Mustafina collects another gold, silver at Toyota Cup; dominates world scene in 2010

The All Around Gymnastics News site reports the final results of the second day of competition in Japan.

Beam : 1 Mitchell, 15.2   2  Mustafina 15.15   3 Sui Lu 14.975 
Dementieva came 7th with 12.775 following two falls and two large balance checks.   Such a pity - competing to full potential, Dementieva should have been able to beat this field on beam.

Floor: Equal first = Sui Lu and Aliya Mustafina, 14.625  3 - Jiang Yuyuan, 14.175.  Dementieva came 5th with 14 points.  Albert reports that she had problems landing her final triple twist.

This was a fairly good competition for the Russians that underlines their growing strength in depth.  Thanks to Mustafina's efforts, they took half the gold on offer, in addition to two silvers and a bronze medal.  All three Russian girls medalled, and Russians collected medals on every piece of apparatus.  Out of 12 possible medals, they took five. The Chinese didn't do badly either, collecting 4 medals overall. 

Given the roster at this competition which was a little like a mini World Championships I think it's fairly plain that Mustafina is currently dominating the world scene.  In Japan she again demonstrated her competitive grit and consummate technical and artistic ability.  Had she not slipped up on bars she would have medalled on all four pieces, and the margins on beam indiciate it's arguable she could have taken gold there, too. Competition organisers seem to like to spread the gold around a little if they can.



The Russian team performers did a fairly good job, Kurbatova surprising no one as usual and achieving a solid result.  Anna Dementieva is Miss Potential Waiting For It All To Turn Out Right.  Had she performed to her full ability, she could fairly easily have achieved another gold in addition to her silver on bars.  This girl makes too many mistakes at present, but she has grit and ambition, and I would love to see her do her talents justice and shine on the world stage alongside the other Russian girls over the coming year.  She looks like a girl for the big occasion, to me.