Events finals took place at the Russian Cup today and Tatiana Nabieva was the only qualification leader that managed to hold on to her first place on the apparatus in the final. Nabieva had a slightly worse DTY than in the qualification and got 14.183 as an average score for her two vaults. This was enough to win the first place as Viktoria Trykina who took silver had execution issues on both of her vaults. During the nationals, Trykina said that she would compete an Amanar at the Russian Cup but that didn’t happen. Nevertheless, according to Vera Kiryashova who commentated on the broadcast again today, Trykina is currently in the running for the Euros team and mostly for her vaulting ability. Perhaps, Nabieva’s performance at this competition can get her an invited to the selection camp as well. According to Kiryashova, Nabieva is currently training an Amanar and a Cheng and multiple upgrades on other events as well which could potentially make her an all-around threat.
Eleonora Afanasyeva took bronze on vault today. According to our amazing source of inside information, Kiryashova, the gymnast is currently doing decent Amanars in practices as well but it’s not clear when she’ll compete this vault. Her DTY gets great height but practically no distance and she lands dangerously close to the vaulting table.
Angelina Simakova who was third in qualification fell on her first vault again after a similar fall in yesterday’s AA final. She ended up last in the vault final. Simakova won at the national team verification before the Russian Cup but it struggled somewhat throughout the competition here.
Notably, Lilia Akhaimova competed in the vault final and became 4th (she was in three finals today – vault, bars and floor). Akhaimova tore three ligaments in her ankle after a bad vault landing and only competed bars at the Russian Championships but managed to recover by the Russian Cup and had a great showing here. According to Kiryashova, Akhaimova is also training a vault upgrade – a double-twisting Tsukahara.
The bars favorite Anastasiia Iliankova who got a massive 15.300 in the qualification had problems on her Ezhova again in the final which led to her not getting credit for the element and missing a composition requirement. She finished fifth with only 13.100
Angelina Melnikova won gold on bars quite confidently with a clean routine that scored 14.566. Originally, the second place went to Daria Spiridonova who got a score of 13.766. Apparently, the judges were blinded by her pretty lines and clean execution and didn’t notice that she had 4 toe-on elements in her routine. The score was revised later with the judges taking off the credit for the element and the connection. She finished 6th with a score of 12.966.
Viktoria Komova took silver on bars today with 13.700. Her best routine in this competition was in AA final though where she got 14.400. She is still not altering her bars routine composition, apparently, hoping to get her inbars back.
Lilia Akhaimova had to compete on bars without a warm up as she was originally the first reserve and didn’t expect to be in the final. Daria Elizarova scratched right before the competition because of a ripped callus. Akhaimova is adding some upgrades including an inbar but finished only 7th with 12.866.
Natalia Kapitonova is still not back to her former difficulty and even though she made the bars final here, the routine looked labored. She finished last with 12.433.
Beam was everyone’s undoing today just as on the previous days. Angelina Melnikova complained about it in a live Instagram stream, saying that the brand-new beam from the new Spieth collection is too soft and hard to stay on. Only two finalists managed to finish their routines without falls – Daria Elizariva who won gold with 13.266 and Elizaveta Volodina, a new senior from Penza who won silver with 13.033. Volodina is not yet on the national team, so perhaps this performance will get her noticed.
The bronze went to Anastasiia Iliankova who had one fall but did well in the rest of her routine and had high enough difficulty. Some gymnasts had even two falls – Afanasyeva, Trykina, Zubova, and Kharenkova. Maria Kharenkova led the qualification on beam with 13.500 but, according to Kiryashova, her shoulder injury flared up after the competition started and led to poor results in today’s finals. Kharenkova had an especially nasty fall on her beam dismount where she landed on her knees, but it, fortunately, looks like she didn’t get injured.
On floor, Simakova won gold with a confident performance and 13.933, improving her 13.333 score from the qualification. With results like that and if she fixes her vault problems, she is going to be a shoe-in for the Euros team.
Lilia Akhaimova had a slightly downgraded routine due to her recent injury and finished second with 13.900. Maria Kharenkova had an even worse performance on floor after the unsuccessful beam final, with three falls. She finished last with 9.566.
Anastasiia Iliankova got the second bronze today with a very beautiful routine that scored 13.133. It needs some polishing and possible upgrading but potentially she could make international floor finals and her presence on floor just draws you in.
Both Ksenia Kamkova and Viktoria Trykina had execution issues in the final and finished fourth (12.666) and fifth (12.133) respectively. Both are new seniors who had a great showing at nationals and started getting invited to the national team camps (they’re currently on the reserve team) with Trykina even getting her first international assignment last month. They both have a great potential and a lot of power but really need to polish their execution and hopefully training at Round Lake will help them.
Varvara Zubova, the beam princess who wowed us as a junior, continues to have troubles in her first senior year. Her routines on beam and floor today looked a bit wild like she had little control over her movements. She ended up 5th on beam and 6th on floor.
Viktoria Komova again had issues with her floor routine and an unfortunate fall. She recently had bronchitis which greatly affected her stamina but hopefully, she’ll completely recover from it by Euros. She finished 7th in the floor final with 11.666.
This concludes the WAG competition at the Russian Cup. The national team will have a short vacation and then they will travel to Round Lake on June 8th for the selection camp before the European Championships. The nominative teams for Euros will be published next week, so this will give us some idea of who the coaches want to see on the team but of course, the Russian Cup and the performance during the selection camp could change things.
The Russian Cup continues next week with the MAG competition starting on Wednesday. The senior qualification will actually be streamed online in addition to the AA and EFs. Full schedule and stream links are available here.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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