Russian Championships : All – Around

Some notes/reflections :

– Missing is Anna Dementyeva, out with tonsillitis. Poor thing is always sick. Get her some vitamins and a happy meal, pronto. Anastasia Sidorova is also out. I was told she’s awaiting knee  surgery. I probably read that on some third world message board, and can’t back up my sources, but she’s not competing for some reason, right? The last time she was injured was because she fell off her bicycle, so I suppose anything is possible. That’s 2 A-listers down.

– Aliya Mustafina was only supposed to compete a couple of events, but true to form showed up on all 4. She vaulted a DTY, and is clearly making progress. Her beam routine and her selection (and order) of skills is really odd to me. A front aerial + back tuck as her flight series? Really? It’s also odd not to see her doing a helicopter-legged twisting dismount. I’m sure this is a work in progress. Besides the dismount, she certainly didn’t give much away in the context of the routine.

(WARNING : This feed was extremely choppy, so excuse the video quality) :

She’s still clearly not in top form, but winning the All-Around at your National Championships a mere year after tearing your ACL is nothing to scoff at. She’s moving in the right direction.

– Grishina missed her new toe-on Shap 1/2 transition on bars. Actually, she wasn’t even close.

Her second fall of the day came on beam, where she would have scored a 15 +.

She never misses the double turn. Ever. It’s infuriating. Svetlana Khorkina was commentating, and sounded none too pleased with her. Her all-around tally (57.699) is still pretty impressive for 2 unnecessary falls, but she should have won the all-around outright.

Interesting that she had the highest score of the day on her “weakest event” (floor). Gone is her pesky double arabian in favor of a 2 1/2 + 1/1. She should twist as much as possible, her form is lovely.

She really is fabulous. Fabulous, but a headcase. A fabulous headcase.

– Speaking of headcases, it seems as though Ksenia Afanasyeva has passed her crown to her younger teammate. She had a great day. Her bars were the best I’ve seen her do in several years, yet her coach felt the need to spot her, thus losing valuable points. She also loses value of the skill, so down in the 13’s we go.

Her beam routine was the best I’ve seen her do in a long while.

Removing the arabian and replacing it with the free-roundoff is a wise decision, and her start value isn’t embarrassingly low without it if she could manage to connect everything. Which is asking a lot from her, we realize. Typically, homegirl has trouble connecting 2 b-level leaps. But we’ll give her an A-for-effort on the Onodi + side somi combo. It’s very close. That double pike dismount seems to be the demon-seed of her beam set. But I’d rather see it over-rotated than under-rotated.

She seems to be jumping on the leaping-out-of-passes-bandwagon just in time for London. Not in an obnoxious Lauren Mitchell way, but she’s trying to incorporate a stag leap out of her last 2 passes (again, LOL at the feed).

Khorkina made sure to praise Ksenia for not gaining weight. “She doesn’t have time for that.” What a shallow skank. We love her.

– Yulia Inshina is better on bars than I remember her. Her beam is still a snoozefest, but at least she hit for the most part.

– This is the second domestic meet in a row where Kristina Goryunova scored really well on beam (14.933). This is Russia’s most unstable event, so that makes things kind of interesting. Is she ever going to make another major team? No, but it’s still interesting. What’s also interesting is that she’s still competing after the whole doping ban incident. Either she really loves gymnastics, or she has no shame.

– Speaking of never making another major team, Pavlova continues to compete. She did a couple of nice vaults, a lovely (albeit wobbly) beam set, and continues to dismount bars with my old Level 6 compulsory flyaway.

– Finally, I have to bring up the rumor about Nabieva possibly retiring. I read this a week ago on a message board, but dismissed it as gossip not reliable enough to even mention. But then Khorkina brought it up during the broadcast, and Nabieva ended up not even competing. We’ll see if she actually retires, but I can honestly say that it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

She seems more suited these days to drinking with the hockey team, feathering her bangs, and shoving $$$ down a strippers g-string than being bothered to do gymnastics. Which is fine by me. It’s how I usually spend my Saturday nights.

On the other hand, who can we count on to produce the next flying rabies of an Amanar?

Top 10 results below, and a report from IG here.

1. Mustafina – 15.167, 15.233, 14.8, 14.333 = 59.533

2. Afanasyeva – 15.1, 13.677, 14.887, 14.733 = 58.387

3. Grishina – 14.833, 13.8, 14.233, 14.833 = 57.699

4. Inshina – 13.3, 14.367, 14.4, 14.267 = 56.334

5. Pavlova – 14.8, 13.133, 14.367, 13.367 = 55.667

6. Goryunova – 13.6, 14.1, 14.933, 12.667 = 55.3

7. Stepanova – 12.45, 13.8, 14.325, 14.05 = 54.625

8. Rodionova – 13.633, 14.267, 14.267, 12.267 = 54.434

9. Belokobylskaya – 13.467, 12.1, 14.567, 14.0 = 54.134

10. Chibiskova – 14.0, 11.8, 13.633, 13.533 = 52.966 = 52.966

-Bronwyn