"Already in qualification they called the referee from the USA": Viner-Usmanov on refereeing at the World Cup and the strength of the Averin sisters

The second competitive day of the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Kitakyushu, Japan was overshadowed by a referee scandal. After the Olympic Games, Russian fans with some apprehension were waiting for the championship of the planet, but the first three types of the program did not raise questions about the work of the referee. Dina Averina confidently won the ball, hoop and clubs exercises, and her sister Arina took two silver medals.

However, the arbitrators again intervened in the distribution of medals in the tape.

Quite an unexpected victory was won by Alina Gornosko, who scored 23.950 points and was only 0.050 ahead of Dina and half a point - Arina Averinykh.

At the same time, earlier, the Belarusian in this exercise did not achieve serious success.

For example, in 2021, she only once excelled in it - at the stage of the Planet Cup in Tashkent, but then received a much lower mark for her performance - 22,750.

Therefore, such a take-off at the World Cup was a surprise for the fans.

At the Tokyo Olympics in this form, the Belarusian earned a modest 21,100 points, taking only the eighth line.

Dina Averina (24,000) was recognized as the best in the exercise, the second, despite the loss of the ribbon, became Lina Ashram (23,300), and Arina took only tenth place (19,550), which eventually deprived her of the bronze medal of the Games.

This time, 0.650 points were removed from Arina for various shortcomings, which would be enough to win.

Dina, who could not hold back her tears, was unhappy with her assessment when she realized that she did not have enough to climb to the highest step of the podium in Kitakyushu for the fourth time.

The coaching staff filed a protest against both marks, but it was rejected.

To understand why the domestic athletes again decided to "slow down" and what to expect from the judges in Kitakyushu in the future, RT talked with the president of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics of Russia Irina Viner-Usmanova, who was waiting for the assessment of her wards with an icon in her hands. 

- In the first types of exercises on individual apparatus, everything went quite calmly for the Russians.

Dina took three gold.

Could you imagine that the strangeness with refereeing would start again in the tape?

- We didn’t think that this is real at the Olympic Games either.

Today, the same could have been predicted when, during the qualification, the head judging table called the referee from the technical committee Caroline Hunt from the United States.

After that, she approached the judges on the court, who initially gave a rather high mark to Arina Averina.

As a result, she was dropped by one point.

And exactly the same mark was given by the judges during the final.

That is, it just didn’t matter whether she did her program well or badly.

And if Arina did not cope, they would have released more.

Now I understand: this was a signal that it was necessary to give exactly the same amount of points, which was done.

- What is the goal of the referees?

Want to knock our girls down before a personal all-around?

- Well, what was their goal at the Olympic Games?

You must understand these matters yourself.

The fact is that Russia's four gold medals at the World Championships, in fact, discredit the results that the athletes showed a few months ago in Tokyo.

I am giving you only facts, but draw your own conclusions.

Arina did everything great, Dina - great, but her mark was lower than that of Gornosko, although I am not saying that the Belarusian is a weak gymnast.

- There was a glimmer of hope that after the grandiose scandal that broke out at the Olympic Games, they would be afraid to stifle Russia so openly?

- All fans and spectators speak about it.

(Chairman of the FIG referee technical committee Natalya. -

) Kuzmina did everything so that our country did not get the fourth gold at the World Cup.

She couldn't have survived it.

- The national team filed a protest against the scores of the Averin sisters in the final of the competition in the tape, but it was rejected.

How was it explained to you?

- They didn't explain anything to the team representatives.

Rejected - that's all.

They considered it correct to leave their points unchanged.

- When you see that after the Olympics nothing has changed in terms of the attitude of the judges towards Russia, do you not give up?

It turns out that it will always be so now?

- Nothing, we live on.

Despite the defeat in the ribbon, we have a brilliant team result at the World Championships.

Dina won gold medals in three categories: hoop, ball and club.

Arina won two silver and bronze medals.

As a result, Russia scored a total of 20 points more than the nearest pursuers.

Further, of course, group exercises will be added.

It turns out that you can stop us only in this way.

- Are there any fears that the chaos that happened at the Olympic Games may repeat itself in the personal all-around?

- Competitions in Tokyo were served by judges who were specially called for this.

Experts from different countries came to the championship of the planet.

I think they will not be as programmed as their colleagues at the Olympics.

Although, of course, it is impossible to say with absolute certainty.

Again, I don't know anything myself, and I only give you the facts.

What will happen next - we'll see.

- Will the incident break the Averin sisters?

After all, they again had to face the controversial work of the referee.

- When they gave interviews after the end of the competition, they said that they were going to properly prepare for the personal all-around.

They dream of performing brightly in the finals of this type and putting a beautiful point.

Believe me, the next scandal with the referee pissed them off.

I can only say one thing: the stronger people are, the harder trials are given to them.

This demonstrates the strength of a person and an athlete.