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Fresh start for Mustafina on Friday

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A brooding Mustafina contemplates the competition ahead.  RGF


Russia's women qualified as expected yesterday, with some difficult moments for Olympic Champion Aliya Mustafina on her way to a fifth place finish in the individual rankings.   Mustafina has also qualified to bars and beam finals.

'After today, the competition is brought back to zero, and it's a fresh start on Friday', said national coach Valentina Rodionenko to Itar-Tass yesterday.  'On floor, Mustafina made a mistake; this can happen to anybody.  We expect her to contend for honours in the final competition'.

Young Anna Rodionova enjoys her Worlds experience. RGF
Of the three Russian women presenting themselves in Antwerp, Anna Rodionova, qualifying on Tuesday, gave the best account of herself, finishing in 5th position on her strongest piece, the beam.  'Anna surprised me, she is amazing!', said veteran Olympic champion Larissa Latynina, noting the gymnast's confidence on the beam.  Certainly the 16 year old from Mari-El Republic has demonstrated laudable self possession in Antwerp so far, showing far fewer errors than her senior colleague Mustafina, even if her difficulty scores do not yet match those of her team mate and friend.  Journalist Natalia Kalugina recently noted (via Facebook) that Rodionova has been working with a team of psychologists recommended by boxer Alexander Povetkin, to toughen up her competition performance.  Anna will join Aliya in Friday's all around final where she will be expected to perform to her optimum, although a medal seems very unlikely. 

Tatiana Nabiyeva was unfortunately unable to qualify either to bars or vault final, the only two pieces on which she presented herself, following a nasty training accident earlier this week.  The Russian team has been particularly unlucky this year with many injuries and sickness hindering their preparation and limiting the number of top gymnasts available for selection.

Later on today the men will fight it out for position in the all around final, with Kohei Uchimura looking by far the most likely to take gold.  Russia's sole representative in the competition will be European Champion David Belyavski, although he is hampered by a painful foot injury and could only finish in 16th position in qualifying.  The Russian men's team has not performed as expected this year, with three of the six gymnasts selected failing to make the expected finals.  'The guys have been preparing new routines this year', said MAG team coach Valery Alfosov, 'perhaps they have not yet had time to work sufficiently on their stabilty and consistency'.  He added that Nikolai Kuksenkov, originally slated to do all around, failed to qualify to his one event, high bar, because of a severe finger injury.

You can find the start list for this evening's MAG all around final, which begins at 7 pm, here.

WAG all around qualifying results can be found here.

There is a list of qualifiers for the women's event finals here.

You can navigate all the scores so far here.

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