The 2021 Russian Championships have started today in Penza with MAG qualification and team competition. Originally, all national team gymnasts were supposed to compete except for Ivan Stretovich who is recovering from wrist surgery. However, Nikita Nagornyy fell ill with strep throat shortly after his arrival in Penza and had to withdraw from the competition.
Artur Dalaloyan, the 2018 World AA champion and the 2019 World AA silver medalist, predictably took the lead in the competition today with 85.331. Dalaloyan said during a Clubhouse session ahead of the competition that he had two main goals for this competition – to be in great physical shape and to achieve consistency on pommel horse both through physical and mental preparation. He seemed to have achieved the first goal but not the second since his PH routine did not go especially great. Dalaloyan also leads qualification on vault with 14.866 and high bar with 14.300, is in second place on parallel bars (14.666) and floor (14.666) and in third place on rings (14.533).
Dalaloyan was only slightly over 0.1 ahead of the rising star of the Russian team Aleksandr Kartsev (85.198). Nineteen-year-old Kartsev made his senior debut in 2019 and went to a couple of World Cups but wasn’t yet able to break onto major teams. He significantly improved since then and is now one of the main candidates for the European Championships team and might potentially make the Olympic team, especially if Ivan Stretovich continues having health issues. Kartsev also made event finals on floor, pommel horse, parallel bars and high bar where he finished second with 14.066.
David Belyavskiy finished third with 83.198. For Belyavskiy, the main goal of this competition was to compete in the all-around consistently, since his last AA performance was back in 2019 at the European Games where he won gold. He has also been working on upgrading his rings routine with his sights set on making the four-person Olympic team – in that case, he would be expected to compete on all four events and rings are currently his weakest event. That is paying off and Belyavskiy even qualified to the rings final, albeit in the last spot with 13.966. This will be an interesting development to see Belyavskiy in the rings final but not in the parallel bars final where he finished only 10th with 13.700. However, he had a great day on his other notable event, pommel horse, and qualified to the final in first with 14.933.
Denis Abliazin is still recovering from multiple leg injuries he suffered in 2019 and he has yet to start landing vaults on competition surfaces. Because of that, he was only able to compete on rings at these nationals and finished first with 14.633.
Dmitry Lankin known for his powerful floor is also dealing with an injury – his ankle limited him in training and he was not able to compete on floor here. He ended up doing only five events and did not have a great day on vault and pommel horse. Nevertheless, he made event finals on rings, vault, parallel bars, and high bar.
Vladislav Poliashov’s path to the Olympics will likely be via Apparatus World Cup Series where he currently shares the lead on parallel bars. He is a decent all-arounder but was a permanent alternate on Russian teams and focusing on his best events instead of all-around seems to be paying off more. He did only four events and made finals on three of them. On parallel bars, he finished first with 15.166, half a point over second place’s Dalaloyan. On pommel horse, he qualified in second with 14.733 and on high bar, he finished 5th with 13.766.
Kirill Prokopev is leading floor with 14.733. He is trying to make his case for an individual Olympic spot as a potential floor medalist.
The competition continues tomorrow with WAG qualification. The third subdivision will be the only one with a professional stream and it will feature Angelina Melnikova, Viktoriia Listunova, Vladislava Urazova, and Lilia Akhaimova. You can watch the third subdivision at 5pm local time (9am ET, 6am PT) on the federation’s website. The first and second subdivisions will also have some notable WAG gymnasts like Anastasia Iliankova and Aleksandra Shchekoldina but there is no official stream for that. They might be streamed on the federation’s Instagram, so check that out tomorrow.
Full schedule of the competition can be found here.
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