Reports – Senior Apparatus Final

 
VAULT
This first of the senior women’s finals was more open than has been the case in recent years, with Oxana Chusovetina having failed to qualify and defending champion Ariella Kaeslin (SUI) not looking quite at her best in qualifying. In the end it was yet another gold medal for the Russian team with Ekaterina Kurbatova solidly competing her double twisting Yurchenko and layout Podkopayeva (14.287). The most stylish gymnast in the final was undoubtedly Dufournet of France, who kept her legs locked together and straight throughout her two vaults but was just slightly lower on difficulty than the Russian, using a one and a half, rather than double twisting Yurchenko as her first vault (14.275). Tatiana Nabieva (RUS) picked up bronze for Russia. She had great height on her double twisting Yurchenko and Podkopayeva vaults but was slightly raggy in the legs (14.15). Kaeslin had to concede her tital today – despite having the most difficult vault by way of her handspring piked front with one and a half twists, she struggled on the landing and had to settle for fifth place today. Great Britain’s Nicole Hibbert was the last finalist up. Spurred on by the cheers of the crowds Nicole, if anything, gave her one and a half twisting Yurchenko a little too much and bounded forwards on landing. The reverse was true on her second vault where she could not stay on her feet. Not the result Nicole would have wished for but she deserves great credit for making this final in her first year as a senior gymnast.
 
BARS
Great Britain had two representatives in this bar final. As well as defending champion Beth Tweddle, Becky Downie had also qualified and was hoping for a good result. Nataliya Kononenko (UKR) was the first gymnast up and set an early standard with some excellent combinations including Tkachev to catch in mixed grip, immediate Jaeger between the bars. With 14.75, Kononenko hung on for bronze, Ukraine’s sole medal and bright spot of this championship. She was followed by Aliya Mustafina who Beth would surely have seen as one of the biggest challenges to her chances of a successful defence of her title. Aliya hit her difficult routine well for 15.05 and the silver. Becky Downie was roared on by the crowd and swung with energy through her toe on entry to piked Tkachec, Ricna and well flighted bar transitions to her full in back out dismount. 14.625 gave her an excellent sixth place and she should be very proud to have hit this testing routine three times out of three this week. If she is able to connect some of her difficuloties together to add a tenth or two to her difficulty score, she may well be in the fight for medals herself in the not too distant future. She was followed on the apparatus by the queen of the bars, Beth Tweddle. Her routine had the crowd screaming with excitement from start to finish, with the absolute most made of every swing and a nailed landing for a far higher execution score than the other finalists, which when coupled with her 6.8 difficulty score gave a total of 15.875. This was a total seemingly out of reach for the remaining gymnasts. However Youna Dufournet (FRA) was not going to let Beth have everything her own way and actually managed to match Beth for difficulty with a 6.8 score for her routine which included the rarely seen Def (full twisting Geinger) release. However, it appeared that the coach brushed the gymnast when safe guarding that massive skill and a 0.5 penalty was taken from Dufournet’s score which dropped her from what would have been a bronze medal, down to sixth place. So, disappointment for the French girl but delight for Beth and the home crowd, as this truly great gymnast takes another gold on bars.
 
BEAM
With top qualifier Ana Porgras (ROM) withdrawing from the final due to injury, the competition was thrown wide open. In the end it was the gymnast who stepped in to replace Porgras, Elena Racea, also of Romania that went away with the gold medal. She added a new combination of free cartwheel immediate tuck back and was solid and stable in opening the final for 14.40, which no-one could surpass. As in the junior final, there were a number of errors and falls, from Myzdrikova, Demyanchuk and Preziosa and those that went clean found themselves propelled towards the top of the leaderboard. Mustafina took silver with a beautiful triple spin but some slight losses of leg form, and the second Romanian Raluca Haidu who had some very ambitious combinations some of which came off and others which were broken, collected bronze with 13.95.
 
FLOOR
Such have the expectations for Beth Tweddle’s medal haul lifted dramatically over the last couple of years, that despite her gold on bars, many would have been disappointed if Beth had walked away with just the bars title. As it was Beth achieved the rare feat of successfully defending both of the title she won in Milan last year winning floor here too. This was perhaps a less comfortable victory for the experienced Tweddle – who was off line on her opening tumble and looked to be millimetres away from landing outside the boundary and incurring a heavy deduction. However the flag stayed down and from there Beth was hugely impressive through to her final combination tumble. 14.825 put her half a mark clear of the field underlining her supremacy on both of her chosen specialisms. Myzdrikova had opened the final in dramatic style with a fantastic opening tumble of whip through to double Arabian and some beautiful dance work for 14.325. Niamh Rippin knew that if she could repeat her performance from yesterday’s team final she had a shot of a medal but it was not to be today, Her double Arabian landed slightly short and she stepped out after her one and a half step out through to triple combination. With the landing penalties as harsh as they are, Niamh finished the final in sixth position. She looked disappointed, but must take many positives from her performances here. Diana Chelaru closed the final, and the championships, with a crowd pleasing exercise to which she added a double layout at the start to the routine she had used hitherto. Her score of 14.125 gave her the bronze.
 
The big success stories of this championship have been the successes of the delegations from the old super power Russia, and the new force Great Britain.

Becky Downie on coming 5th in A-Bars: “I am really happy, I’ve had a really good Europeans and a good start to the year. Now we know we’ve got to go back, add a bit more difficulty, tidy the routine up a little bit more and look forward to the rest of the year!”

On being Silver European Team Medalists “We all got to breakfast this morning and we were screaming at each other because its still so surreal and we can’t believe that we’ve done it! Today the pressure was off a little because we knew that whatever happened we had all proved ourselves yesterday."

