The podium of the all around final at the European Games was not a surprise. But this doesn’t mean that the competition was less enjoyable. The tension of the duel between the Swiss European All Around Champ, Giulia Steingruber, and the Russian World All Around Champion (in 2010), Aliya Mustafina, lasted for about twenty minutes into the meet. For twenty minutes we thought that Giulia could be strong opposition to the Russian: the competition stared on vault, Mustafina had some more pronounced in-flight form errors on her DTY (14.866) while Giulia managed the best Rudi we have seen her do (15.6/6.2).
But on the next event it became clear that the Russian favorite would quickly distance herself from her competitors: Mustafina managed a great bars routine, out of 6.5 with just very minor errors (bent knees on take-off for dismount, small step on the landing). She was rewarded with a 15.500. In the meantime the Swiss hit her bars routine too, but the difference in skills and technique on this event between the two was well reflected in the score (13.133 for Giulia).
Beam was a test of emotions and control for both gymnasts: Steingruber had a much more nervous performance than in qualifications and didn’t break the 14’s barrier (13.766/5.8); Mustafina also had a major check on the side aerial but she contained any doubts she might have had, on all other complicated elements or combinations -double pirouette, two aerial walkovers connected, standing Arabian, double back dismount (14.500/6.1).
On floor, Mustafina had a routine which opened with a double layout, followed by a visible stumble on her new pirouette combo Memmel to Semenova; but she didn’t let her concentration slide and she stayed on her feet on the rest of the passes (13.7/5.9). It was enough for the first place, finishing almost two points ahead of Giulia Steingruber.
On her turn, Steingruber did not have a perfect floor routine, although she opened with an amazing full twisting double layout. The rest of her landings we pretty tough to control; still, the height of her acrobatic skills was impressive (14.200/6.0).
Lieke Wevers brought the bronze medal to the Netherlands. She was even more impressive that in qualifications as she managed clean performances all around and some brilliant execution scores. Her best events were beam (13.533/4.9) and floor (13.866/5.4); and these might not seem too high scores but it’s the grace and the quality of her every movement and how everything flows that makes her routines unforgettable.
4th was Sophie Scheder from Germany and although she had in fact qualified with the 3rd score to this final, she dropped off the radar as a favorite to medal early on, after a fall on her favorite event, bars, on a pike Tkachev (13.766/6.3). Her best scoring event today was beam, showing near-perfect execution and consistency (14.233/5.5 compared to 14.133/5.4 in qualifications).
Next in the ranking were a group of gymnasts with consistent efforts across the four events and scores in the mid 13’s: Tea Ugrin from Italy, Gaelle Mys from Belgium, Dorina Boczogo from Hungary and Valentine Pikul from France. Valentine had in fact a big error on floor but overall those were pretty consistent and similar performances.
On 9th was Laura Jurca from Romania who had replaced Andreea Iridon. Unfortunately the coaches decided to swap the two hoping that the slightly higher D scores would give Laura an advantage in an AA situation. However, Laura is not in her best shape at the moment and had mistakes on vault (probably fell on DTY) as well as troubles on bars and floor. As it turns it would have been perhaps smarter (on top of just rightful) to let Andreea Iridon compete.
Here is the ranking of the 18 finalists:
1 473 MUSTAFINA Aliya RUS D 58.566 2 479 STEINGRUBER Giulia SUI D 56.699 3 461 WEVERS Lieke NED D 55.065 4 437 SCHEDER Sophie GER D 54.932 5 454 UGRIN Tea ITA D 54.331 6 407 MYS Gaelle BEL D 53.799 7 442 BOCZOGO Dorina HUN D 53.465 8 431 PIKUL Valentine FRA D 52.999 9 470 JURCA Laura ROU D 52.632 10 426 CARMONA URBANO Ainhoa ESP D 51.966 11 434 SIMM Kelly GBR D 51.932 12 465 JANIK Gabriela POL D 51.532 13 481 YILMAZ Tutya TUR D 50.831 14 483 KYSLA Angelina UKR D 50.631 15 405 NEKRASOVA Marina AZE D 50.098 16 440 MILLOUSI Vasiliki GRE D 49.599 17 451 FELDON Tzuf ISR D 49.599 18 480 MOKOSOVA Barbora SVK D 48.832
Article by: Bea Gheorghisor
Photo Cover: the AA podium, via UEG on Facebook