Russian Team Announced

Google translated source: CLICK HERE

WAG: Aliya  Mustafina, Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Grishina, KSENIA AFANASYEVA & Maria Paseka. Alternates are Tatiana Nabieva and Yulia Inshina.

MAG: Garibov Emin, David Belyavsky, Denis Ablyazin, Alexander Balandin and Igor Pakhomenko. Alternates: Sergei Khorokhordin  & Nikita Ignatyev.

The Russian team will leave on July 21st. My birthday is on July 21st, what great news to hear that my favourite gymnast, Afanasyeva will be a two-time Olympian and traveling to London on my birthday.

Yulia Inshina, The Dark Horse? (My Final Russian Team Prediction)

Can Inshina make the team and be the dark horse? I’m predicting yes. If Inshina does make the team, Russia would be a bit weak but there is still hope for Russia.

The team will be announced around the 8th of July. My ideal team would be Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasyeva and Dementyeva. Realistically I can’t see them winning team gold but they can challenge USA if they have Amanars. Russia is full of secrets and surprises.

Sidorova is out of contention. Dementyeva has not been confirmed to be back on the team so my real objective team is Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasyeva and Paseka. I think Mustafina, Komova and Grishina are all official locks. The fourth member should be Afanasyeva but her injury is questionable. The only reason she’ll be off the team is because of not recovering in time. I would be disappointed if she’s left off the team but I must remain positive, I’m bracing myself for whatever happens. I hope she makes the team and will peak well enough for the games. Paseka could make the team because she did land an Amanar at the Russian Cup but she wasn’t consistent enough. She could be able to do it in London, who knows. Nabieva could also make the team. Basically what I’m saying is that there are three locks and two spots left. The last two spots are up for grabs between Afanasyeva, Paseka, Nabieva and Inshina. Any of them can make up the final two spots.

My biggest prediction is that YULIA INSHINA will make the team (even though I didn't include her in my objective team prediction).  I know it sounds crazy but I have a feeling she’s going to be in London as an actual member, not an alternate (she could be an alternate though). I realize I’m talking crazy (contradicting myself) but anything is possible. Awhile ago I did a post on Inshina CLICK HERE and for some reason she must be a popular gymnast because that post is my 4th most viewed post.

I wish all the Russian gymnasts the best of luck and I hope the Russian coaches makes the best choices. The suspense is killing me.

Newer Russian Cup Videos

This YouTube Channel has newer/better quality Russian Cup videos: larasidl

You can find better floor quality vids of Mustafina & Komova.

Scary dismount fall from Afanasyeva. She has an ankle injury and it is really evident in this video. She still looks in great shape and still has an classy beam routine. She didn't connect the front aerial + ff + Pike quick enough, she was obviously struggling with her ankle. She scratched floor finals. Yulia Inshina on FX. She deserved her spot on the Russian training squad. Before I was harsh on her but she is a steady competitor. Decent floor.

Russian Preliminary Olympic Team Announced

The top 8 male and female members that are in running for the Russian Olympic team are:

Men: Dennis Ablyazin, Alexander Balandin, David Belyavsky, Emin Garibov, Konstantin Pluzhnikov, Nikita Ignatyev, Sergey Khorokhordina, Igor Pakhomenko.

Women: Ksenia Afanasyeva, Viktoria Komova, Aliya Mustafina, Anastasia Grishina, Tatiana Nabieva, Maria Paseka, Anastasia Sidorova and Yulia Inshina.

The official 5 men team and 5 women team will be named no later then July 7th. Source: CLICK HERE

My Thoughts on The Women's Team

No Anna Dementyeva? Are they crazy? Anna Dementyeva is more capable of competing better than Yulia Inshina, in my humble opinion. I'm thinking Anna Dementyeva is not fully healthy and that they have no faith in her. I'm also getting scared that Afanasyeva's injury might be worse than expected but I try to remain optimistic. If the team really is going to be named around the 7th of July Afanasyeva has a lot of healing and work to do. Russia hasn't been healthy lately. The status of Sidorova's injuries aren't really well known also. I think the clear locks are Komova, Mustafina and Grishina. The last two spots will be a battle between the remaining girls. I don't see Yulia Inshina making the team so I would cut her off first for my team prediction. Inshina could prove useful as alternate though. The next two girls I would cut off is Paseka or Nabieva. Paseka's chances of making the team is getting the Amanar, if she can't get it consistently I wouldn't risk having her on the team. Nabieva could fill in but she can only do VT & UB, sadly for her bars is covered and vault is also covered to a lesser extent. I will make a team prediction later on.

