Elena Eremina who won the silver medal in the bars final in Montreal said she hopes her lucky streak continues and she will win gold in the beam final:
“I hope that tomorrow there will be gold, I’ll try hard [laughs]. Today I did well. Of course, I wanted to be the first, but the Chinese [gymnast] was put in first, but I’m also happy with the second place. I think it’s very good for my first time. I arrived herein a great mood, I really wanted to compete, and when I stepped on the podium, I wanted it even more. Of course, I was nervous before the start, but, otherwise, everything was fine. I think I can upgrade my dismount and connections on bars, to make my routine better”.
However, Valentina Rodionenko was pretty unhappy with the second place and thought that the judges unfairly favoured Fan Ilin:
“The today’s gold medal on bars should’ve been ours. Lena Eremina didn’t perform worse than in the qualification, there were problems with the judging. We’ve been talking about it and will continue doing so. Tomorrow is the technical committee’s meeting and we will raise this topic there. This is just outrageous. The girl who didn’t make a single mistake was lowered to the second place. Yes, the Chinese gymnast had 0.2 more in difficulty, but Lena’s execution quality was much higher. This is upsetting, but we’ll draw our conclusions.”
Rodionenko was also unhappy about Iliankova’s score but pleased with Iliankova’s performance at these Worlds:
“Nastia Iliankova was very nervous today since she never competed at this level before, but she gained great experience. Judges here did not appreciate her enough, but to become the fourth gymnast on bars in the world at your first adult [international] competition is really great.”
Emin Garibov also thought that Iliankova wasn’t judged fairly and should’ve placed higher:
“Regarding Iliankova, here I believe that the Belgian gymnast was not judged correctly. In my opinion, Iliankova did [her routine] way cleaner and better, [she] should’ve been at least third”.
Iliankova actually told the media that she believes the judging was fine and she’s pretty happy with her performance:
“The girls have the difficulties of 6.3-6.5 while I have a 6.2. I’m not upset, I have something to strive for, I have an incentive, so there’s that. Yes, I think the judging was objective. Regarding my health, I was 100% ready, it’s just there were little mistakes here and there, I’ll need to work on them, but otherwise, I did my job. I’ll be upgrading for the next competitions. I’ll be adding connections, learning new elements and aim to take the first place. Actually, I thought that it would be much scarier to compete at the Worlds but turns out that you’re just like at a regular competition. Inhale-exhale and do your routine.”
Photo: Russian Federation of Artistic Gymnastics
