Greetings, Russian fans!
I hope everyone enjoyed last week’s coverage of the senior and junior women. Never a dull moment in Russian women’s gymnastics. However, this week we turn our attention to the men! Like the women’s competition, these championships will serve as a trial for the upcoming European Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. The men will also be vying for five spots on the European team.
Unfortunately, the men’s competition will be without a very big star, Emin Garibov, who recently had surgery on his shoulder and will likely be out for most of the season. His absence will certainly leave a considerable gap on his Moscow team along with potential medals on parallel bars and high bar. Nevertheless, this should be a good opportunity for others to try to fill Garibov's void and make a name for themselves in the competition.
These championships will also mark the return of European Champion, David Belyavskiy, and Universiade Champion, Nikolai Kuksenkov, both of whom didn’t fare too well at last year‘s World Championships due to sudden injuries at a pre-Worlds training camp. Being Russia’s strongest all-arounders, surely these two will be fighting for the top spot and bragging rights as the king of Russia.
Denis Ablyazin, a native of Penza, will most likely be the man to watch throughout the championships competing at home. Despite disappointing performances at last year’s Worlds, Ablyazin has already bounced back strongly this season winning two gold medals (still rings and floor) at the recent Cottbus World Cup. Certainly he is expected to dominate floor, rings, and vault this week.
World team members, Aleksandr Balandin (SR) and Matvei Petrov (PH), hope to continue their dominance on their event specialities, although it is rumored that Petrov might compete a few other events at these championships or perhaps later at Russian Cup. Regardless, both should remain strong contenders for the European Championship team should they do well on their respective specialties.
The competition gets underway starting tomorrow on April 9th with the juniors qualification where the top eight teams will qualify to the team final as well as qualification for the individual event finals. All-around winners will be determined at the conclusion of tomorrow’s qualification. The seniors begin on April 10th.
Although perhaps not quite as known as the seniors, a number of juniors are worth knowing and following this week since some are expected to become rising seniors within the next couple of years. Some names to look out for: Artur Dalaloyan (Moscow), Valentin Starikov(Syzran/Samara), Nikita Nagorny (Rostov-on-Don), Kirill Potapov (Tomsk), Ilya Kirbatas (Vladimir), Andrei Makolov (Tolyatti), Ivan Stretovich (Novosibirsk), Viktor Britan (Chelyabinsk) and Dmitry Lankin (Rostov-on-Don).
A live stream will be shown only for the senior men’s competition starting on Thursday, April 10 at 12:00 pm Moscow time. The link can be found here:
http://sportgymrus.ru/contest/11075/11092/default.aspx
(Pray to the gym gods that it will work and stay on!)
Stayed tuned for a detailed schedule of the men’s competition in the next post.
Всем удачи!