Komova Wins 2012 Russian Cup AA

Aliya Mustafina, Viktoria Komova, Yulia Inshina

Results: Click Here

1) Viktoria Komova 15.200 + 16.200 + 15.067 + 14.300 = 60.767
2) Aliya Mustafina 15.067 + 15.867 + 14.100 + 14.133 = 59.167
3) Yulia Inshina 13.700 + 14.200 + 14.400 + 13.867 = 56.167

The beautiful and talented Viktoria Komova wins AA. I really want her to win AA in London. She has it all. The fierce Aliya Mustafina came in second and the quiet Yulia Inshina came in 3rd. I'm happy that Inshina can achieve the 3rd place because this will give her confidence to fight for a spot on the Russian team. It's not really clear who will be on the Russian team yet. Paseka has failed to hit her Amanar but she could still make it on the Russian team. Afanasyeva came in 4th and was a tenth behind Inshina. Afan hit beam and floor. Afanasyeva's floor was severely watered down, no DLO and to only end with double full, yet still scored close to full routines by Komova and Mustafina.

Quick Final Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 4

I missed this competition online again. Here are all the final results for EF: FINAL EF RESULTS

1st place, Anna Pavlova on vault! I'm not surprise and the Russian coaches should consider her. She needs to bust out a Amanar. She did do a Amanar in Beijing vault finals.

Grishina, Pavlova, Paseka

1st place, Aliya Mustafina on bars. Again not a surprise. From what I heard around the internet forums was that every gymnasts had a fall besides Mustafina and Inshina. I was happy to see Inshina medal for herself individually. Inshina came in 2nd. Grishina came in 3rd after falling from her VLW (toe-on shaposh 1/2). I'm actually not surprised that Grishina fell on this element. She is not tall enough to catch this element. She is always fingertips away from the HB and almost falls. She still has time to improve and perfect the VLW element but I hope that her coach takes it out if it becomes too inconsistent for her.

Aliya Mustafina's UB: She is a beast!

Quick Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 2

This time it was the Senior team finals, results are here: Click here for RESULTS 

1. Moscow Team: Mustafina was the leader of this group. It was quite hard to tell who was who in this group. I couldn't tell who did a DTY because they were either still doing warm-ups or I couldn't really tell the differences between Paseka and Mustafina. Regardless the DTY's I saw were good or had hops fwd. Grishina's DTY was a bit short with deep landings and I could tell she was really trying to wrap in that last twist.On bars Paseka was not aesthetically pleasing to watch. Their bar rotation got a lot better with Grishina. Grishina hit her set with a stuck landing. Mustafina was the star on this event. She did her regular routine and finally hits her pak + stalder shaposh 1/2. She was a bit hesitant on her sole 1/1 but manages to connect it into her dismount, "the Mustafina".
On beam this team had some problems Grishina fell on her RO + layout. She was very shaky but nailed her double spin. Mustafina was really shaky and had very low difficulty. Hopefully she will be able to upgrade and have a better constructed beam routine. If she wants to be a potential AA contender for the Olympics something has to be done about her BB. Beam is not her forte.
On FX Mustafina did not compete. Grishina was lovely. She really stood out and she probably performed a new routine. I couldn't really tell because there were no audio for music on floor.

2. Central Team: Afanasyeva was the leader for this team. She had a decent DTY & UB. She is fighting to stay on those bars. Her BB is beautiful when she can hit it. This time she connected a very good front aerial + ff + whip. Very secure in her leap jumps. The only major problem is her double pike dismount. Her floor was ok, I've seen better from her. She brought back her 3/2 + 1/1 twisting combo.

Pavlova was just Pavlova. A really beautiful and elegant gymnast. She fell on her jaeger release on bars. Her floor is really "pretty" but really lacks difficulty it was nice to just see her compete and help her regional team. Inshina did her job but did have some issues especially with the dbl front dismount on bars, it was quite scary.

The highlight for me was Mustafina's bars (16.033, bonus points though) and Afanasyeva's consistency (AA 59.733, bonus points though).


Mustafina's 16.033 bars. Not the best video quality.

Quick Thoughts on Russian Championships 2012 part 1

First here are the results for Senior AA: Senior Results 

1. Aliya Mustafina is the all-around champion! She didn't show full difficulty but she has made a statement. She is definitely the leader for Russia and Russia absolutely needs her on their Olympic team. As the Olympic comes closer Aliya will most likely be in full strength with full difficulty and ready to challenge for a team & AA title.

