Angelina Melnikova continued her dominance today winning the all-around title at the Russian Cup. The all-around was decided by the results of the qualification and the final combined together and Melnikova was consistently first on both days of the competition despite downgraded routines and a fall off the beam in qualification. Originally, Melnikova was supposed to compete either only on bars or on bars and beam due to some knee issues but after arriving in Chelyabinsk she decided to compete AA and looks like this decision paid off. She received 109.363 after two days.
Anastasiia Iliankova once again confirmed that she is a strong all-arounder, staying in the second place even though she had multiple mistakes today and received almost three points less than in the qualification. She is still struggling to hit her Ezhova on bars and had some issues on floor but both routines are relatively new for her and need more competition practice.
Viktoria Komova was second in the final but third after two days. It was a difficult competition for her since, as we learned from the commentary, she has recently injured one of her big toes and also just had bronchitis. She was allowed to use extra mats on the landings because of the injury. Even with all the troubles and two falls today (on beam and on her double tuck on floor) she managed to get 52.932 today and 105.93 after two days showing that she’s really back and is a pretty strong all-arounder. According to Vera Kiryashova, who commentated today together with Emin Garibov, Komova is still trying to get her inbars back hoping to upgrade her bars difficulty.
Angelina Simakova like everyone in the top group (except for Melnikova) fell off the beam and she also had a fall on vault. She finished third in the final and fourth after two days with 105.465.
Tatiana Nabieva again placed 5th with 103.664 – this performance should surely put her into consideration for the national team. As Kiryashova, who commentated today, is Nabieva’s personal coach, we got quite a few training updates and some fun facts about Tatiana. Turns out, Nabieva generally loved learning new elements and learned them fast but she struggled with learning Shaposhnikova transitions for two years. However, it only took her two weeks to learn the famous Nabieva release after it was first suggested she should do it. According to Kiryashova, currently Nabieva really wants to get back on the national team and make international teams again, so she’s working very hard. At the Russian nationals she finished 12th but here she was consistently 5th and had the highest scores on vault which is an event that Russian team really needs help on. She is also training multiple upgrades on beam and floor which were a bit delayed by a minor leg injury in May. Hopefully, the national team will pay attention and we will see Nabieva more this year.
Daria Elizarova finished 6th after two days with 103.531 and Varvara Zubova was 7th with 102.797. According to Kiryashova, Zubova suffered an ankle injury only two weeks before the competition which limited her performance here. Lilia Alhaimova was 8th after two days with 102.763. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any of her routines today as the broadcast was only showing the top group.
The full results are available on the federation’s website.
Tune in tomorrow to watch the event finals live at 12pm local time (3am ET).
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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