The team and the all-around WAG competition at the inaugural Junior Worlds were expected to be mainly a battle between Russia, USA, and China. We’ve already seen a little preview of that in Jesolo, when Russia won the team competition by almost two points and two Russians won medals in the all-around. The U.S. team was probably a bit hurt by the fact that one of their top juniors Konnor McClain was only an alternate here after not having a great performance at the selection camp. However, both China and Russia have very strong junior teams at the moment and had a better performance on the day.
Viktoriia Listunova won the all-around with 55.323, while Vladislava Urazova took silver with 55.298. Ou Yushan of China got bronze with 54.931. Kayla di Cello had the best result among the Americans and placed fourth in the all-around with 54.765.
Romanian juniors also excelled at the event, placing fourth as a team and giving us all a little bit of hope that Romanian gymnastics can rise again. However, since the current seniors have been struggling with injuries, there is a chance that the team won’t qualify to Tokyo and these juniors won’t have a chance to compete there.
Belgium finished 5th in the team competition. All three are turning senior next year and if Belgium qualifies a full team to the Olympics, they will finally have some depth in case of injuries.
Viktoriia Listunova told R-Sport that she often gets nervous on the first event and this was the cause of her fall on beam:
“Everyone gets nervous and for me, it usually happens on the first event. Today, the first even was beam and I always get anxious on it. It’s like fighters and boxers are nervous until the first hit. It’s the same with me, until the first event. After the mistake, I got myself together and finished everything calmly. Honestly, I did not look at the scores. The most important thing for me was to go through the competition from the start and till the end.”
“I can’t call my performance perfect but I was fine with it. I wasn’t surprised that we beat the Americans by over two points because we’d already beat them at one of the past competitions, as confidently and sharply.”
Listunova will compete in vault, bars, and floor finals.
Vladislava Urazova had mistakes on beam and floor that didn’t allow her to take the lead over Listunova in the all-around competition and said she was not quite happy with her performance:
“The situations where there’s such responsibility don’t scare me, rather they make me a bit anxious. I have to get myself together. I tried even though it was hard, I was shaking a bit. But generally, I performed fine. During my routine on beam, I kept looking at the timer in order to finish in time, not earlier or later. After the first routine, I got calmer but I can’t say that everything was great. There were mistakes, I didn’t do everything well.”
Urazova will compete in vault and bars finals today.
Olga Bulgakova, the head coach of the junior national team, said the team’s high difficulty on floor was a result of their reliance on twisting and dancing elements:
“On floor, we built the difficulty on dancing and twisting elements. We didn’t do saltos because the current rules really punish bad landings and our gymnasts often have low landings on them. The twisting elements are easier to do them cleanly and to land them well. For the junior team, it’s a lifesaver. But, of course, they need to go to senior competitions with more difficult routines. It’s a tactical move just for now.”
“We really wanted to finally beat the Americans! We went to a competition in Italy and beat them there for the first time. But then, we only won the team competition, while today we also beat them in the all-around. It feels really nice. But generally, I set the goal for the gymnasts to do what they are capable of. If they’re able to do it, they always win.”
The first day of the event finals at the Junior World Championships will be streamed live on FIG’s Youtube channel at 2 pm local time today. Fans from the U.S. will be able to watch it on the Olympic channel.
Photos: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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