Russia confirmed teams for Euros

Valentina Rodionenko confirmed the Russian WAG and MAG teams for the upcoming European Championships that will take place in Basel on April 21st – 25th.

For the WAG team, the nominative roster did not change, Russia will send Angelina Melnikova and three new seniors – Vladislava Urazova, Elena Gerasimova, and Viktoriia Listunova. Lilia Akhaimova was also in the running despite getting injured at the Russian Championships but did not end up making the team. For MAG, Russia originally put six gymnasts on the nominative roster but decided to send only four gymnasts and allow all of them compete in the all-around. Denis Abliazin and Nikita Ignatyev were the additional two gymnasts on the nominative roster.

Valentina Rodionenko said the coaches want to test the gymnasts in the all-around:

“In Basel, we plan on trying out the guys who are main candidates for the Tokyo Olympic Games. We need all-arounders at the Olympics. If we sent six people to Basel, only two would have been able to fight for all-around medals and the rest would compete on individual events. But it’s very important for us to test the all-arounders since it’s the first major competition in a year and a half.”

The President of the federation Vasily Titov echoed Rodionenko’s reasoning:

“We agreed to the head coach’s proposal to limit the number of gymnasts in the men’s competition to four. The main roster for the future Olympic team are going to Basel and for each of these guys all-around competition experience is extremely important.”