Anna Dementyeva was born in Samara, Russia three days before the end of 1994, which allowed her, just barely, to become a senior in 2010.
She was a promising junior with a strong beam set but in the shadow of the star gymnasts of her generation, Aliya Mustafina and Tatiana Nabieva.
At her first major international assignment as a senior, the Japan Cup, she contributed on three pieces to the team’s victory. She competed on bars, beam (she had the highest score) and floor. Vault would always be her weakest piece as she only competed a full twisting Yurchenko.
At Worlds in Rotterdam she was the youngest of a team under a lot of pressure to win gold. During the team final she was only meant to perform on beam and floor, however in the absence of injured team mate Ksenia Semenova and of Ksenia Asfanasyeva who had a disastrous bars qualification round, Dementyeva was chosen to compete on bars as well.
While Dementyeva did not have the biggest difficulty score on bars she was usually clean and consistent. Despite a fall on this event, she moved on to compete strong on beam and floor. Anna helped the Russian team, the first to win gold since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Individually, Dementyeva had qualified third to the beam final but fell and finished 6th.
In early 2011 she attended the Paris World Cup where she won bronze on both beam and floor. At Europeans she was expected to do well, however the star of the competition was her teammate Aliya Mustafina. Anna had a good qualification round advancing to the individual all-around final and beam final in second place, both behind Mustafina. She had the scores for the bars and floor finals too but due to the two per country rule she was excluded.
In the all-around final Anna started on bars where she did well. Minutes later Aliya performed her ill-fated Amanar and was injured and unable to continue. Suddenly Anna was the lone representative of Russia and in obligation to perform what Mustafina had been meant to. Un-altered by her teammate’s injury, Dementyeva continued strongly through beam and floor and closed on vault with a simple full twisting Yurchenko to win the title.
With Mustafina injured, Dementyeva advanced to the finals on bars and floor. On bars she performed cleanly, the proof was that she had the second highest execution score, however her difficulty was considerably low (5.8) against rivals like Beth Tweddle or her own teammate Tatiana Nabieva, so Anna finished fourth.
On beam she had a 6.7 difficulty, 0.8 ahead of her nearest competitor, she also had the highest execution score so she was miles away of any of her rivals. She won the gold medal.
By the time the floor final came around she seemed tired and gave away important points on landings, so she finished seventh. However, she always wore the smile that was so characteristic of her while competing on this event.
At the 2011 Worlds Anna competed on all the apparatuses and finished 31st in qualifications. But her beam routine was not on par with her usual standard and, with a 14.400, she did not advance to the beam final. During the team competition she helped her team to silver by performing on bars and beam. On bars she was clean as always and on beam she bounced back to show her quality by scoring a 14.900.
In 2012 Dementyeva struggled with injuries and did not make the Olympic Team. She finished the year by attending the Mexican Open where she placed third in the all-around.
In 2013 Dementyeva attended the Cottbus World Cup where she won bronze on beam and silver on floor. At the Universiade in home soil (Kazan, Russia), Anna contributed to her team’s first place finish and qualified first to the beam final but struggled in the final and finished fifth. This would be Anna’s last competition.
Anna was always known for her hard-work in training, setting an example for her teammates that went beyond big skills and high difficulty on beam.
Anna winning gold on beam at the 2011 Europeans.
Article by: Isabel Iz
Photo Cover: Brigid McCarthy