The European Championship, which is held less than two months before the Olympic Games, should be considered a passing tournament, if not for one "but": when a country has not lost a single major start for more than two decades, there are no passages for it in principle. Everywhere you need to show an unattainable class, that is, perform at the absolutely possible maximum. And in this case, there is no difference in the name of the tournament in which you show yourself to the public and the judges.
The continental championship, among other things, became a unique opportunity for fans to look into the future of Russian rhythmic gymnastics with one eye: the very future that will come after the Games in Tokyo and in which the Averin sisters may no longer be if Dina and Arina want to end their careers. In Varna, a recent junior Lala Kramarenko made her debut in the team tournament, who was entrusted to perform in exercises with a hoop, where the debutante won the right to perform with this subject in the final.
The main intrigue of the European championship in Varna was, however, connected not with Russia, but with Ukraine. It so happened that at the last world championship, which was held in September 2019 in Baku, the Ukrainian women did not perform well and failed to win Olympic licenses. It was assumed that this annoying misunderstanding would be corrected in a year at the European home championship in Kiev, but force majeure circumstances intervened - the coronavirus pandemic, due to which the number of participating countries turned out to be much less than expected, and the International Gymnastics Federation decided not to consider the competition qualifying.
Interestingly, the fate of the US gymnasts depends on the performance of Ukrainian athletes in Varna: the current situation is such that if Ukraine wins a license, then American women will automatically advance higher and receive admission to the Games in Tokyo. But in order not to rely on chance and to additionally insure themselves, the American women went to the Pan American Games this week - to earn the right to go to Japan.
However, the fate of the vouchers will be determined on Sunday. Saturday's individual all-around tournament gave fans the opportunity to once again see two stars of a truly planetary scale. Five years ago, Dina and Arina Averina replaced the legendary duet Margarita Mamun and Yana Kudryavtseva in the national team. At the Games in Rio, these two athletes competed for gold and silver, which became quite traditional for Russian rhythmic gymnastics, after which they ended their careers.
According to coach Mamun and former gymnast Amina Zaripova, since then there has been a change of generations, but the sport itself has undergone significant changes. In Rio, the maximum score was limited to a scale of 10 points, respectively, the task of the leaders was to get a "ten" for the exercise. After the Games, the grade was “discovered”, and, of course, everyone began to strive to go into technical complexity even more while working with the subject and get the maximum number of bonuses for this, in which Russia was once again ahead of everyone else. However, when in a conversation with Zaripova I used the word "unattainable", the coach objected:
“Inaccessibility is the wrong word. In sports, as we know, anything can happen. For example, at the World Cup this year, two gold medals in separate events were won by Israeli Lina Ashram. As for the all-around that will be played out in Tokyo, yes, we have Dina and Arina with incredibly difficult combinations. If they pass all types without errors, hardly anyone will be able to fight them. Two outstanding coaches, Irina Viner-Usmanova and Vera Shatalina, are very closely involved in their preparation. "
Viner-Usmanova's contribution to the preparation of Russian artists for the Olympic season was unusually great. When last summer absolutely all bases and gyms began to close due to a pandemic, Irina Aleksandrovna obtained permission for her athletes not to leave the base in Novogorsk and continue training. Thus, the gymnasts were able not to interrupt their work even during the most severe quarantine period. Although our country ignored last year's European championship: taking into account the already won Olympic licenses, the coaches did not consider it too reasonable to take the team to the competition once again.
Until the performance of Boryana Kalain (she was completing the individual tournament), everything was going to the fact that the Averins would take gold and silver, but it turned out differently: the Bulgarian cut through the Russian duet, having won a microscopic value against the 13-time world champion - 0.3 points. And she confirmed the words of Zaripova that there are no unattainable athletes in rhythmic gymnastics: the price of any, even a very tiny inaccuracy, is too high. Dina Averina had two of them: she lost the object, speaking with clubs, and tied the ribbon in a knot. Arina also did not avoid mistakes in one of the elements of the composition with the hoop, but she turned out to be the best against the background of her rivals.
When asked how one should relate to the importance (and at the same time the results) of the European Championship, Zaripova said: “For those who compete in individual events, this is, first of all, an additional test of strength, an extra opportunity to run the programs of the most important season. But for those who play in the group, the championship in Varna is of particular importance: the line-up included two new young athletes who need to be thoroughly run in, but the girls had only two starts this season. It turns out that at the European Championships they will show their Olympic program for the third time. The competition will be extremely sharp: the Bulgarian gymnasts are strong, who not only will perform at home, but have also complicated their combinations this season, the Italians are strong, so the fight is expected to be serious. "
Journalists usually consider group performances in rhythmic gymnastics less interesting than personal all-around, but in fact this is the true face of this sport - an indicator of everything at once: selection work, coaching, choreographic, creative ideas and the ability to find originality in what is already has been demonstrated thousands of times on the platform. So it is no coincidence that in two absolutely win-win sports for Russia - rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized swimming - the training of groups is carried out personally by the head coaches of the national teams. In gymnastics - Irina Viner-Usmanova. Synchronized swimming - Tatiana Pokrovskaya. Both in themselves are a mark of quality, and its control, and reliable suppliers of gold goods to the Olympic market.
For the exercise with five balls, the Russian group consisting of Anastasia Bliznyuk, Olga Karaseva, Anastasia Maksimova, Karina Metelkova, Angelina Shkatova and Anastasia Tatareva received 46.250 points, and this mark became inaccessible (as it turned out) as a guideline for the performers after. The second exit to the carpet with three hoops and two clubs finally made the Russians unattainable. The 44,000 mark is a record for the European Championships. Thus, the Russian team scored 90,250 points and won gold medals. According to the results of two exercises, the silver went to Italy, and the bronze went to the Israeli team.