Some things never change. You can count on Oksana Chusovitina being awesome on vault at every competition she enters. On the first day of qualifications in Osijek, she was first on vault with 14.184. Her vaults are still downgraded compared to 2016 but she’s regularly showing upgrades on Instagram and training Produnova again, so we’ll likely see more difficulty at this year’s Worlds. In Osijek, Chusovitina only registered to compete on vault and beam but she’s currently training all-around. Victoria Trykina, a last-minute substitution for Russia instead of injured Mustafina, became second in qualification. Trykina caught the Russian coaches’ attention last month at the Russian Champs when she took gold on vault and said she planned to debut an Amanar at the Russian Cup. Slovenian Tjasa Kysselef, a frequent vault finalist at World Cups, became third in the qualification. Yamilet Peña is hopefully getting back on the international scene with the fourth place here. She’s not doing a Produnova anymore and her current difficulty won’t get her into the vault final at Worlds, but hopefully, upgrades are coming.
The uneven bars qualification was a bit less competitive than vault, with the highest score of the day coming from Barbara Mokosova (13.133). Diana Varinska didn’t have her best day but qualified from the third place. The final will have two Hungarians – Noemi Makra who was second and Dorina Doeczoego who qualified in fourth. Varvara Zubova isn’t especially known for her bars work (she’s known best for her heart-breaking beam routines) and didn’t have the best day yesterday but qualified to the bars final from the 8th place.
On floor, Denis Abliazin had the highest difficulty (6.5) but he still can’t stay inside bounds and managed to bounce out enough times to accumulate 0.7 in neutral deductions. He ended up in 18th place. This definitely helped to establish Kirill Prokopev’s case as the floor star on the Russian team as he finished in first with a massive 15.200. Tomas Kuzmickas from Lithuania got second. Artem Dolgopyat, the 2017 silver Worlds medalist on floor was third, having some issues with execution. It was the first competition since 2017 Euros for Alexander Shatilov who missed last year’s Worlds because of an injury and the birth of his daughter. Shatilov isn’t yet back to his full difficulty and didn’t make the final here, unfortunately. He will also compete on high bar in today’s qualification.
Interestingly, Marian Dragulescu who planned on protesting in front of the government if the Romanian gymnastics federation didn’t send him to Osijek, didn’t participate in yesterday’s qualification. We’ll see today if he competes on vault.
Full results are on the organizers’ website.
The second day of qualification will be held today and the finals will take place on Saturday and Sunday. The finals will be streamed live on the Olympic Channel.
Photo: Osijek World Cup
