Valentina Rodionenko commented on Angelina Melnikova’s Worlds all-around gold to the media:
“Gelya did a great job! Way to go, she got herself together, she was under a heavy strain, considering the little injuries she has. But she knew she needed to win this competition. And a month before the trip we told her, “Gelya, you will win this competition! Everything depends on how composed your will be.” She has enough experience, she has a name. She needed to go through the competition without major mistakes, which is what she did.”
She acknowledged the difficulty of having such a short break between the Olympics and Worlds:
“Everything happened the way it was planned. Angelina was ready to win the all-around with this roster of competitors, everything’s fine. And in no way her victory should be diminished. It was very hard for her to compete after the Olympic Games that finished only recently. Melnikova showed clean routines on every event. It’s hard for me to compare her routines in the Olympic all-around final and now but she much much calmer today and did everything more confidently.”
Earlier, Melnikova said she’s considering taking a break next season. Rodionenko is not sure how serious Menikova is about it:
“Yes, Angelina has such thoughts. And we won’t insist too much if she will decide to skip the next season. But I think it’s just talks right now. It will be very hard to skip a year and then come back.”
Some doubted that Melnikova’s title is worth the same as those of Khorkina and Mustafina because the competition was not attended by some of the top gymnasts. Rodionenko refuted those claims:
“She has the titles! She’s an Olympic champion. She’s an all-around World champion, she has tons of various victories. It means a lot, she’s already at this [historic] level [with Khorkina and Mustafina”.
Rodionenko also acknowledged Urazova’s fourth place at her first senior World Championships as a major accomplishment:
“Is Urazova not deserving of congratulations? She’s a young girl, it’s her second senior [all-around] competition. In my opinion, she had it the hardest. It’s a pity she made a mistake but Urazova isn’t yet back in the required shape after the Olympics. All the celebrations, congratulations, and isolations [because of the award ceremony at the Kremlin] lasted a long time. Some got back in shape faster, for others, it was hard. First of all, Urazova has grown up a bit. She’s 17 years old. It was very hard for her to get back in shape. Very. And she hasn’t fully gotten in shape yet, honestly. But even better for her, she fought. I told her to make two event finals and she made them. A bad experience is also an experience. She made a mistake on beam, but what can you do, it’s an event that requires special responsiveness, which she lacked [this time]. She fell on something she always does perfectly.”
For some reason, none of the Russian TV channels bought the rights for the World Championships. Thus, the competition where a Russian gymnast finally won the World all-around title wasn’t shown on TV. Rodionenko expressed her unhappiness with this:
“There are some sports being constantly shown where, in general, there isn’t much to see. But the sports where Russian athletes are leaders, including artistic gymnastics, are for some reason not considered to be necessary to show. It’s a sore topic and I don’t know who needs to take care of that. It’s just a disgrace.”
