Rodionenko: The top three in AA earned their right to compete at Euros

Valentina Rodionenko told media that the top three in the all-around in both MAG and WAG will likely be selected to go to the European Championships in Basel. For MAG, the top three gymnasts were Aleksandr Kartsev, Artur Dalaloyan, and David Belyavskiy. For WAG, it was Viktoriia Listunova, Vladislava Urazova, and Angelina Melnikova. Rodionenko said:

“We’ll announce the full teams later but for now one thing is clear – that the top three girls and guys in the all-around earned their right to compete at the European Championships. This is for sure. There will be verifications and tests. Everything will go as it’s supposed to. We have to be the best.”

She also noted that Listunova, Urazova and Melnikova are currently the main candidates for the Olympic team and she thinks they are more or less at the same level:

“The top three could’ve placed in a different order but currently, these are the strongest gymnasts [we have]. We are seriously betting on these three for the European Championships and the Olympics. Melnikova is older and more experienced but she was more nervous here. She and Urazova both had mistakes”.

Rodionenko said the Olympic routines are more or less ready now:

“Of course, everyone’s routines are ready. Now they’re becoming more consistent and clean in order to get to a high level. The routines have been finalized, we know their difficulty, we know who’s doing what in competition. It’s too late to learn something new here, we need them to be consistent. When you put in something new, many things get disrupted. But I can say that we’re ready more than anyone for the upcoming Olympics”.

While the team is preparing for the European Championships in the end of April in Basel, there are some fears that the competition will be canceled:

“We have booked everything for Basel. We will have to fly via Zurich, apparently. There are many difficulties, many flights were canceled. We hope that nothing will get canceled or postponed because there’s no time [to postpone it]. There’s very little time left. When competitions are postponed, it’s announced in advance and so far they’ve been silent. We hope that the European Championships will take place, but the situation with the pandemic there isn’t so good. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, I’ll tell you frankly.”

The 2020 European Championships have been postponed and then moved twice (from Paris to Baku to Mersin for WAG and from Baku to Mersin for MAG) but the only change for the 2021 competition so far has been that it will take place without spectators.

Rodionenko said that while they didn’t have many COVID-19 cases on the team, some gymnasts were still affected. Training interruptions and lack of competitions meant the return at the Russian Championships was difficult but they managed it well:

“People had not competed in a year and they did quite well at this competition. We expected it to be worse. We’re happy with how the Russian Championships went. For us, this year without competitions was very painful. There were many problems with the pandemic but, thank God, we’re managing, it seems. We had few cases of coronavirus infections. But when people have to miss almost two weeks of training because of that, it derails their training.”

There was not a lot of public information about COVID-19 cases on the team. Sergei Naidin and Andrei Rodionenko tested positive back in April which led to the cancellation of the training camp, but both were asymptomatic and claimed their results were false positives. Lilia Akhaimova tested positive ahead of the Friendship and Solidarity competition in Tokyo. Her second test a day later was negative but she still spent two weeks in quarantine. Nikita Nagornyy says he learned he has antibodies for COVID-19 through serological testing. Viktoriia Listunova revealed she had COVID-19 in January and had to downgrade at the nationals due to missed training.

Rodionenko said the coaching staff is working on pacing the gymnasts properly during this unusual season:

“Everyone’s waiting for the European Championships and the Olympic Games and this state of constant readiness can become a problem. We don’t want them to peak now because Euros are still ahead and we’re leading them to get to the peak state about two weeks before the start of the European Championships. It’s important for us that they stay injury-free, that the athletes, especially young ones, become confident that they can show their very difficult routines.”

Rodionenko also said that Nikita Nagornyy who withdrew from the nationals due to strep throat will still be selected for the European Championships:

“Nikita is fine, he doesn’t have fever anymore. He has a very acute case of strep throat and his fever spiked when the pus pockets burst. The fever has subsided but he’s still weak and we told him right away that there was no point in competing for him. He’s earned his right to compete at the European Championships, no one doubts that. No one will say that the selection principles were broken here. Sometimes, the media start discussing this issue and it’s wrong. Nikita earned his right. After all, he’s the [reigning] all-around World champion, so we told him that we don’t want him to get injured here. A person in such a state can get onto the competition floor relaxed and that’s it. And we don’t have many people like Nikita, unfortunately.”

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