competition, she's going to be senior next year so I'd love to see some improvements.
• Perebinosova's floor. She's actually quite clean there, and charming too. So she has potential, I'm hoping she can harness that.
• Perebinosova's bars. Like Ilyankova, she has an interesting routine (Ezhova!), but unlike Ilyankova, it's really, really rough. I'm hoping she has cleaned it up. 
• Definitely not Perebinosova's beam. I don't want to die from anxiety attack.
• Saifulina's floor and beam. She really has lovely lines and presentation, especially on beam.
• Zubova's everything. I've been stanning her since forever, she has way too much charisma for such a tiny thing. I even love her name so much, she really needs to become a star. And she does gainers. And stays on the beam, with nice routine too. Go win everything girl. We can always hope for a miracle on bars, right?

Here's the list of competitors:

Olivia Cimpian, yay! Just please don't embarrass my baby Russians by being more elegant than them. And yeah, Team USA is going to crush everyone. They rarely even come to Gymnix, what's up with that...