Sergei Naidin of Russia yesterday won silver in the all-around final at the Youth Olympic Games. Before the first individual final, team medals were also given out but the team competition at the YOG had a very original format this year. The gymnasts from different disciplines and countries were put together randomly on teams named after famous gymnasts. This is how Simone Biles won gold at the Youth Olympics without ever going there.
Naidin competed on the team named after Nadia Comanechi. The team placed 9th in the competition. He said to RIA Novosti that he didn’t like this format and would have preferred being on a team with other athletes from Russia. In addition, turns out he’s never seen videos of Nadia Comaneci competing:
“It felt weird to me to compete on a mixed team because I originally thought that everyone on the team would be from Russia, just from different disciplines – rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, acrobatics… But it turned out that the teams had athletes from different countries. Our team was named after Nadia Comaneci, I’ve never seen her routines. Unfortunately, on our team, one person got injured and we dropped down right away in terms of the scores. We were left without medals”.
Photo: FIG
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