Russian team came to Stuttgart quite depleted. First, an injury kept Aliya Mustafina out of the running. Then, Angelina Simakova who was on the nominative team, got injured during the training camp. They ended up having to bring two event specialists, Maria Paseka and Daria Spiridonova, having only four all-arounder on the team, two of them compete at such a big competition for the very first time. It would not be a surprise if Russia did not win a medal, especially considering how strong China and France were looking ahead of the competition. However, Russia confidently placed third in the qualifications. In the final, they started strong on bars but then had two falls on beam, from Akhaimova and Shchekoldina. Following that, Melnikova delivered her best beam routine of the whole quad and the team continued a confident performance on floor and vault.
Melnikova, the rock of the team, said the team was extremely happy with their result today:
“First, everything went well. Then we got a bit nervous after the beam. We knew that we needed to cover up the mistakes we made and we managed to do just that. We were finishing on our relatively strong event – vault, so we had a bit of an advantage. It’s great. For us, the second place is like the first because we can’t yet compete with the Americans. But this time, the gap was significantly smaller than at previous World Championships, so we’re even happier.”
In 2018, the USA won over Russia by almost nine points while this year, after the USA had a fall on beam and a major mistake on bars, the gap ended up being around six points.
Melnikova feels it was a bit harder to compete with young girls at their first major team competition:
“I guess this time the silver was a bit harder for us to get because we have two new girls on the team. They’re very young, they’re 16 years old, we were very nervous about them because we didn’t know how they would behave at a big competition like this with such a crowd. But we are happy, they did a good job.”
Melnikova also tried to focus on consistency in the team final and even downgraded her floor a bit in order to get higher execution scores.
She was also very happy for the Italian team that won bronze after finishing 8th in the qualification:
“Actually, we didn’t even expect them to win a medal. It was pretty amazing, they did a great job.”
Maria Paseka, a team veteran, was the alternate, since, according to the coaches, she’s been struggling with her second vault and had fewer prospects for an individual medal than Spiridonova. Paseka saw her job as to help the team as much as possible. While the teams were marching for the introductions, Paseka was chalking the uneven bars for her teammates. She said she was trying to find a balance between assisting and interfering:
“You’re trying to help the girls but, at the same time, not to bother them in any way.”
Valentina Rodionenko, a national team’s coach, said the team is tired from constantly being second to the USA, and hopes this will change next year:
“Currently, the US team is above the competition, but the team from second to sixth all had equal opportunities. It was hard to compete with them because this competition is a qualifier for the Olympic Games. Even though we already had a spot, we didn’t know how well the other teams would be prepared. But, of course, we can’t be content with the perpetual second place. We managed to score higher on bars than the Americans and we got quite close to them on the uneven bars. However, we completely lost on beam and floor. We now need to think about the Olympics and about what we can do in order to be able to compete with them.”
Even though Angelina Melnikova had two days of solid competition with no falls or other major mistakes, Rodionenko found a way to criticize her, saying that she expected a higher score from Melnikova on floor (even though Melnikova downgraded) and complaining that the gymnast doesn’t work hard enough. Her new favorite gymnast seems to be Anastasia Agafonova who was praised despite the fall on beam:
“You saw how Agafonova was shaking on beam. We understood that, we knew that she could make a mistake. But we have to try them out sometimes, they need to experience this kind of stress as you get at the World Championships. We’re happy with her performance despite the mistake on beam.”
Angelina Melnikova will continue competing in the all-around, bars, and floor finals. Lilia Akhaimova will compete in the all-around, vault, and floor finals. Daria Spiridonova will compete in the bars final.
Full schedule of the World Championships and useful links.
Tomorrow, the Russian men’s team will try to get revenge for the last year and make history by winning the first team gold for Russian MAG. While women has achieved it before, and Russian men had several silver finishes, they have never won team gold after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
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I feel like Gelya is about one insult from VRod away from defecting. She’s improved so much and it’s just never enough.