Valentina Rodionenko has told R-Sport that Aliya Mustafina may have her international comeback sooner than we expected as she is preparing to compete at Osijek Challenge Cup in Croatia (May 24-27). Mustafina also plans to compete all-around at Russian Championships in Kazan in a week (May 16-22).
Rodionenko said:
“Aliya will now compete at the [National] Championships, most likely in the all-around. She’s preparing [to go] to Croatia for a World Cup, everything’s ok. She might be able to get on everyone’s nerves at the championships – character, competitive anger. And let the young ones to compete against her. She’s treating it very seriously, like never before. I have an impression that she had not been training like she does now even during her peak years. She has a finished bars routine, the hardest part was connecting one element and she’s done it”.
According to Rodionenko, the whole national team will be at the Russian championships, so it looks like Angelina Melnikova and the rest of the Russian team for Jesolo will not get any rest having to compete in Kazan only a few days after Jesolo.
In addition, Viktoria Komova got the highest score on bars at the national team verification last week:
“Everyone’s going to Kazan [who are on the national team] except for the ones who had surgeries. Paseka and Eremina won’t be there, but the rest are going. Even Stretovich will compete in the all-around. Komova will also compete, she did quite well at the verification, she had the highest score on bars”.
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