Elena Eremina told journalists what an AA medal at Worlds means to her:
“I would call this day the happiest day of my life. But I’m sure it can get better, really. I’m very happy with my first medal at the senior World Championships, but, at the same time, I’m feeling slightly disappointed because I could become the champion. I realize now that I had it in me to become first here. In the morning, when I was riding to the stadium, I knew I had the capability to win a medal. Looking at my performance on each apparatus, my best event today was floor, but bars failed me.”
Eremina said that her medal was not a surprise or a miracle, she was working very hard to achieve this result:
“This is the result of very long work at the gym. I’ll enjoy myself for a bit now, but tomorrow I’ll forget everything and will start competing from scratch”.
Eremina will compete in the bars final today and in the beam final tomorrow. On bars, she posted the best score in qualifications and is a favourite to win.
Valentina Rodionenko said that the coaches expected good results from Eremina:
“For us, Eremina didn’t become a surprise, we knew her strengths but she became a surprise for all the foreign specialists who came to Montreal. But from our point of view nothing surprising happened today, we knew what she’s capable of. Only recently she competed at Euros in Romania, it was her first major competition at the senior level. Then, because of nervousness, she wasn’t able to show what she can do. But here Eremina showed her spirit”.
“We’re very happy with her performance in the final, although she made an unforgivable mistake on bars. But she competed much better on this apparatus in qualification. We’re blaming today’s bars on her lack of competitive experience”.
Photo: Russian Federation of Artistic Gymnastics
