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| First year senior Anastasia Grishina is the Russian team's leading all around gymnast at these Championships. Picture by kind permission of the RGF. |
I have to give credit to Romania today - they recalled Romanian teams of the past and performed with confidence and energy to beat Russia to first place in qualifications. Ioana Iordache leads the unofficial all around with a display of light and precise acrobatics that must position her as a favourite for the individual Olympic title if she can reproduce her form of today once more, on that much anticipated July day in London.
This was a strong, perhaps the strongest possible, Romanian team, drawing on Olympic champions past and, maybe, future. As I had predicted, Iszbasa, Ponor, Iordache, Bulimar and Haidu pulled out all the stops to give their best and take first place against a somewhat below-power Russian team. It remains to be seen whether the Russians can turn their form around in two days flat and contend for gold in the final.
The thing I can say in the Russians' favour is that they do have some wiggle room, both within the team of gymnasts presented and, more widely, gymnasts at home in Moscow. The team undoubtedly missed the experience and strength of both Ksenia Afanasyeva and Tatiana Nabyeva, Komova competed on bars and beam only, and Mustafina made uncharacteristic errors on both floor and bars. In the end, the team's effort rested significantly on youth, with Grishina showing progress in both her technique and her competitive demeanour. Sidorova made a good account of herself on beam and indeed carried the burden of the team's efforts here on her shoulders as start off gymnast, while Paseka delivered two competent vaults to keep the team afloat.
The team were determined to avoid falls on beam and both Sidorova and Grishina more than held the boat steady for a strong routine from Viktoria Komova, who delivered a picturesque and technically accomplished routine, despite a few wobbles. Komova's stature and bearing in Brussels has been altogether lighter and more mature than in Tokyo; she has grown, not only physically, but mentally and, one suspects emotionally.
Perhaps it was the effort of suppressing all those nerves that got to the Russians. Seeming a little subdued, they progressed to floor, where Sidorova managed a nice performance marred by some serious errors that kept her score down in the 12.9s. Both Mustafina and Grishina followed in the same vein. Their team total entitles them to claim the 9th best slot on floor on this piece, a record I am sure they will wish to improve on in Saturday's final. No Russians in the floor finals on Sunday.
A competent performance on vault was followed by some great exercises on the uneven bars from Grishina and Komova, where sadly Mustafina looked rather tired and suffered some uncharacteristic errors.
So in the end, Russia did well to finish second behind Romania, but ahead of a confident British team who presented some very nice gymnastics. The fact they could do this whilst counting such a disastrous floor rotation speaks volumes for their talent, but Russia will not be able to afford such mistakes again. I will not predict what might happen on Saturday, let alone in July, but to me the Romanian team does look much stronger here.
Individually, Grishina led this team with a creditable second place in the unofficial individual all around. Anastasia qualified to event finals in vault, bars and beam, accompanied by her 2010 Junior Europeans team mate Komova on bars and beam. She is developing an impressive portfolio of international competition experience, is taking up an increasingly responsible role within the team, and looks set to rival Mustafina for the second all around spot for Russia in London if Mustafina cannot fully overcome the mental and physical trauma of last spring before July.
Hey ho, from tomorrow everything starts again from scratch. Fight on, girls.
Full results are available at the following links :
Team summary results
Detailed team results
Individual results (unofficial all around competition)
Vault qualifications
Uneven bars qualifications
Beam qualifications
Floor qualifications
You will also find a good collection of videos at the Full Twist blog. Enjoy!