2. Ksenia Afanasyeva has proven that she is too valuable to be left off the Olympic team. She manages to hit all her routines and showed that she really wants to make it to another Olympic games. She didn't show full difficulty on FX but did try to upgrade her double pike to a leap jump for CV. And finally she hits her Onodi + Side-somi combo on BB.

3. Anastasia Grishina has finally landed a DTY this is great news because a DTY will almost guarantee her a spot on the Olympic team. She had problems on bars and beam but this was only one competition and we'll see how well she does in the event finals. What really surprised me was that she had the top floor score. I think Grishina mainly focused on VT & FX for this competition and that could explain why she didn't do too well on UB & BB.

4. Yulia Inshina was consistent and quiet as usual. I was quite surprise at how well Inshina performed. She's proving to the Russian committee that she could help out somewhere and could be a very good alternate.

5. Anna Pavlova did well. She is still a very elegant and clean gymnast but with very low difficulty. What I like about Pavlova is that she is still competing and was helping her regional team for the team qualifications.

9. Yulia Belokobylskaya didn't have the best meet. On her best event she only scored 14.000 but on the bright side she did moderately well on BB.

*Please note that Komova, Dementyeva, Sidorova and Nabieva were not competing.

There are videos floating around on YT but the quality are poor due to the poor live stream, some videos = yannaGym 

Thoughts On Yulia Inshina

The first time I saw Inshina was on YouTube HERE. I thought her balance beam was well done. She had some nice line and toe point. She was steady but not perfect and had a lot of potential. I knew she was going to be a potential candidate for the 2011 team if gymnasts on the Russian team were to retire or be injured. She is a close friend of Viktoria Komova and they both train in the same gym. She doesn't stand out much and her gymnastics is standard but she is a very solid lead off gymnast who can be used on all three apparatuses (UB, BB, FX).

At the 2011 Russian Cup she was vying for a spot on the Russian world team. Inshina placed 5th AA and in EF (event finals) she placed 2nd FX, 5th UB & BB. What I liked about Inshina was her bar routine. She could decently do bars and looked far more cleaner on bars compared to Yulia Belokobylskaya and Ksenia Afanasyeva. A lot of gym fans on the internet were not impressed by Inshina and doubted her chances of making the team. Inshina eventually made it to the training squad as an alternate and had to prove herself worthy of team final material. In the end she made the final cut and was used as the perfect lead off gymnast for Russia. She eventually qualified to BB finals and finished 6th place.

She is currently in London at the test event with another talented Russian, Anastasia Grishina. Sidorova was suppose to be at the test event but is not completely free from injuries. I will admit that Inshina is not my cup of tea but she has proven to be a reliable gymnast (not a headcase).

It is going to be an interesting year. If anything I can see her as an alternate for the Russian Olympic team. The Russian coaches know what they are doing and they have a plan. Let's all wait and see how Inshina's gymnastics career will unfold in 2012 and beyond.

Yulia Inshina's Current D-Scores (break down, I omitted some skills that do not contribute to the top 8 skills) (Click the orange colour to see her youtube routine)

VAULT FTY = 5.0 D-Score

BARS Inbar 1/2 + P. Jaeger (D+D) 0.1

          Inbar + Inbar 1/1 + Pak (D+E+D) 0.2

          Toe-on 1/2 + Inbar Shoot to HB (C+C)

          Double Front dismount (D)

          3.1 + 0.3CV = 3.4 + 2.5CR = 5.9 D-Score

BEAM Switch Leap + Back Tuck (C+C) 0.1

           Sheep Jump (D)

           Front Aerial + FF + LOSO (D+B+C) 0.2

           Side-Somi (D)

           L-Turn (C)

           Aerial Cartwheel (D)

           Switch Ring (E)

           Double Pike (E)

           3.2 + 0.3CV = 3.5 + 2.5CR = 6.0 D-Score if everything gets connected & credit

             

FLOOR Whip + Double Arabian (A+E) 0.2

             Bwd 3/2 Twists + Dbl Tuck (C+D) 0.1

             Double L - Turn (D)              

             Switch Leap + Switch Leap 1/2 (B+C)

             Bwd 5/2 Twists (D)  

             Switch Ring (C)

             Double Pike (D)

             3.0 + 0.3 CV = 3.3 + 2.5CR = 5.8 D-Score if everything gets credit.