Polina Fyodorova is now fighting for the final spot on the Russian team
As control competitions took place at Lake Krugloye today, Valentina Rodionenko provided an update to the latest selection news, identifying beam specialist Polina Fyodorova as a late addition to the team. Doctors have also now deemed Ksenia Afanasyeva unready to compete at Worlds as she needs more time to recover from her ankle injury. Caution is the watchword here as the health of both Ksenia and Viktoria Komova is being preserved for the long road to Rio.
Valentina has clarified the status of Maria Paseka, omitted from yesterday's team announcement and the subject of injury speculation. Maria has suffered an ankle injury recently, and while it is not serious, it has affected the gymnast's confidence. 'The ankle needs time to rest, and bounce back', said the head coach, 'Unfortunately, we don't have that time. Besides, Maria has doubts that she could perform ... We cannot take a gymnast to Worlds who is not sure, it's too risky.'
The WAG team line up is now Mustafina, Kharenkova, Spiridonova, Sosnitskaya and Kramarenko, with Nabiyeva and Fyodorova now filling the two final slots.
On the subject of MAG, journalist Natalia Kalugina has provided some great updates on Facebook of today's control competition. Denis Ablyazin is fully recovered from the injury that prevented his participation in Russia Cup finals, Nikolai Kuksenkov is in fine form. Belyavski found the competition hard, but held his form. Of the newcomers to the team, Ivan Stretovich is looking good on high bar, and Daniil Kazachkov only needs to fight a tendency to overtrain. Nikita Ignatyev may be fighting off a small injury, if I have understood the translation clearly.
As Natalia says, everything can change between now and the beginning of the competition. I expect there will be a few more decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. Not long now till the team travels to Nanning, then there is podium training to get through before the big days in October.
I wish the gymnasts and coaches all the very best of luck and strength! We are all sending positive thoughts to you!
Source : http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=86439 and Natalia Kalugina
Picture courtesy of the RGF.