The event finals at the 2017 Europeans proved to be much less gloomy than I expected or than it had been predicted through the competitions leading up. Gold medal winners from 4 different countries, not much controversy related to the order of the medalists and of the winners. Favorites that lived up to their potential, surprises and some disappointments. With the exception of the elbow injury sustained by Becky Downie in the uneven bars final, we had a pretty good weekend from Cluj Napoca.
Coline Devillard from France won vault with a Rudi and a double twisting Yurchenko. Her execution lacks a bit of amplitude (I find it similar to the Chinese, perhaps a bit of lack of power). But her D score advantage proved enough to compensate for less than exciting execution. Ellie Downie was 2nd with a Yurchenko double full, well executed and a superb Lopez as second vault. She needs to upgrade, her second vault at least, and this will put her in contention for gold by Worlds. Her execution is so good. Third was Boglarka Devai with the same vaults as Downie (and what felt like everyone else, although it was not actually the case). She scored a 9.0 on her DTY execution but was deducted a bit more for her Lopez (9.033 to Downie’s 9.1).
It’s noteworthy that of the seven DTY in the finals, four were rewarded with the same execution score, 9.0; and all the DTYs had execution scores between 8.9 and 9.166. A range of 0.266 dis not accurately reflect the actual execution of these 7 vaults. I am not against ties, but the 10 points for the E score are huge margin that is not used correctly at this point.
A shout out to Teja Belak, who did not do a DTY. She gets an originality bonus from me. Her vaults were a handspring front layout full and a Yurchenko 1 1/2, with which she placed 7th.
In the uneven bars final Nina Derwael finally lived up to her potential and hit her very difficult and original routine. The silver medal went to Elena Eremina who has a messy execution overall but I feel she is maintained in contention by her super-difficult Nabieva release. I know she deserves to be on the podium for the Nabieva, but at the same time I wish the same standards of E score evaluation would apply to everyone. It’s complicated. There was a tie for bronze between Ellie Downie who managed one of her better routines and Elizabeth Seitz for a hit routine but of downgraded difficulty compared to qualifications and a step on dismount.
Falls and nervous routines were sprinkled across the beam final. It’s a shame when not everyone manages their best and the ranking is decided by mistakes. Still, there were great moments too: Catalina Ponor managed to throw her full difficulty in the final, of 6.2. She had a great layout stepout mount followed by a flawless flick -loso-loso series, even the Kochetckova that gave her troubles in qualifications and the switch ring leap that looked like a weak spot in previous competitions were almost perfect. Eythora Thorsdottir won silver for a beautiful routine. She had the cleanest execution of the field, not rewarded enough imho, but her placement was fair after a 5.6 D score. Also, my issue with her routine is that I can never seem to remember where is her acro seris; methinks this might not bode well for the judges either. Larisa Iordache won bronze after a super solid routine (with only minor checks) but huge steps back after the triple full dismount. She hadn’t trained this element for long after her heel injury and you could see she was not 100% confident that she could fully rotate it, even in training.
The floor final brought us another dreamy podium. Angelina Melnikova suddenly remembered that she is a fantastic gymnast with great floor. She hit a routine with double layout, Arabian double front, full in pike and double pike. I am not in love with her choreography although she is a very beautiful gymnast with loads of ballet training and she manages to make it work in the end. The silver medal went to Ellie Downie (Silivas, Arabian double front, double pike). She had really good tumbling but lost some tenths on the artistic impression. Eythora Thorsdottir did one of her magical floor routines and despite going oob on the punch front after the triple full, her score was good enough for the bronze medal.
Here are the complete results:
Vault
1 329 DEVILLARD Coline FRA 1 5.8 8.833 0.0 14.633 14.467 2 5.4 8.900 0.0 14.300 2 332 DOWNIE Elissa GBR 1 5.4 9.000 0.0 14.400 14.350 2 5.2 9.100 0.0 14.300 3 346 DEVAI Boglarka HUN 1 5.4 9.000 0.0 14.400 14.317 2 5.2 9.033 0.0 14.233 4 387 PASEKA Maria RUS 1 5.2 8.833 0.0 14.033 14.283 2 5.8 8.733 0.0 14.533 5 367 VOLLEMAN Tisha NED 1 5.4 9.000 0.0 14.400 14.250 2 5.2 8.900 0.0 14.100 6 347 KOVACS Zsofia HUN 1 5.4 9.166 0.0 14.566 14.200 2 4.8 9.033 0.0 13.833 7 388 BELAK Teja SLO 1 5.4 8.900 0.0 14.300 14.183 2 5.0 9.066 0.0 14.066 8 386 MELNIKOVA Angelina RUS 1 5.4 9.000 0.0 14.400 14.000 2 5.2 8.700 0.3 13.600
Uneven Bars:
1 307 DERWAEL Nina BEL 6.1 8.533 0.0 14.633 2 385 EREMINA Elena RUS 6.0 8.300 0.0 14.300 3 332 DOWNIE Elissa GBR 5.9 8.233 0.0 14.133* 3 339 SEITZ Elisabeth GER 5.9 8.233 0.0 14.133 5 338 BUI Kim GER 6.0 7.900 0.0 13.900 6 347 KOVACS Zsofia HUN 5.8 7.300 0.0 13.100 7 331 DOWNIE Rebecca GBR 5.5 8.000 0.5 13.000 8 328 DE JESUS DOS SANTOS Melanie FRA 4.9 6.800 0.0 11.700
Balance beam:
1 383 PONOR Catalina ROU 6.2 8.366 0.0 14.566 2 366 THORSDOTTIR Eythora NED 5.6 8.466 0.0 14.066 3 382 IORDACHE Larisa Andreea ROU 6.0 7.966 0.0 13.966 4 332 DOWNIE Elissa GBR 5.3 8.133 0.0 13.433 5 369 WEVERS Sanne NED 5.6 7.841 0.1 13.341* 6 347 KOVACS Zsofia HUN 5.0 8.133 0.0 13.133 7 327 BOYER Marine FRA 5.7 7.266 0.0 12.966 8 334 FRAGAPANE Claudia GBR 5.1 7.433 0.0 12.533 9 336 ALT Tabea GER 5.7 5.366 0.1 10.966
Floor:
1 386 MELNIKOVA Angelina RUS 5.4 8.700 0.0 14.100 2 332 DOWNIE Elissa GBR 5.4 8.666 0.0 14.066 3 366 THORSDOTTIR Eythora NED 5.5 8.300 0.1 13.700 4 338 BUI Kim GER 5.2 8.366 0.0 13.566 5 359 MORI Lara ITA 5.4 8.166 0.0 13.566 6 337 SCHAEFER Pauline GER 5.1 8.433 0.0 13.533 7 334 FRAGAPANE Claudia GBR 5.5 8.333 0.3 13.533 8 385 EREMINA Elena RUS 5.0 8.466 0.0 13.466
Article: Bea Gheorghisor