Russia's young guns held their ground and performed mostly well today to secure a third place spot in Saturday's team final, and gymnasts in every event final on Sunday. Ahead of them were an inspired British team who had their best competition today, and a strong but occasionally faltering Romanian team, led by the impressive Larissa Iordache who won the 'unofficial all around' with a near faultless display. Switzerland's Giulia Steingrueber repeated her good performance at last year's Euros to come in second. As this is a team and event Championships, Russia did not field an all around gymnast.
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Highlights for the Russian team were bars and beam, with scores in the 15s from Mustafina (bars) and Kharenkova (beam). Kharenkova's almost faultless beam set was delivered under pressure in the anchor spot, and came after a brave exercise from World Champion Mustafina, who completed her first double back dismount off the apparatus for the first time in weeks. Emotions ran high in this part of South East London; could this be considered to be Mustafina's Comaneci 1979 moment? Russia will begin on bars and finish on vault in the final. Will Mustafina risk her all on a DTY for the sake of a team medal? If so I think the tears will flow, hopefully for the right reasons.
I am not expecting Russia to win gold on Saturday, but the team gelled, and did some good work. If they repeat this performance on Saturday, a medal should be the reward. Sosnitskaya delivered reliable floor and vaults and Spiridonova and Rodionova made their mark on bars. Kharenkova has staked her claim as a leading gymnast on the team, and hopefully she'll continue in the same vein for the rest of the week and year. The few small errors - notably Spiridonova on floor and a wobbly beam from Mustafina - were to be expected and may well be put right in the final. Overall, though, the team worked together well and show some significant promise for the future.
We should also congratulate both the British and Romanian teams, who were clearly in the lead today!
Good luck once again, keep up the good work!
Aliya on bars http://youtu.be/xlawmkG0mBs
Alla on floor http://youtu.be/rtAbXKfJqPw
Pictures courtesy of the organisers' Facebook page
