After an unsuccessful performance in the all-around final, Ksenia Klimenko gave her all in the uneven bars final and continued Russia’s streak at the Youth Olympic Games (in 2010, the UB gold was won by Viktoria Komova, in 2014 – by Seda Tutkhalian).
Klimenko said that she even missed the meeting of the Russian delegation in the village because she was preparing for the bars final:
“Today I didn’t go to the meet and greet in the Olympic village where the Russian team was gathered, I was preparing for my competition. I was nervous because I was afraid to make the same mistake again as I made in the all-around final. I was very nervous because of the vault there. In the end, I did the vault fine but relaxed after it, fell on bars, got even more upset and then fell on beam. I’m happy with how I did today but I also want to make the top-three on beam and floor”.
“[on bars] I had so many thoughts running through my head: how to do everything right, how not to all. I tried to take in everything that my coaches told me. I tried to focus on what I was doing right before the final”.
Klimenko also said that Aliya Mustafina is a good example for her:
“I really like Aliya Mustafina. She has a strong character: sometimes things don’t work out for her at practices, she can fall, but at competitions, she will gather herself and do everything great”.
To Klimenko, this gold medal means a lot, but her eyes are set on Tokyo:
“This is definitely the most important medal of my life. I want to go to Tokyo-2020 and fight for a medal there. For a gold medal”.
Earlier, Klimenko also won silver in the mixed-team event:
“It was interesting. We didn’t communicate a lot but we supported each other. Then we congratulated each other on the medal. I only speak English a little but I was able to congratulate them”.
Her coach, Elena Guseva, said about Ksenia:
“This is a wonderful girl, hard-working and responsible. She really loves gymnastics, she likes all this, she wants it. I hope that everything will work out for her. After the all-around final, she was upset. You try to help in such cases, but she’s all in her head, she shuts down. What was left was only to lament that she invested so much work in it and was so well prepared… And the falls… She just really wanted to win. She didn’t burn out then. She just took such responsibility upon herself when she needed to compete calmly”.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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