At the start of the week we knew that this title was wide open to a few gymnasts that had shown good shape and progress in the first months of the year. The names of the ones that would be able to challenge were predictable, but we didn’t know how captivating the actual competition it was going to be, in the absence of Europe’s top two all arounders, Iordache and Mustafina. Fortunately it was a pleasant meet overall:
Giulia Steingruber took the title and she proved that she is Europe’s most complete gymnast, today. She had the most difficulty (a sum of 23.8), but also the most evenly distributed across the events (6.2- 5.7 – 5.9 – 6.0). Her best events today were vault (she is vaulting her best Rudi’s at this Euros edition, I think) but also floor, where she managed to improve her qualifying score (14.566/6.0). The difficult vault was always her ally to boost her AA total, but she has worked so hard over the years on upgrading, so bit by bit, her floor came together nicely, and then her beam and bars too.
Today her weakest event was bars; it must have been the pressure of knowing that it was going to be a bit result at the end of that routine. Over the past years Giulia had great progress but also big setbacks in preparation so it must have felt so rewarding that it all came together today.
Maria Kharenkova was 2nd – she started out with a hiccup on bars (didn’t hit a handstand and had to take an extra swing) but she quickly moved on from that with a solid beam set (15.00/6.2) and a floor routine like in the good all days when she was a European junior Champ (14.166/5.8). Ultimately, the fact that her vault was only an FTY counted a lot in the economy of the meet. It is so much riskier to increase your Ds on bars and beam than to simply have a more complicated vault (which after all is one element). But we’ve seen many times that this is easier said than done. It was a satisfactory meet overall from Kharenkova. She would have needed to be faultless though, in order to take the title.
It was a pretty good meet for Ellie Downie as well. She hadn’t been on the list of favorites for medals, due to a slow start of season at her National Championships. But she was very consistent in Montpellier, managing to place 3rd both in qualifications and in the all around final. Her best event today was vault (where she has a huge DTY), followed by bars (it seems to run in the family, the preference for bars). Her beam and floor were not at all bad either but she will look to improve the landings and to finesse the execution of certain elements.
Erika Fasana placed 4th and really close to Ellie Downie’s total (just 0.149p behind). Between Erika and 5th place Marta Pihan Kulesza the difference was of 1.276p. It was one of those sad situations when you wish there were four medals awarded just to highlight this difference. Erika Fasana’s best event was floor where she added a bit of difficulty compared to qualifications (14.50/6.2) .
Marta Pihan Kulesza was 5th, after a very consistent meet, followed, up until the 8th place, by Claudia Fragapane, Laura Jurca and Ana Filipa Martins.
A few conclusions can be drawn: the overall level of difficulty was lower but this did not take away from the richness of the competition. At the podium – level, the difficulty scores can be compared with the top shown so far in the World (perhaps excluding Simone). Giulia Steingruber took the title thanks to an overall D total of 23.8. This number is not far from the no 2 and no 3 totals of the year: Bailie Key and Aly Raisman have posted at Jesolo scores of 24.1-24.0.
Maria Kharenkova was not far behind, with her 23.2, while Erika Fasana (4th place) posted the 3rd difficulty total (23.1). Bronze medalist Ellie Downie and her team mate Claudia Fragapane both had total D scores of 22.8. But if we go back and compare with the rest of the world, these numbers already take the difficulty conversation down to places 19 to 21 (equal to Jessica Lopez at the American cup, Spiridonova’s at Russian Champs and Eythora T’s at her National Euro Trials).
Still, there were elements of difficulty, routines of 6.0 D, and they contributed to the animation. The fact that there were few major errors also contributed a lot. I counted only 6-8 falls in the whole final (correct me if I’m wrong) and among the top field, there were no falls up (down?) until 6th place Fragapane.
Your take: how did you find the competition interesting or not so much? What was the highlight and what outcome would you change if you could?
Article by: Bea Gheorghisor
Photo Cover: Britsh Gymnastics on Facebook