Russia's new champions : Mustafina and Belyavski

A fresh start has been made in the Russian Federation, and yesterday Russia's stars presented themselves anew in their first small steps towards the Rio Olympics in 2016.  The team's leading Olympic medallist, Aliya Mustafina, won the all around competition ahead of the unlucky bird of London, Anastasia Grishina.  In third position we have youngster, first year senior Evgeniya Shelgunova.  Of course, the subtext here is that the best of all, graceful, powerful, Viktoria Komova, could not compete thanks to a nagging back injury ... surely she would have beaten the lot of them if she had only been at full strength. 

On the men's side, David Belyavski confirmed his position as Russia's leading all around gymnast, and joker Nikita Ignatyev gave him strong competition in second place.  Many of Russia's leading male gymnasts did not appear in the all around competition, however, preferring to present on their specialist pieces.  The most encouraging work came from Garibov who managed a 15.45 on pommel horse - very important to the Russians who struggle on this piece .  Balandin managed a fantastic 15.7 on rings, but then Russia's talent on this piece is well established.

The influence of new beam coach Marina Bulashenko is well evident in the work of Aliya Mustafina, who has added significant new combinations to her work and seems revived in her floor choreography (which, by all accounts, Bulashenko has been helping the team with).  You can see a good video of Aliya's work below, with thanks to Tatiana.  Aliya came first on three apparatus : vault, bars and beam, leaving floor to her London team mate Ksenia Afanasyeva, who has added a two and a half twisting somersault to her battery of floor skills.  Second placed overall, Anastasia Grishina, saw her competition spoiled by a tired double pike at the end of her floor exercise (12,6) but then she did manage to complete the double double which had seemed to be a twist too far in her London efforts.  I liked the look of Grishina at this competition, she seemed significantly more confident and strong alongside her new personal coach, Viktor Razumovsky.  I am expecting great things of her at her first home international, the European Championships, in Moscow, in April. 

I was not especially impressed by newcomer Shelgunova, but then Valentina Rodionenko has emphasised that she is there to gain experience so perhaps we can expect better things in a year or so.  Of the specialists, Maria Paseka looks to be in contention for a place on the Europeans team with strong performances on vault, where she placed second to Mustafina, and an improvable fifth place on bars. 

Sadly, Anna Dementyeva seems to remain in her good reserve position, rather than having taken a step back up into contention for the main team. I think a place on the University Games team is probably more realistic for her than Europeans. Nabieva posted solid scores on bars and vault and may have qualified to vault finals but will need to keep up her training effort if she is to compete in Kazan this summer - fingers crossed for the joyful Tatiana.

I'll post below Mustafina's beam video, some links to screen captures from the live stream (thank you Albert) and links to results.  More to follow, including today team finals, then later in the week the all important event finals.




See Albert's channel for some captures from yesterday's live streaming.

Go Tribe has transliterated the results in full at her excellent website.

And of course, the RGF has produced the results in full, with numbering to indicate the positions on the individual apparatus : MAG and WAG.