A mature and, mostly, happy Russian collective dominated the Universiade today in Kazan, taking the team title by ten points over their nearest rival, Japan, and leading qualification in each of the remaining competitions, including the top two places in Tuesday's all around (Mustafina and Afanasyeva). It was a confident, assured and relaxed performance from this experienced team whose only real error was by Afanasyeva on uneven bars (12.55), and much more gold is promised in the coming days.
Russia's specialists had an opportunity to shine. 2010 World Team Champion Anna Dementyeva's beam routine was a real highlight, for me the best routine of the entire competition today and promising much for the fan favourite in Wednesday's event finals. Dementyeva's beautiful line, execution and lightness of touch did justice to her country's heritage of excellence on this piece of apparatus. Maria Paseka vaulted to promise and ended up in first place on her one event. Otherwise, veteran Tatiana Nabiyeva gave a touching all around performance - her first for many years after a career interrupted by injury and growth - that saw her perform flawlessly across all four pieces, and do well enough to qualify to bars final alongside her closest gymnastics friend, Aliya Mustafina.
Mustafina - perhaps unsurprisingly, given the hasty circumstances of her integration into the team here and speculation that her health may not be at its best - looked rather strained at times, tired emotionally if not physically. In addition to her first place finish in the all around qualification, she ended up in first for the bars final, and will be seen in event finals on beam and floor also. A fairly good qualifying round for Russia's only gymnastics Olympic champion then, but Mustafina did not need to compete her full difficulty here and to me looked a little below her best at times, leaving some scope for improvement as she prepares for this autumn's World Championships.
In some ways, Afanasyeva looked the best prepared gymnast on the team despite her bars disaster, qualifying in first place on floor with her usual virtuosity (astonishing power in the two whips to triple twist, high double pike dismount), and going forward to represent her country in her most improved apparatus, vault.
The competition continues tomorrow with the MAG team final, with Russia competing in the final subdivision that begins at 6.20 pm local Kazan time. See here for detailed schedule information and hints on possible live streaming.
Maladyets, Russia ... and good luck for the coming days! We are with you!
Team results
All Around qualifying results
Vault qualifying result
Uneven bars qualifying results
Beam qualifying results
Floor qualifying results