Yesterday was the last day for submitting the nominative teams for the World Championships to FIG and today Valentina Rodionenko officially announced the teams to the media. Of course, there’s still a month till Worlds and the teams can change depending on the verification and the nominative team for Euros changed quite drastically when Akhaimova and Alexeeva replaced Kharenkova and Komova. However, this time the team was submitted relatively close to the competition and while the selection camp was already in progress (it stated on September 17th), so we might assume this is likely the team that will go to Doha unless there are injuries or verification disasters.
According to Rodionenko, the following WAG gymnasts will go to Worlds: Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Aliya Mustafina, Lilia Akhaimova, Irina Alexeeva. Daria Spiridonova will be the traveling alternate.
The demotion of Uliana Perebinosova is quite surprising. Perebinosova was on the Euros team and even won the all-around verification before going to Euros. She only did bars at Euros but she also has a serviceable floor and a DTY, so unless she is injured, it is a bit strange that she isn’t even an alternate for the team. Judging by the training videos, Daria Spiridonova is getting closer to her previous level but even if she gets into her top shape again, she isn’t capable of high scores on floor or vault, so her usefulness as an alternate seems to be more limited than that of Perebinosova.
Hopefully, Mustafina has recovered from the knee injury she got at the Russian Championships. For Mustafina, it will be only the second competition since coming back and the first international competition since the Rio Olympics.
We still don’t know what is happening with Anastasiia Iliankova and why she’s not making any teams despite having a really good showing in the first half of the season and attending the training and selection camps.
The MAG team didn’t change since Euros: David Beliavskiy, Artur Dalaloyan, Nikolai Kuksenkov, Dmitrii Lankin, Nikita Nagornyy. Vladislav Poliashov will be the traveling alternate.
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This team makes sense. Melnikova & Simakova are definitely doing AA. Depending on how Mustafina looks either her or Alekseeva will get that third AA spot.
Thank you very much Liubov 🙂