The European Games started today in Baku with the first two rotations (vault and uneven bars) and the first part of the competition counting as qualifications and team final. This is an unusual format with not many fans among the spectators. It doesn’t affect the experience and the enjoyment of watching from a qualifications point of view. But considering that this is a team competition, it certainly feels like we are left hanging uncomfortably. It would be interesting to hear from the athletes, about whether this way of competing will affect them.
After the first two events, vault and bars, in a 3 up 2 scores count competition, here are the highlights:
Aliya Mustafina was the best gymnast on the day with a stuck double twisting Yurchenko vault and a clean bars. It’s impressive how she manages to always stick her vault and keep the execution errors to a minimum (15.133/5.8), every time when it counts. As for the bars, she was very focused and on point (15.2/6.5).
Her team mate Viktoria Komova competed for the first time in a major international competition since London. The elusive come-back has finally happened, to the delight of the fans that had lost hope even before last winter’s string of jaw infections and surgeries. Her DTY was not as crisp as Mustafina’s but still pretty good quality, despite of a 0.3 deduction for stepping outside of the competition area. He bars routine looks good too although with just bent knees here and there, more noticeably on the named-after transition. At the end of the routine you could see her disappointment, knowing that any mistake would put her behind team-mate Mustafina and outside a bars final (Vika scored 14.8/6.7).
Seda Tutkhalyan managed to keep very close to her more experienced team mates. You have to give it to Seda, in a day without major expectations from her, especially no claims that she could keep up with the two on bars, she did her job and finds herself now just .3 behind Komova and 1.2 points behind Mustafina. If the two will make mistakes in the second day, Seda will be there to take that spot for the AA final.
It has been a rough year so far for Germany but today they rose to the occasion: Sophie Scheder, a former uneven bars even finalists at Worlds and Euros, nailed her routine out of 6.5 difficulty and scored a 15.00 while on vault she hit a clean FTY. Seitz also hit her FTY for an identical score; on bars she went for slightly higher difficulty (6.6), but an extra tenth of deduction on execution rought her at the same score as Scheder. Leah Griesser was the third German today both on vault and on uneven bars.
We had been waiting for a while for the day when Noemi Makra’s scores will reflect the quality of her gymnastics. She will be pleased with her good execution for her bars routine and a final score of 14.466 that secured her place in the event final. This snapshot after two events proves that she is a top athlete. Team mate Dorina Boczogo was also up there on the two events, with a well executed FTY and not the most difficult bars routine but clean enough to accompany’s Makra’s performance and keep Hungary up there on third place at the end of the first day. Luca Diveky was the third competitor for Hungary, but her scores were dropped, on both events.
Giulia Steingruber was the top qualifier on vault, after she executed an immense Rudi (15.466/6.2) and an FTY as a second vault. Jessica Diacci, with a good FTY and some problems on bars also contributed to the team total; while Caterina Barloggio only competed on bars for a low score of 10.266.
The Dutch had a good day, after near perfect executions for Celine van Gerner on bars and vault; although her difficulty was not among the highest rated on any of the two events, she finished the day 8th overall and qualified for the bars final. Lisa Top was also at her best with clean execution on bars; she did two vaults managing to qualify for the event final on 3rd place. While Lieke Wevers’ highlight event was bars for a decent score of 13.6/5.8.
Charlie Fellows was the top scoring Brit with a 13.7/5.6 on bars and a 13.966 for her FTY. Kelly Simm hit her layout Podkopayeva and her FTY and managed to qualify for the vault final, but unfortunately had a rough time on bars. Georgina Hockenhull was the third competitor for team GB.
For Italy, Tea Ugrin was the top scorer with clean routines on bars (13.766/5.9) an vault (13.900 for FTY). Alongside her, Alessia Leolini’s scores also counted, with a 14.166 (5.4) on floor and a 13.366 (5.7) on vault. Georgia Campana’s scores were discarded both on vault and on bars.
France managed to pull good routines on both events of the day – Valentine Pikul was the top scorer for France with a fairly clean bars (13.433) and and a full twisting Tsukahara vault (14.1); Marine Brevet also contributed, with a 14.133 (5.0) on vault and a 13.033 on bars. Both Anne Khum’s scores were discarded.
For Belgium, Gaelle Mys and Cindy Vandenhole hit their DTYs, while on bars Lisa Verschuren managed to hit her routine and scored 13.400, just .066 ahead of team mate Vandenhole on the event.
Romania’s strategy to bring two bars workers backfired (for now at least) and they find themselves on 10th place after the first day of competition:
They survived vault after a barely squeezed in DTY from Zarzu (14.333/5.8), followed by a solid vault from Laura Jurca (14.800/5.8) and a Yurchenko layout from Iridon (12.566/4.0).
The bars rotation was filled with drama: Laura Jurca was first up and succumbed under the responsibility, falling on a Hindorff in the opening sequence followed by an odd string of mistakes and a new fall off the apparatus (on the Geinger). She scored in the 10s for her routine. Mind you this is not a routine that is new, neither too hard, she had scored in the high 13s with the same elements just two weeks ago.
Andreea Iridon was next up and she managed to compensate somewhat for her team mate’s disaster. Kudos to her for finally hitting (for the first time in an official competition this year!). Iridon qualified for the event final with a 13.733/5.7.
But then it was Silvia Zarzu’s turn and it was not good: she fell on her dismount after a routine full of mistakes and missed handstands and another score in the 10s. But Silvia’s mistakes were not a surprise since she has not competed on bars in an international competition, in years. She was unprepared for this task and couldn’t have possibly compensated for Jurca’s miss.
So, nothing new for Romania: last year they sent to Nanning only four bars workers and when one of them faltered, the team had to absorb a score in the 10s; the same happened here, two bars workers were sent, one had big mistakes and the back-up plan was too thin.
So this is the story of the first day, the vault and bars qualifications have concluded, only six gymnasts will advance further (one per country). We will be back tomorrow with the team final results and the results of the qualifications for the all around, beam and floor.
Find the intermediate team results here
The intermediate all around results here
Here are the gymnasts qualified for the vault final:
1 Giulia Steingruberv14.849 2 Seda Tutkhalyanv14.466 3 Lisa Top 14.066 4 Gabriela Janik 13.900 5 Kelly Simm 13.883 6 Ana Derek 13.866
Here are the gymnasts qualified for the bars final
1 Aliya Mustafina15.200 2 Sophie Scheder 15.000 3 Noemi Makra 14.466 4 Celine van Gerner 13.900 5 Teea Ugrin 13.766 6 Andreea Iridon 13.733
Article by: Bea Gheorghisor
Photo Cover: Aliya Mustafina, by Nadia Boyce