Bars gold medallist Daria Skrypnik in Tuesday's qualification competition
Russia continued their dominance of Europe's junior championships today by making a 1, 2 on uneven bars (Skrypnik, Melnikova) and a first place on beam (Melnikova). Britain took the remaining two medals in the power pieces of vault and floor.
Tiny Seda Tutkhalyan (1999 born) gave her all here but was unlucky enough to have errors and miss out on medals. Her full twisting back somersault on beam is excellent and throughout the competition she showed real spirit, good technique and good difficulty. Hopefully she will get a chance to show her real mettle at the Youth Olympics later this year. Anastasia Dmitrieva performed nicely enough on floor, but just didn't have the big skills necessary to medal at this level under this Code.
Melnikova and Skrypnik, both 2000 born, will just be old enough to be eligible for Rio assuming they transition to senior level safely and well. Melnikova, who has a look of Zamolodchikova about her, trains in the same Voronezh gym as Viktoria Komova and Yulia Inshina. She will therefore be well known to head junior coach Olga Bulgakova, who worked in Voronezh before coming to Round Lake. Apparently a willowy type, Melnikova's body is deceptively strong and powerful, and she seems to have a tiger's eye during competition. Hopefully that will continue. Skrypnik, who looks about 6 feet tall but in fact is miniature compared to the British girls, is a magnificent bars worker of great skill and talent. She comes from Krasnodar.
Vault result http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000D0000010002FFFFFFFFFFFFFF10
Bars result. http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000D0000010002FFFFFFFFFFFFFF20
Beam result. http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000D0000010002FFFFFFFFFFFFFF30
Floor result. http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000D0000010002FFFFFFFFFFFFFF40
There have been two interviews with Valentina Rodionenko about the Russian teams and I am so unhappy with their content I want to remind people what Alexandrov said about her :
' ... Any coach who does not repeat what she says and kiss her behind becomes an enemy. Valentina is used to being the boss, and likes flattery very much. She completely destroys her enemies.'
Valentina says that 14 year old Tutkhalyan is a disappointment, calls out Rodionova and Spiridonova for their mistakes, acknowledges that the British did well but criticises them for their lack of aesthetic on grounds of their size. She criticises the judging and fails to praise Mustafina to the skies for her determined and dedicated contribution to world gymnastics.
There are reasons behind what Valentina says about the judging and the aesthetic of the sport and they could be argued, but the manner in which they are said makes them indefensible and, therefore, counter productive. I would never describe a gymnast as a 'disappointment' when what they do every day is so difficult and I just hope that this experience helps all the girls to develop an extremely thick skin.
Perhaps the words come across in Russian more softly than they do in this admittedly short summary, that leaves out some of the more positive things she said - about Britain's improvement, for example.
'Valentina has not actually coached a day in her life'.
Mustafina is a better spokesperson for the Russian team and I hope she will be head coach one day. Coaching is in her blood, it shows.