When I arrived at the Burtasy Sports Palace on Monday afternoon, training session # 1 for the women was well underway.
The practice was relatively informal, with the gymnasts moving roughly in two groups—one the national team and the other St. Petersburg, with some overlap, of course.
All of the anticipated contenders are here, though Viktoria Komova left almost immediately upon my arrival after a brief conversation with Andrei Rodionenko and the team doctor. She did not return for the rest of the practice, and I’m not sure whether she trained earlier. In any case, the tone of the conversation seemed conciliatory and non-alarmist, and I don’t think we need to read too much into her absence, especially since she may only be competing uneven bars. The team only just arrived today after a long bus ride from Moscow, so I’m sure some of the athletes are simply tired, watching old injuries carefully, and trying to preserve themselves for a fuller practice tomorrow.
The other participants looked pretty fresh: Tatiana Nabieva practiced two passes on floor exercise (double tucks and triple twists) and was her typical- expressive self, joking with the coaches and smiling widely after every pass; Maria Kharenkova looked superb on balance beam (she’s really quite breathtaking when competition nerves are a non-issue, though today she wasn’t getting enough of a punch off the beam for her dismount, often having to crank out the second pike rather quickly); and Alla Sosnitskaya clearly won the determination prize for the day, training her weakest events but training them hard. On balance beam, she struggled with a labored illusion turn (not so much of an illusion) and was visibly frustrated after not making her round-off to layout. This is clearly her Achilles Heel as an All-Around gymnast with a beam routine just hovering below the highest level.
That being said, she has some cool combinations (including a switch-split leap to a Kotchetkova); she just needs to master her rhythm.
Also of note is Ekaterina Kramarenko’s new combination on bars: I looked over just in time to catch what looked like a Pak to a Van Leeuwen, performed nicely. It’s lovely to see a 2008 Olympian doing well, crawling her way back up, learning new skills in an effort to be competitive.
It also looks like Aliya Mustafina may be putting an Arabian back in her balance beam routine. After warming it up on floor, she hung around the beam well after the rest of the team had left practice and drilled it, along with other skills, somewhat reluctantly. Under the watchful eye of four cajoling coaches, she rehearsed what appeared to be different options, practicing the code-capitalizing combinations that brought her gold in 2013, mostly nailing her double-turn in connection to a single (something new), and finally taking the mat away for the Arabian several times.
While not landing it perfectly every time caused some distress, the element did not appear to be bothering her ankle, and it looked competition-ready. It certainly appears that she’s here to compete this year as opposed to chalking up the bars!
Stay tuned!
Article by: Sara Dorrien
Photo Cover: Brigid McCarthy