Mustafina: I expected a medal for Eremina

Aliya Mustafina discussed the results of the women’s all-around with MatchTV. According to Mustafina, she expected Eremina to become a medalist in the all-around:

“I expected it, specifically from Lena I expected it because I know her personality and I knew that if a tiny bit of luck will be with her today, she’ll definitely get into the medals. [Her medal] is only her doing because even though her competitors made mistakes today, they weren’t major. And with her, in the all-around, on each next apparatus, there was improvement, improvement, improvement. That’s how she managed to get from the 7th place to the 3rd.”

Mustafina thinks that Eremina’s mistake on bars in the all-around final was because this combination is relatively new for Eremina and needs more repetitions:

“The element wasn’t difficult, but she does a transition from the high bar to the low and she didn’t make it. That is, she made it, but a bit too far, so she couldn’t get into a stalder because of it, and then she couldn’t connect it to the next transition which gives her 0.2 bonus. It’s a very precise element, so the fact that she made a mistake on it – generally, it could happen, it happens. Of course, it was due to nerves and also, as far as I know, she hasn’t been doing this combination for very long, so in order to be able to do it every time, you need to repeat it a lot.”

Regarding the performance of Angelina Melnikova, Mustafina said that she was very well prepared for the Worlds and it’s probably just a difficult period in her career which will be over:

“I can’t say she wasn’t prepared because she was very well prepared. She won at the Russian Cup which served as the trials [for the Worlds team], she did great both days of the competition, didn’t make mistakes. What happened here? Hard to say because when I was at camp, watched her, talked to her – she doesn’t understand what’s happening. I think she’s at some sort of a turning point like girls go through the adolescence, but she actually went through her adolescence fine, [the problem is] only with the performances…”

Mustafina refuted the hosts’ suggestion that Melnikova was too affected by the fame after Rio:

“I didn’t see that she relaxed after the Olympic Games. She works, she tries hard, she works a lot in the training, gets upset when something’s not working for her. But, I guess, everyone has to have this kind of a [difficult] period and she just needs to get through it – and not to break, that’s the most important thing.”

Photo: Russian Federation of Artistic Gymnastics