Nineteen-year-old Aleksandr Kartsev came to Penza as the defending all-around Russian champion. However, he was not expected to repeat the victory as his first one happened in the absence of the strongest Russian gymnasts in November. Almost all national team members skipped that competition due to COVID concerns, however they came to the current championships. Then Nikita Nagornyy got strep throat and withdrew from the championships, while Artur Dalaloyan and David Belyavskiy both had falls. Kartsev finished second in qualification and first after two days, with 168.862 ahead of Dalaloyan’s 167.629 and Belyavskiy’s 167.597.
Kartsev also made some mistakes in the final, getting an AA score that was almost 1.5 points lower than his qualification score but he says his luck was that Dalaloyan made more mistakes:
“Today was harder than the first day. For everyone, I guess. It’s the second day of the all-around, that’s why it’s hard. The competition was tough and if Artur didn’t make the mistake on bars, he would have won. But he gave me a chance and I took it.”
Other gymnasts on the team highly praised Kartsev, saying he is a very hard worker and extremely talented. Kartsev is in contention for the European Championships team. Valery Alfosov, the head coach of the MAG team, also said that Kartsev is a candidate for the Olympic team:
“At the moment, Kartsev is a candidate for the Olympic team. Of course, I’m really happy for him. He improves in difficulty and execution with every day.”
Nikita Nagornyy says he was not surprised with Kartsev’s performance
“The results didn’t surprise me much. Actually, all of us noticed two-three months ago that he [Kartsev] can show what he’s capable of. Considering that neither Artur nor David came here in the best shape, Sasha was able to grab the win because of that.”
Artur Dalaloyan had several falls over the two days of competition, probably due to a combination of factors. Like Nagornyy, he got ill while in Penza but decided not to withdraw. And last night, his wife Olga Borodina gave birth to their second daughter, which made it hard for him to focus on the competition.
Dalaloyan told media:
“I competed with a pink band today. Yesterday, at 22:55, my wife gave birth to our second daughter, which makes me incredibly happy and this is the most important thing. It’s the happiest event for me and the rest doesn’t matter. I can’t yet say what her name is. When my wife gives me the green light, then I’ll post it, I guess, on my Instagram. When your soul and your mind are turned in a bit of a different direction, it’s hard to get routines together. I can say that no event was easy for me, there were issues on each of them. It’s all due to emotions. Everything will happen later and here I could relax a bit.”
Dalaloyan fell on his dismount on parallel bars today:
“On bars, the element before the dismount didn’t work out, there was too much honey on the bar and my hand slipped, then I was thrown off by inertia. According to the rules, when such a thing happens, the dismount isn’t fully counted, while the fall is, and I got punished by losing more than two points because of this mistake even though I repeated the dismount. Turns out, you’re not allowed to do that on bars. I tried to explain what happened, that I didn’t fall on the dismount and that there was a mistake and this unfortunate incident happened before, on a handstand. They didn’t want to listen to me and that’s fine, I don’t care at all.”
Dalaloyan wanted to try a new element on pommel horse here, since he is upgrading on the event but didn’t feel well enough:
“I wasn’t able to try it at this competition, my condition didn’t allow for it. From the first day, the qualification, I had a cold. This also affected my performance”.
He is not too concerned with the results as this was mainly practice for international competitions for him:
“I became stronger from this, more experienced and attentive. I will do it differently the next time. Russian Championships are meant for gaining experience, becoming more attentive and strong and continuing to fight. No one’s path to medals at major competitions can stay problem-free. I am fine with this.”
Nikita Nagornyy who withdrew from the competition due to strep throat plans on returning to training next week:
“I’m still recovering. I don’t have fever and my throat doesn’t hurt anymore, the inflammation went away. I came to the gym today and did light training. I feel more energy. I was feeling weak for four days but now the energy is coming back. I’m going home today, I think that I’ll do some light training tomorrow as well and start full training on Monday.”
The competition will continue tomorrow with event finals at 12:00 local time (5am ET, 1am PT).
It will be streamed live on the federation’s website.
Full schedule of the competition can be found here.
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Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
