Women’s Russian Championships Day 1!
I don’t have complete results yet, but I did already find some videos up of both Anna Pavlova and Viktoria Komova from the first day of the Russian Championships. Unfortunately the videos can’t be embedded into this post, so I’ll have to just link to them. Here we go:
Anna Pavlova Beam 2010 Russian Championships
Anna Pavlova Bars 2010 Russian Championships
Anna Pavlova Floor 2010 Russian Championships
Anna Pavlova Vault 2 2010 Russian Championships
Pavlova is coming along and certainly appears to be taking this comeback very seriously. Her beam here, thought certainly not at her best, was much better than what we saw from the Khorkina Cup in November. The dismount was a little scary…especially considering that’s similar to how she landed when she tore her ACL! I wouldn’t mind seeing her change that to a double tuck or something…
Great to see her back on floor…very easy tumbling overall but the triple full was pretty good. From the looks of the double pike her power is definitely coming back…just needs more time. I couldn’t find her first vault, but pretty impressive to be throwing that laid-out Podkopayeva already. And as for bars, it’s still very clean but I think she’s going to HAVE to upgrade there to make an impact on this powerful Russian team now. Her invert work has improved because she is right in handstand, so I think that’s what she needs to take more advantage of. I hope she’s working skills like full-turns to elgrip and an Ono turn so she can get a routine like the Chinese girls. This one certainly isn’t going to cut it, and because of her knee it’s an event where she can spend a lot of time.
Viktoria Komova Bars 2010 Russian Championships
Ekaterina Kurbatova Floor, Viktoria Komova Beam 2010 Russian Championships
Viktoria Komova Vault 1 2010 Russian Championships
Viktoria Komova Vault 2 2010 Russian Championships
Viktoria Komova Floor 2010 Russian Championships
Well she’s still looking like her unstoppable self. What an incredible gymnast! I like watching her most on bars and beam…she’s incredibly consistent and just has a really beautiful look. That first vault definitely wasn’t her best, but a pretty powerful piked Omelianchik on the second one. On floor she has a ways to go with perfecting the landings with this new landing rule…which I still don’t like…but definitely enough to still make her the best all-arounder in the world right now. I think most of us are just holding our breath for her, hoping that in two years she will still look at least this good and will stay healthy. If so, she just may be unbeatable.
Ksenia Semenova Bars 2010 Russian Championships
Ksenia Semenova Beam 2010 Russian Championships
Ksenia Semenova Floor 2010 Russian Championships
Ksenia Semenova Vault 2010 Russian Championships
Wow…Semenova’s looking pretty good again…certainly MUCH better than what we saw from her at worlds. I’m still confused as to why she is no longer doing ANY of her piked stalder work on bars. She’s changed all of them into toe-on skills, and there’s no question her start value is MUCH lower now. This routine was very clean and showed the great handstands she always has, and I actually think her ankles are coming together much better than they used to (at least from this angle). She’ll definitely need more than this, though. If she’s having trouble with her piked stalders now, she could do more with the releases…she had an amazing Tcatchev and could probably connect it into the Deltchev, or at least into the Pak salto.
I thought her beam looked pretty darn good here. She didn’t get all the connections she was hoping for, but that first layout to two feet into a sheep jump will be really cool when she does. I still really love that floor routine (obviously watered down the first pass), and this looked very clean and strong. She needs to get RID of that 1 ½ to front full…she’s never done it very well and there’s nothing impressive about it. This was one of the better vaults I’ve seen her do as well.
I’d say Semenova looks to be in strong contention for their world team this year, especially since not all the juniors will be age eligible yet. Pavlova’s situation looks a little less clear, so it will be really interesting to see what she looks like in a few months.
More videos and comments to come!