Yesterday, the Russian MAG team qualified to the team finals at Euros from the first place, with almost a seven-point lead over the second place. The team started quite shaky on the high bar, as this is the event they generally have issues on, and there were some last-minute decisions about the lineup – Artur Dalaloyan was on the start list but got replaced by Nikolai Kuksenkov who has less difficulty but is a bit more consistent on that event. Unfortunately, Kuksenkov fell and so did David Belyavskiy. However, Russia hit the rest of their routines and is a strong favorite to win the team final tomorrow.
Valentina Rodionenko commented on the team’s performance in qualifications to RIA Novosti:
“Everything went great. The way it was supposed to, only the high bar failed us a bit. That’s the only apparatus on which we didn’t make the final but this event is quite weak on our team. They made mistakes. But in general the guys did a good job, they did almost everything to the maximum, there’s no one even close to them on parallel bars. On some events, the judges were a bit stingy with the scores, of course, but it’s all good for now. I hope it will continue this way”.
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