On Saturday in Penza, the women competed in the Vault Final and Uneven Bars Final, the former showing some room for improvement but the latter going very well. With just a quick scan of the results, fans will immediately notice that reigning vault world champion Maria Paseka didn’t finish top three on her best apparatus, but according to an interview Valentina Rodionenko gave following the competition, this shouldn’t be any great cause for concern. Paseka was apparently feeling a bit unwell.
Notable for a more fortunate reason, you’ll also notice that Tatiana Nabieva competed on both bars and vault, performing admirably on the former and winning silver on the latter. Not bad for someone who’s not even officially on the National Team, and “retired” according to team management!
First year senior Natalya Kapitonova didn’t manage to repeat her jaw-dropping bars performance from qualifications, missing out on the podium here, but she still holds the competition-high on the event, posting a 15.567 during qualifications. With little differentiation between their routines, Skrypnik, Spiridonova, and Mustafina came out on top, with the timing of pirouettes and handstands determining the outcome between gold and silver, and a relatively lower start value keeping Mustafina from challenging her younger teammates for the title, at least at this stage. Their work is beautiful, as usual, but I have a hard time imaging any Rio line-up where more than one of them make the team. Come 2020, Russia might be reveling in the new composition (two event specialists in addition to the team) for bars alone. There will be very talented gymnasts left behind this year.
**Vault Results: **(to be updated with individual vault values and scores once a larger font is located!)
Seda Tutkhalyan, 14.550
Tatiana Nabieva, 14.467
Anastasia Dmitrieva, 14.217
Alla Sosnitskaya, 14.000
Maria Paseka, 14.000
Evgenia Menovshikova, 13.650
Polina Fedorova, 13.633
Yulia Viryulia, 13.617
Uneven Bars Results:
Daria Skrypnik, 15.300/6.6
Daria Spiridonova, 15.267/6.7
Aliya Mustafina, 15.200/6.2
Natalya Kapitonova, 14.933/6.4
Angelina Melnikova, 14.700/6.3
Tatiana Nabieva, 14.300/5.8
maria Kharenkova, 13.900/5.7
Evgenia Shelgunova, 13.667/5.9
The Balance Beam Final and Floor Exercise Final will commence on Sunday. Stay tuned!
**Article: Sara Dorrien-Christians **
Photo: Russian Gymnastics Federation