Angelina Melnikova came to the Tokyo Olympics as the team leader, both mentally and in terms of her gymnastics. A year ago, perhaps, there were doubts that she would be able to compete at the same level as the new seniors Vladislava Urazova and Viktoria Listunova. However, Melnikova finished ahead both of them in the all-around qualification and might make three event finals – vault, bars, and floor. In addition, Russia leads the team qualification after four subdivisions (and almost certainly will not lose the lead) and is ahead of the US team by over a point.
Melnikova told media that she hoped to do better on floor but is overall happy with the competition:
“Today I did really well. I’m happy with everything but floor, I guess. I would have preferred to do better on floor. Today the girls and I did really well, our team score is really high. We hope that we’ll do just as well in the team final, we will fight for it.”
Russia finished their performance on beam and that was the event that decided who made the all-around final as Melnikova, Urazova, and Listunova were all very close throughout the competition. Melnikova said that competing on beam knowing how much that routine mattered was hard but the good results will give her extra confidence:
“It’s always difficult to know that people are behind you, nipping at your heels. This kind of mental pressure is not easy to deal with. But I’m happy that I managed to deal with it. Overall, beam is such a slippery event. I’m happy that I managed to get through it. That was mental labour. Of course, when you compete on beam and get a good score, this adds confidence for the next time. It’s hard to make predictions but I hope everything will go well [in the team final].”
In 2016, Melnikova was the youngest gymnast on the Russian team, now she’s the second-oldest and by far the most experienced. She is trying to help her teammates throughout the competition:
“I remember myself in Rio, I was a baby there. Here, I feel many times more confident. I understand the 16-year-old girls well, it’s not easy for them to deal with the stress, especially since it’s their first competition of such a caliber. [As the team captain], I support the girls, we try to create the team spirit, stay together, it’s really important. It’s important to know how to laugh with the team, cheer the up during difficult moments in order to relieve the stress.”
Her floor routine was somewhat stressful because she had to change her music and, as a result, the choreography, only three weeks before the Games due to the issue with securing music rights:
“It affected me mentally because it’s not easy at all – you’re enjoying your floor immensely and then before the Games, the most important competition of your life, half of it is changed. I even cried a bit when I heard the new music, to be honest. But my choreographer and coaches supported me, I had to learn to love and accept the music. I worked really hard on the second part of the routine because three weeks is very little for training floor, especially since the tempo is a bit different there and I changed the turns a bit. So I’m 100% sure my floor is not fully ready, not what I’m capable of. Securing the music rights is necessary for the Olympic Games. We approached the author and he demanded $25,000. Of course, the federation refused to pay that much and we urgently had to find [different] music. We literally took the first thing [we found] online, they just sent it to me and said: “Here is your new floor”. It’s no one’s fault, what happened happened. No one normally has this issue [with music rights], but I ended up having it.”
She debuted the Cheng on vault today, even though she said after the podium training that it wasn’t quite ready. However, she felt good about it during the warm-up today:
“[The decision was made] during the warm-up. I made the decision. The coaches can’t really tell you whether to do it. Such difficult vaults depend on your condition. If you feel like you can do it, you say that you will do it. If not, you don’t do it. So, when today during the warm-up I felt that I could do it, I decided to go for it. I’m not entirely happy [with it]. I did it but not as good as I had done it in the past. But I’m still happy because it was the first time I did it in competition.”
Melnikova also said she really liked the equipment and the arena:
“These are the best apparatuses I’ve ever competed on. I like everything at this arena. I like that the judges are sitting up high and there’s a lot of space on the podium. It feels very comfortable compared to the situation when the judges sit close. I don’t know if others feel it as well but I think they do.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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