Angelina Melnikova qualified to three event finals and competed in two of them – vault and bars – today. However, it seems that she was a bit tired after competing for three days last week and she finished 8th on bars after a fall and fifth on vault. She wasn’t a main medal contender on vault where she was the last qualifier to the final and simply didn’t have enough difficulty with a DTY and a Cheng. On bars, however, she was fourth in qualifying and had a score of 14.933 that would have been enough for the silver today, as all the finalists had major errors in their routines today. In the end, the three top qualifiers on the event won medals and only their order changed – Derwael led the qualification and won gold, Anastasia Ilyankova was third in QF and won silver and Sunisa Lee was second in QF and won bronze.
Melnikova told journalists that while she was physically ready, mentally she did not have a good day:
“Today was a really bad day for me. I can’t explain what was the reason. My body was ready but I was emotionally down. I’m happy that I went for my harder vault and managed to do it more or less well. On bars, I didn’t manage to do the beginning well. The second element was already off somehow, it was a weird mistake. And, naturally, the rest was also off.”
Valentina Rodionenko said the federation expected the Russian gymnasts to win two medals on bars:
“On bars, we expected two medals but Melnikova made a mistake, there’s nothing to do. Gelya needs to get herself really together in order to fight for a medal on floor tomorrow. Honestly, on that event, we have higher expectations for Vika Listunova. She has a more difficult and more artistic routine, we hope that it will be appreciated.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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