Anastasia Ilyankova’s road to the Olympic silver was full of bumps. She was one of the top Russian juniors in 2016 and was on the gold-winning Russian junior team at Euros. Individually, she placed 10th in the all-around and won gold on bars and beam. However, the transition to senior level did not go so well – constant back injuries mostly prevented her from training AA and she usually competed on just bars or bars and beam. In 2017, she finished 4th in the bars final at Montreal Worlds. In 2018, she was able to compete in the all-around at domestic competitions and was seemingly doing well but ended up not making the teams for Euros or Worlds. In 2019, she won gold on bars at the European Championships and hoped to medal at the European Games but an allergic reaction took her out of the bars final (she qualified in third place). For Worlds, Russia opted to take Daria Spiridonova and Anastasia Agafonova as their bars specialists.
Ilyankova was given a chance to qualify to the Olympics as an individual via Apparatus World Cups but was unable to beat Fan Yilin for that spot. In February of 2020, after the Baku World Cup was cut short and it was clear that Ilyankova would not qualify an Olympic spot, she, along with Daria Spiridonova and Maria Paseka, was removed from the Olympic training squad. At the time, it was not clear whether Russia would earn any additional spots and one-eventer Ilyankova did not fit on the team. While Spiridonova and Paseka stopped training, Ilyankova continued, even though she wasn’t getting training camp invitations. Her bars difficulty was high but that’s not exactly a rarity on the Russian team. She certainly wasn’t beating her teammates domestically – she placed 7th at the Russian Championships and 3rd at the Russian Cup this year. However, she was one of the few Russians outside the four-person team with at least a potential to have a final-worthy routine and that got her an Olympic spot. In the qualification, four of the six Russian gymnasts placed in the top 8 and Ilyankova had the best result out of them. In the final, while Angelina Melnikova struggled through her routine and fell, Ilyankova hit most of her routine and it was enough for the silver.
She said:
“Actually, when I dismounted, I didn’t think I’d get a medal. I was in some sort of a haze because at the moment, there was just me and the apparatus, I was completely focused. I only realized that I’d get a medal when I got off the podium – about three or four minutes later. I did my routine well but it wasn’t my full difficulty. But I did everything cleanly.”
“Right now, I’m just happy. If I had been told in advance that I’d win silver, I’d have responded that I would be happy. For me, the silver medal is like gold. It was actually very difficult, I kept waiting the whole time. I waited during the first day of the qualification, then I waited for a week. And now I waited for six hours.”
Ilyankova wasn’t on the gold-winning Russian WAG team but that medal inspired her:
“The team gold gave me more energy. My mood instantly lifted and I was motivated to do my best routine. Today, I had the goal to get my head in order and control myself. Everything worked out.”
“Bars originally weren’t a good event for me. When I made the national team, I started getting better on it. I’ve been training this routine, the one I did at the Olympics for about two years. I plan on upgrading this routine. I can’t yet say whether I’ll take a break in my career. I need to sit down and think.”
On Instagram, Ilyankova wrote:
“I want to thank everyone who believed in me and supported me. Thanks to the coaches, doctors, masseuses, my family. I still can’t believe it but it happened. And yes, I did it, even though you didn’t believe in me…”
Aliya Mustafina won gold on bars at the Olympics both in 2012 and 2016. When asked about Ilyankova’s performance, she said:
“Ilyankova did almost all of her routine well. The only thing was that she didn’t connect the flight elements but it didn’t affect her routine much. It was hard to compete for the gold because Nina Derwael had much higher difficulty. But it’s really good that she won silver.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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Thank you– I’m grateful for the context this story supplies!