This week Almaty hosted an international competition – the Open Cup of the President of Kazakhstan’s Artistic Gymnastics Federation. Yes, that name’s a mouthful, but the important part is that it was Milad Karimi’s first competition of the season! Which he promptly won.
Besides gymnasts from Kazakhstan, the competition featured Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Jordan.
The gymnasts competed according to the levels of competition and not ages, so juniors and seniors competed together.
On the men’s side, Milad Karimi won the all-around at the Master of Sports level with 82.600, followed by Nazar Chepurnyi of Ukraine with 79.000 and Rasulzhon Abdurakhimov of Uzbekistan (78.500).
Roman Pak, a new senior from Kyrgyzstan, also competed and took the 10th place with 73,300. Pak also made 5 out of 6 event finals and won silver on vault.
Karimi posted a respectable 14.600 on floor in qualification but didn’t do so well in the event final where he became third with 12.600. He won gold on parallel bars and became fourth on the high bar.
Ahmad Alsaud from Jordan continued a tradition of small gymnastics countries being good on pommel horse and took gold with 14.000.
Yerbol Jantykov and Akbar Jalali from Kazakhstan won gold on rings and vault respectively, while Rasuljon Abdurahimov and Husniddin Abdusamatov from Uzbekistan won gold on floor and high bar.
On the women’s side, the Master of Sports program was dominated by juniors – the first four places were taken by girls born in 2003-2004. Anastasia Miroshnichenko from Uzbekistan took gold with 50.600. Anna Matveenko from Russia won silver with 50.500 and Aleksandra Shametko from Kazakhstan won bronze with 49.350. Miroshnichenko also won gold on vault and beam and silver on bars. Aleksandra Shametko won gold on bars. Indira Ulmasova (also a junior) from Uzbekistan won gold on floor. Another junior from Uzbekistan, Dildora Aripova, won the Candidate to Master of Sports division with 51.450. So, while it looks like Uzbekistan has some promising juniors, Chusovitina can’t retire just yet.
Photo: Kazakhstan’s Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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