The first day of the Russian Cup did not provide a very exciting competition with multiple falls and mistakes and the qualification leader was not surprisingly Angelina Melnikova who’s been consistently the top Russian all-arounder this season. Melnikova originally didn’t plan on doing all-around due to some knee problems (she said in an Instagram stream that it’s just inflammation, nothing serious) and downgraded her routines but still finished first in qualification with 54.765. Her only issue besides downgrading was a fall on beam.
Anastasiia Ilyankova reminded us once again that she is actually a good all-arounder – she won junior Russian championships in 2016. She was dealing with a back injury the whole last season which made her into a bars specialist, so it’s only now that she is showing us her all-around capabilities as a senior. Ilyankova also had a fall on beam (almost everyone did today) but got the highest score of the competition – a 15.3 on bars. That was a bit generous home scoring as she had some issues, especially on her Ezhova but it was an overall pretty good routine and definitely the best of the competition. Ilyankova also fell off the beam but had a good day other than that and placed second with 54.698.
Angelina Simakova who won silver at the Russian Championships had difficulties on beam which left her in the third place today with 53.532.
Viktoria Komova had issues across the events today and finished fourth with 52.998.
The surprise of the competition was Tatiana Nabieva who hit her routines including the highest score of the day on vault – 14.566 – for her DTY. She finished fifth with 52.865, well ahead of many national team members despite not being on the national team at the moment. In a live Instagram stream before the competition, Nabieva said that she was about 60% ready for this competition and if that’s her 60%, imagine what she could achieve when 100% ready?
Lilia Akhaimova who placed 7th here seems like she’s recovered for her ankle injury. She had the highest score of the day on floor – 13.733 – but it’s still not quite high enough to be the floor specialist at international competitions. Maria Kharenkova is still having back problems and only competed on beam and floor where she did well – she placed first on beam with 13.500 and got 13.133 on floor.
Daria Spiridonova, together with Natalia Kapitonova, were demoted to the first subdivision (in which only nine gymnasts competed). She is unfortunately still not back to her 2015-2016 level and had quite an unsuccessful day with multiple falls placing only 14th in the all-around.
The competition for the seniors will continue on Friday at 2pm local time (5am ET) and the all-around final will be streamed on the federation’s website. The results of the qualification and the final will be added together to decide the winner.
Full results can be found on the federation’s website.
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