Angelina Melnikova qualified in first two both vault and bars final but was able to hold on to her lead only on bars, while taking a second place on vault.
The vault final actually ended up being more competitive than bars today with the first four places having the same difficulty. Viktoria Trykina emerged as the vault winner, performing clean DTY and Lopez and surpassing even Melnikova’s result from the first day. Second-year Trykina has been kind of overlooked by the national team despite winning beam at the last year’s championships. She’s currently on the reserve national team but haven’t made any international teams so far. In a mini-interview in the mixed zone she said she hopes her victory here will help her get onto the main national team and maybe even go to Euros as she is currently training an Amanar and hopes to compete it at the Russian Cup in June. It looks like many girls realized that having two strong vaults can help them make the teams, especially since the designated vaulter Maria Paseka is currently recovering from a back surgery, so we might see more strong vaults from Russia in the future.
Melnikova had a good DTY today and a slightly less successful Lopez. Tatiana Nabieva with the same vault combo managed to get into the third place ahead of Eleonora Afanasyeva. Nabieva isn’t actually on the national team this year but perhaps this performance will make the coaches reconsider including her.
1. Viktoria Trykina 14.200
2. Angelina Melnikova 14.049
3. Tatiana Nabieva 13.999
4. Eleonora Afanasyeva 13.966
5. Angelina Simakova 13.816
6. Yulia Biryulya 13.266
7. Seda Tutkhalian 13.050
8. Ksenia Kamkova 12.683
Bars that were supposed to be a stacked final with Melnikova, Ilyankova, Komova, Mustafina and Perebinosova all fighting for medals, ended up being a huge splatfest with half the gymnasts falling. Uliana Perebinosova fell twice during the routine. Anastasiia Ilyankova had problems with her Ezhova again (the third day in a row) and then fell on her dismount. Mustafina seemed a bit tired and had issues throughout the routine slowing down in the second half and then landing the dismount to her knees. Viktoria Komova also had some issues and received a score that was almost a full point lower than her qualification score, however, today it was enough for the third place. Irina Alexeeva finally had her moment at these Championships and won silver after performing exactly the same routine as in the qualification and getting exactly the same score. Her current difficulty isn’t yet up to the level of the strongest Russian bars workers but if she stays consistent it might be the key to getting onto that team. Alexeeva also did a one-arm pirouette that we don’t usually see from Russian gymnasts. Angelina Melnikova also got a lower score than on the first day by 0.4 but still hit a mostly clean routine. It’s interesting to see Melnikova being the most consistent gymnast on the Russian team after what was going on last year but hopefully she finally figured it out and will keep doing what she’s doing.
1. Angelina Melnikova 14.266
2. Irina Alexeeva 14.066
3. Viktoria Komova 13.633
4. Angelina Simakova 13.500
5. Viktoria Gorbatova 12/633
6. Aliya Mustafina 12.233
7. Anastasiia Ilyankova 11.433
8. Uliana Perebinosova 10.966
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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