Russia won today's team final at the European Gymnastics Championships with an impressively consistent performance - not one fall! Led by the charismatic David Belyavski, the team showed leadership over the entire field, finishing first in every apparatus except rings and high bar. It was a very close competition against Britain, who last won Europeans just before the Olympics in 2012. Russia's victory at the equivalent time in Olympic preparations leaves open the possibility that they could perform even better in Rio. Their team score of 271.378 was roughly half a point higher than Japan's winning score at the Glasgow World Championships last winter.
Russia's 'shock' events were pommels and vault; pommels showing a huge turn round in form as Russia has so very often faltered there. Not only did Britain feel the absence of their leader Max Whitlock on these pieces, it is true to say that Russia have also improved considerably. Their strategy of developing specialists with extraordinary levels of difficulty has so far paid off this year. They have also worked hard on team spirit and execution. The flowering of 19 year old Nikita Nagorny as a regular member of the senior team has added depth, and perhaps the youngster has also injected some energy and confidence into the team's blood vessels. As we progress to Rio, let's hope that all the gymnasts can stay healthy - and that, perhaps, Emin Garibov can return to full strength to reinforce the team's efforts on what is still a relative weakness, high bar. Russia left Ivan Stretovich at home this time, but who else is in reserve?; this is a magnificent team, but they do need more strength in depth.
No single member of the team competed all six apparatus, underlining the impression that this was a very cohesive and happy team effort. In the unofficial AA (noting that only three gymnasts competed six apparatus in the entire competition) Ukraine's Oleg Verniaiev came out on top, closely followed by Britain's Nile Wilson and Daniel Purvis. Allowing for the fact that they each missed their weakest pieces in today's competition, both Nagorny and Belyavski could, hypothetically speaking, have competed to the level of the top AA gymnasts here.
CONGRATULATIONS to the entire team - it was wonderful to see you defend your title in such style. It was a tense, tight competition and you all performed incredibly well under pressure.
I just wanted to add - 36 out of 36 clean routines in the top two teams - that has to be good for European gymnastics.
Full results here, including D scores - http://gym.longinestiming.com/File/00000F0200000002FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04