The junior apparatus finalists benefited from the packed house at the NIA on this final day of the championship. Vault of course is generally a piece where the younger, smaller junior gymnasts might be expected to struggle but this certainly was not the case for Victoria Komova who ran away with the gold as expected. Her Amanar (two and a half twisting Yurchenko) was high, clean and tidy in flight but took a large step to the side on landing. The benefit of junior code as opposed to senior is that the gymnasts can us the same entry onto the vault. Many of the finalists took advantage of this including Komova who used an "easy" double twisting Yurchenko as her second vault to give her a huge average of 14.95. It will be interesting to see whether this gymnast acquires a second vault that will fulfil the requirements of senior code for next year. Russia once again underlined their supremacy on this piece taking silver too, for Maria Paseka (double and one and a half twisting Yurchenkos for 14.275). Italy’s Erika Fasana has been an impressive gymnast this championship and picked up a well deserved bronze for her double and one and a half twisting Yurchenkos (13.912).

Star of the championship Victoria Komova had suffered a fall in qualification and had ended up as the third placed Russian. However, she was given the chance by the Russian delegation once again and did not disappoint. She hit all of her difficulties beautifully for 15.2. However this time it was the turn of Anastasia Grishina to shine. With identical levels of difficulty to her team mate, Grishina just pipped Komova on execution, hitting all of her pirouettes right on top of the bar and nailing the dismount for 15.375 and her first individual gold which she looked delighted with. Diana Bulimar had acres of space between the bars to hit her less difficult routine well. 13.575 gave her the bronze.

This was a final littered with errors as half of the eight finalists fell from the apparatus. Larissa Iordache had the difficult task of opening the final but showed no signs of nerves or hesitancy as she attacked her difficulty packed routine with confidence. Highlights were a beautiful double spin and precise round off, back flip, triple twist dismount. Her score of 14.575 set a good target for the others to chase. Victoria Komova showed that even on the piece were she does not have the highest difficulty score (5.8 to Iordache’s 6.0) she can make up the deficit with near faultless execution. This she did here, hitting her flick to two layout series, and standing Arabian perfectly and giving a lesson on how to construct a beam routine, such was the flow and artistry she showed. 14.9 gave her a third and final individual gold. Great Britain had their sole finalist in the junior competition with Billie Mackenzie doing a great job to stick her routine well in this company. 13.425 gave her an excellent fourth place. Just ahead of her was Tess Moonen who collected a first medal for the Netherlands in this competition with some good quality work for 13.975.

The floor exercise final was possibly the highest in quality of the junior final, with fewer mistakes and a number of gymnasts contending for the medals. With four gymnasts scoring above 14 this certainly proved to be the case. It was also expected that here Russia would have their dominance of the gold medals threatened by the two Romanian entrants. This also came to pass. Grishina opened the final fresh from her success on bars and put in another excellent performance with the main error a short landing on her triple twist but otherwise had excellent quality to her work. 14.275 gave her a second individual gold. She was joined on top of the podium by Romania’s Larissa Iordache who built her high difficulty level through complex leaps and spins to equal Grishina’s 14.275. In bronze was the second Russian finalist Anastasia Sidarova who included four vastly difficult tumbling lines for 14.2, demonstrating the Russian’s strength in depth as the fourth of their gymnasts to take an individual medal. Diana Bulimar of Romania was probably the crowd’s favourite such was her action-packed routine which opened with a fantastic double straight. However, Bulimar did not quite have the difficulty in her gymnastic elements to match the tumbling and was just kept out of the medals with 14.175.

So, as the junior competition concludes, there is little doubt that the Russian team have dominated the competition with routines and performance on a different level to their competitors. Victoria Komova will be the name that people remember from this championship, but it will surely be she and her team mates that become the core of the Russian team for their attack on Olympic team gold in 2012.

Preview: Yesterday saw the British team claim a fantastic Silver medal and Sunday gives the opportunity for four of the Senior gymnasts as well as Billie Mackenzie from the Junior team to add to team GB’s tally.

It will be the busiest day so far at the NIA, with all four apparatus being contested.  The top eight gymnasts on each piece from qualifications earlier in the week will compete for the title of European champion with the Juniors on show in the morning and the Senior gymnasts performing in the afternoon.

In the Junior section, the Russians have been fantastic so far and they qualified first and second for all the apparatus finals, apart from the Floor.  All around champion Victoria Komova will shine on the Vault and Beam with teammate Grishina expected to swing to a Bars gold.  Romania will provide a strong challenge to the Russians on the Floor through Diana Bulimar whilst in the Beam final we will see Billie Mackenzie perform for Great Britain.

Beth Tweddle has been far and away the best gymnast on both the Bars and the Floor during qualifications and Team finals and it would be testament to her focus this Championship if she can continue this form through to Sunday’s finals.  As has been the case through much of the event, the greatest challenge will come from Russia, with 15 year old Aliya Mustafina fighting for Bar, Beam and Floor medals.  Her teammate Myzdrikova has some unique skills on the Floor which have not all come off so far and these two may provide the biggest threat to Tweddle on the respective pieces.  Rebecca Downie has looked strong on bars so far and should not be discounted from the battle for medals on this piece.

Ana Porgras has looked very classy on beam but limped out of Saturday’s Team Final leaving the beam final as a somewhat open event.  On vault, another Russian Tatiana Nabieva qualified first and her challenge is expected to come from 2009 World medallist Arielle Kaeslin as well as her teammate Kurbatova.  Nicole Hibbert competes for Britain in this event while fellow Brit Niamh Rippin has made the Floor final.