Angelina Melnikova won the all-around today by a landslide but she of course was asked about her thoughts on the comebacks of Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova who were already getting into the medal fight without even reaching their full difficulty. She told TASS that she’s happy for their comebacks:
“I don’t feel nervous because the competition will be stronger with the return of Aliya and Vika. On the contrary, I’m very happy that they are competing again. I understand how hard it was for them to come back after taking a year off”.
Melnikova was on fire both days of the national championships despite only competing in Jesolo a few days before but she said that her mistakes on floor today can be attributed to being tired. She still has two more competition days as she qualified to all four event finals.
“Today I was set to fight for the win. I have new routines and since the beginning of the year, I’m trying to perform them cleaner and more confident with every competition and so far I’ve been able to do that. I only recently competed in Italy and haven’t completely recovered so it’s hard to keep [the level in] the all-around in such conditions”.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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