Russian WAG team ended up in a difficult situation without much depth. After Aliya Mustafina and Angelina Simakova got injured, they were left without enough all-arounders and with specialists whose strengths don’t match. They brought to Stuttgart Angelina Melnikova, Aleksandra Shchekoldina, Anastasia Agafonova, Maria Paseka, Daria Spiridonova, and Lilia Akhaimova. Paseka and Spiridonova are currently both strong on just one event, thus they cannot complement each other. If Russia left both of them on the team, they would end up with just three routines on floor, which is less than ideal. Theoretically, Paseka is able to do bars and Spiridonova has a beam routine. However, at the podium training yesterday, both did just their signature event in the qualifications. Both seemed strong but Daria Spiridonova looked a bit better.
Today, Valentina Rodionenko confirmed to TASS that Maria Paseka will be the alternate, thus, missing a chance to fight for a vault medal for the second year in a row:
“For girls, it will be quite difficult, our team isn’t well-balanced. I would even say that we do not expect great results in the team competition. Yes, we can place second or third but we can also place fifth or sixth. Based on what we saw in training, the American team is above the rest of the competition, but the teams between second and eighth are more or less equal, including our team. But they will need to go out, do their routines, not to make mistakes and, perhaps, our girls will be in the top three. There’s no way for them to fight for the first place. Currently, we are not ready to compete with the US team.”
“In the individual competition, I don’t hope for our gymnasts to fight for the first place in the all-around but, maybe, they can fight for the third place. It’ll be a bit of a stretch, though. Right now, our team is not in the state to fight for other places because there were injuries, there were many reasons. We’ll fight for event finals, we can fight for a medal on floor. The only event where we have chances for gold is bars. Agafonova and Spiridonova are both very well prepared. On vault, I think, Lilia Akhaimova will be able to fight for a medal.”
“We earned an Olympic spot, and the team that will go to the Games will be completely different. They are training now but they could not compete at these World Championships because they were born in 2004. It’s a completely different level and different routines, with the hope that there, we will be able to compete with the Americans.”
Rodionenko said that Vladislav Poliashov will once again be the alternate for the men’s team, while Artur Dalaloyan, Nikita Nagornyy, David Belyavskiy, Ivan Stretovich, and Denis Abliazin will be on the team.
“In the all-around competition, no doubt, the favorites are Dalaloyan and Nagornyy. I’m sure that our boys will fight for medals on every event in the event finals. We have high hopes, the guys are ready to compete on the highest level. In the team competition, I’m waiting for a great result. I think, with such a team that we have today, and with such routines that the guys are doing, they have to fight for a team medal. China and Japan have really good teams, we expect to compete with them and that the competition will end in the best possible way for us.”
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