The Russian Cup serves as one of the selection stages for the Tokyo Olympics. The main contenders for the Olympic teams were more or less known in advance and Russia even sent the projected teams to Euros to test them (with Kirill Prokopev replacing injured Artur Dalaloyan last minute).
In the all-around final today, Nikita Nagorny won gold, Aleksandr Kartsev won silver, and Nikita Ignatyev won bronze. David Belyavskiy and Artur Dalaloyan did not compete in the all-around here. Ignatyev was an alternate on the Rio Olympic team and is likely to serve as an alternate again because he isn’t quite at Kartsev’s level.
Viktoria Listunova won gold in the all-around final, same as the Russian and European Championships earlier this year but her victory was not as predictable as Nagorny’s. At the Russian Cup, the winner is decided by the qualification and final scores combined. Listunova came into the final in third place, losing to Melnikova by over a point and to Urazova by over 0.5 after her two falls in qualification. After bars, she was still in third after Melnikova and Urazova. However, Melnikova had a fall on beam, while both Urazova and Listunova got high scores and moved to first and second place respectively. On floor, Melnikova outscored them both but it was not enough to move from the third place. Listunova scored over 0.6 higher than Urazova on floor and clinched the first place by only 0.032. All three finished within a few tenths of each other but around five points higher than the fourth place finisher, Lilia Akhaimova.
Akhaimova is potentially a good addition to the four-person team because she has high difficulty on vault and floor. The problem is execution – she scored lower on vault and same or lower on floor than the top trio on both days of the competition. Elena Gerasimova who finished fifth would only contribute on beam on the Tokyo team but she got good scores on the event on both days of the competition.
Rodionenko confirmed to R-Sport that for men, the team is more or less decided and for women, the three spots are decided and the last spot is between Elena Gerasimova and Lilia Akhaimova:
“We decided on the teams for the Olympic Games. For guys, we count on Dalaloyan whose recovery is going well and who has another month to recover. And there’s no equivalent replacement for him. That’s why the team is, first of all, Nagorny, Belyavskiy, Dalaloyan, and Kartsev. For girls, it’s Melnikova, Listunova, Urazova and, likely, Gerasimova. The choice is between Gerasimova and Akhaimova but Gerasimova is a bit more reliable.”
Rodionenko said the AA results at the Russian Cup were predictable although on the women’s side, the order could be different depending on the day:
“The all-around results make sense, nothing unexpected happened, apart from the fact that Dalaloyan and Belyavskiy did not compete in the all-around. They only competed on four events and will compete in event finals. Even Dalaloyan will, despite the fact he had a major injury.”
“Melnikova made a mistake on beam, she fell. But, of course, she’s a leader and currently, she’s stronger [than others]. If not for Melnikova’s mistake, the top three would have still been the same, only the order would have changed. But there are no other athletes besides these three girls who could compete with them.”
If you missed the all-around finals today, you can watch the archived streams on the federation’s website. The event finals will also be streamed there. Fans outside of Russia will need to pay to access the stream (it is free for those in Russia). The cost of access to one final is $2.99 and the package for all finals costs $8.99.
June 11, MAG and WAG Event Final – 4 pm local time (GMT +7), 5 am ET, 2 am PT
June 12, MAG and WAG Event Final – 4 pm local time (GMT +7), 5 am ET, 2 am PT
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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