Shortly after the Russian Cup, Valentina Rodionenko has announced the MAG and WAG teams for the upcoming World Championships.
The men’s team will consist of David Belyavskiy, Nikita Nagornyy, Artur Dalaloyan, and Ivan Stretovich. The fifth member of the team and the reserve gymnast will be decided later. For now, the following gymnasts are competing for the last spot: Vladislav Poliashov, Dmitri Lankin, Denis Abliazin, and Nikita Ignatyev.
The women’s team, according to Rodionenko, will be Angelina Melnikova, Lilia Akhaimova, Aleksandra Shchekoldina, Daria Spiridonova, and Angelina Simakova, while Anastasia Agafonova will likely be the reserve.
Angelina Melnikova said that she had some health issues during the Russian Cup which led to her withdrawal from the floor final, but she hopes she’ll have enough time to rest before Worlds. She also commented on the possible lack of appreciation for her senior career:
“I’m so happy to stay on the medal podiums at Russian Championships and Russian Cups for the past four years. I haven’t missed a single national competition in my senior career. I’ve finished competing at the Russian Cup, I withdrew from the floor final because I’m having some health issues. I hope this won’t intervene with my preparation for the World Championships and that I’ll get there in my best shape. Thanks to everyone who cheered on me. Although, actually, everyone’s so fed up with me and “Gelya Melnikova” is something boring and mundane and all my victories are like “well, ok, it’s not surprising”.
Aliya Mustafina told Olympic channel that she will miss the World Championships and will focus on preparing for the Olympic Games instead and getting some rest and recovery. Mustafina missed the 2011 and 2015 World Championships in the past, so she seems to be continuing her tradition.
Valentina Rodionenko wasn’t so optimistic about Mustafina’s missing Worlds, which also goes along with her tradition of cancelling Mustafina in the pre-Olympic year:
“On the women’s side, everything’s very hard, there’s no competition – to select six gymnasts out of seven, that’s very sad. Why are you talking about Mustafina, the person did not compete at the Russian Cup, the person refused to participate at the European Games in Minsk. We’re representing our country, after all, and not some Bangladesh with underdeveloped gymnastics.”
Most notable are the absences of Maria Paseka and Anastasia Iliankova on the Worlds team. Both are the current European champions on vault and bars respectively and have been performing well this season but did not have a good performance at the Russian Cup. Paseka had to miss Worlds last year in order to stay eligible for earning a nominative spot but there are no restrictions for her to compete this year. Based just on the scores from the Russian Cup it doesn’t make sense to put her on the Russian team but knowing her competitive history and looking at the scores from this whole season, she’s likely Russia’s best chance for an event final medal. However, a five-person team does not really have room for two specialists that do not complement each other and Daria Spiridonova got the specialist spot based on her bars scores at the Russian Cup. Adding Paseka to this team would mean that Russia has to rely on just three people to do floor in both the qualification and team finals.
Agafonova is an interesting choice for a reserve spot, since she only competed on bars and beam at the Russian Cup (possible injury?) and didn’t score well on either. Perebinosova would seem like a more solid choice for a reserve spot, since she scored just below Shchekoldina in the all-around and has potential 13+ routines on each of the four events.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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I think Aliya will be back for the Olympics as she is going after the bars gold.
How to do 6.5 bars when you are so out of shape. Did you see at Russian cup? She looked like an overweight Secretary waiting to answer phones and take out garbage.
Valentina is right- why ask about her? She does not compete. She is so overweight, she does not dedicate herself to any work at all. People in charge learned this. Russia know to develop girls who actually train not just 1 meet a year. Today we declare victory over America PC culture and the twitter-tumblr outrage machine
I think this is a bad team, Spiridonova -Schelkodina -Simakova are to inconsistens. I prefer Perebinosova or Ilyankova
They are incosistent too.
Is Mustafina injured?
She was injured earlier and is still recovering