Thoughts

I personally think that winning the bronze was a great achievement for this inexperienced team.  Aliya Mustafina proved that, even at 50%, she is 100% boss.  Kharenkova established herself as a real little scrapper who is now a leader in the team and even in world gymnastics.  Even with the unpredictable Komova I doubt Russia would have done much better today; it comes down not so much to the errors that were made, as to the low difficulty rating of those floor exercises.  The team needs its Olympians for good floor scores, but they just aren't available at present, nor perhaps in the future if I am reading Afanasyeva's rather damning account of the handling of her injury correctly.

I wonder if there will be any fall-out or consequences after this result?  No blame should lay at the gymnasts' feet, they gave their all; only Anna Rodionova perhaps let the team down somewhat, but since when did a Russian team go error free in a team final? Spiridonova is forgiven her beam error as she did so well elsewhere in her first big assignment.  Sosnitskaya, Mustafina and Kharenkova couldn't have done much more, and I think Mustafina and Kharenkova will both be going all out for gold in tomorrow's event finals.

I hope that tomorrow's press will not be full of Valentina making recriminations about this result.  The girls deserve some recognition for the difficult time through which they have mostly prevailed.  But the Russians are the Russians and faces say more than words.  A lot of thought lies ahead for many of those shown in these pictures.