Three Russian gymnasts topped the all-around qualification at the European Championships. Angelina Melnikova finished first, Viktoriia Listunova was second, and Vladislava Urazova finished third, less than 0.2 behind Listunova and missing out on the all-around final. She also finished second on bars and qualified to the final behind Melnikova. She is the first reserve on beam and finished eighth on floor but behind her two teammates Melnikova and Listunova.
In an interview to MatchTV, Urazova said starting on beam was hard for her:
“I was a bit nervous on beam, it’s really hard to start competing on beam, you can’t predict how this event will go and anything can happen. I also had small errors on floor, didn’t finish some things. On vault, I stepped outside the landing lines with one foot but managed to finish without deductions. I could’ve done it better, same as bars. By the way, I have a foot injury, I hit it with the other foot.”
“Drawing the conclusions from the qualification – I didn’t manage to do everything the way I wanted to. There were mistakes but they’re fixable. The qualification allows to get into the competition mode, so I’ll be less nervous before the finals.”
Urazova’s last international competition was the junior Worlds in Gyor where she won gold with the team and on bars, silver in the all-around, and bronze on vault. Her senior debut was supposed to be in 2020 but the pandemic halted the competitions. Her coach said in an interview at the Russian Championships last month that during the last year, Urazova grew by 7 cm (almost 3 inches) and mentioned that the gymnast missed a month of training because of an illness.
Q: I remember Urazova’s performances in Hungary well. Everyone was debating whether the junior World Championships were even necessary. They got their answer – yes. Especially since no one expected that there would be such a long break between competitions and young gymnasts would not have an opportunity to compete internationally.
A: Yes, of course. [The transition to senior competitions] wasn’t as smooth as we’d like it to be, but that’s ok. You see, first of all, Vlada is now on the senior team. The pandemic hit us hard, of course. Vladislava also grew by seven centimeters during the quarantine period! It’s really a lot. It was hard at first. Everything piled on and she only managed to more or less get back by the Russian Championships. Of course, there’s also not enough time to prepare. She has great potential. But she missed a lot of training, she was ill, then the pandemic, growing height, added weight, it all throws the body out of balance. It’s not easy.
Q: How does she react to the difficulties, is she getting worried?
A: Not really, she’s calm. When she got back after the illness, she was nervous, of course. She saw that she was behind. But she more or less got back into the routine by now. Of course, the break between competitions wasn’t beneficial for anyone. Just think, we have four events. Ok, with beam you can do something on the floor, or on some bench. But you can’t do bars [outside of the gym]. Conditioning, conditioning… But conditioning is only a part of it. And you can’t do vault outside of the gym.
Q: So, you have to play catch-up or you still work according to your own schedule?
A: Yes, we’re not rushing it. Because you can’t rush it. After the pandemic, we had to start almost from the basics and it wasn’t just me and Vladislava. Everything was slow, calm. Especially bars. But we kept getting it back slowly… As you saw in Penza, she had issues on beam, she fell. We didn’t show all her difficulty on floor, didn’t show her more difficult tumbling at the nationals, she’s not ready yet. But she’ll have a new floor by the Olympic Games.
Q: Does Vladislava manage to move forward thanks to her character?
A: Yes, her character is exactly right. otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to deal with the problems. Sometimes, it’s required to do beam three times in a row without falls but things aren’t working out. She will try until she does it. Sometimes, she repeats the routine many times. But we have to be very careful with her training now, because she can’t be overtrained and because of her new height. For example, she wanted to stay in the gym now to work on beam more because she fell. But I told her: “Vlada, let’s do it tomorrow morning. Rest a bit, release the stress, because it won’t be good for you [to train now].” Of course, it can be a bit hard sometimes. She’s a very kind girl but when she’s really tired, she sometimes can’t handle her emotions. But that’s normal and her age affects it as well. But we teach her, explain…
Q: The Olympics have always been Vlada’s goal and everyone knew that.
A: Of course. Why else would we need to work that hard? In Hungary, one mistake affected her and she lost the all-around. She was very upset even though she didn’t show it. But I know it. She’s very talented and a very hard worker.
Q: What’s her strongest personality trait that helps her?
A: Stubborness. Persistence.
Q: What do you need to work on the most now and what are you most worried about?
A: I think that she needs to get physically stronger. Of course, we need to upgrade the difficulty and we need the consistency. But, see, there was consistency when they competed regulalry. Where would the consistency come from if the nationals in Penza was the first competition? This needs to be taken into account. But I’m happy [with how she did]. And Vlada understands what they’re preparing for. After all, she’s been to the World and European Championships already. She understands everything. We talk about it – winning is nice and prestigious, it will be remembered for life. She needs to strive for that – to get on the top of the podium and not stand behind watching someone’s back.
Q: It’s good that there’s real motivation now.
A: Yes, we were preparing for the nationals and now we’ll start preparing for the Euros. We had scored verifications at Round Lake – showing what we prepared. How else? Tried to entertain ourselves – some read, some did bead work, whatever people prefer. Of course, it’s hard. The girls also have schoolwork – either on their own or with a teacher. Vlada studies on her own. I see that she started reading now. You could rarely see her with a book before.
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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