Melnikova’s four golds, Nagorny’s cunning and Marinov’s fight with Dalaloyan: what is memorable about the Chechen Artistic Gymnastics Championship

Melnikova's dominance

Russian gymnasts, like representatives of some other sports, have long decided that they will not go to the Olympics in Paris in a neutral status, so the main starts of the season for them will be the Friendship and Brix Games, as well as the national championship, which ended in Sochi.

For four days, a stubborn struggle unfolded between the leaders of the national team at Sirius.

Unfortunately, not all Olympic champions were able to come to the tournament.

Liliya Akhaimova announced her retirement from her sports career in early February.

In addition, on the eve of the start, Vladislav Urazova received a serious injury during training.

As the senior coach of the national team, Valentina Rodionenko, explained, the girl arrived after a week-long break at the training camp overweight and, despite the coaches’ ban, went for a difficult sequence during acrobatic training.

“I tore my cruciate ligaments, recovery is at least six months.

What should I do?

You are the one to blame.

You can’t go to difficult elements with excess weight - this is the law.

Apparently they want to deceive, but you can’t hide anything.

We saw that she was overweight, we told her, and she: “No, no, it seems so to you.”

Well, and during the control training - please, that’s what it “seems” to you.

This happens, unfortunately.

You learn from mistakes, but this is too difficult a mistake,” Rodionenko told Match TV.

But Angelina Melnikova and Victoria Listunova continue to fight for the highest places.

And they have no rivals within the country yet.

The girls took the first two places in qualifying with a decent lead over Leila Vasilyeva, although both had imperfect performances due to health problems.

“I recently suffered a back injury, now I’m urgently recovering and trying to get into shape.

I try to do more smart approaches in training so as not to unnecessarily load my back,” Listunova admitted before the start.

And if Melnikova’s chronic Achilles injury did not have such a strong impact on the results in Sochi, then Victoria made unusual shortcomings even at the qualifying stage: she fell on the vault and balance beam.

In the final, the number of Listunova’s mistakes only increased and almost deprived the athlete of a medal.

The gymnast first fell from the uneven bars, and then again was unable to gather herself on the balance beam, failing to stay on it twice.

Although, it should be noted, she performed very complex elements.

Before the floor exercises, Vika was only sixth.

And despite previous difficulties, she went all-in and did not simplify the program.

The risk paid off: the gymnast completed all the elements, albeit with shortcomings.

The judges generously scored the Olympic champion's performance at 14,500 points - the first result in this type of program.

This allowed Listunova to break into the top three.

She beat Elena Gerasimova, who came to Sochi with simpler combinations, but went the entire distance without a single breakdown.

At the same time, Vika did not reach the silver.

It was taken by 16-year-old Lyudmila Roshchina, who showed a result even higher than Melnikova herself on the equal bars.

And what is not unimportant, like Gerasimova, she went through the entire all-around final without falling, although even Angelina could not avoid one.

However, the mistake occurred in the last event - floor exercises, when it became clear: no one would take the gold from the representative of the Voronezh region.

It should be noted that for Melnikova this victory was important from a psychological point of view.

In the all-around, she last won the Russian Cup in 2022, and last season she came second at the national championship.

“When I stepped onto the platform, I didn’t keep in mind the fact that I hadn’t won for a very long time.

I don’t even remember what year it was last time.

But I had no desire to prove anything to anyone.

I don’t do my gymnastics for someone, I do my gymnastics for myself,” TASS quotes Melnikova as saying.

Melnikova also corrected the statistics on the number of medals in certain types of programs.

At the last national championship she did not take a single medal, but this time in Sochi she won three out of four golds.

She took first on vault, balance beam and floor exercise.

But Roshchina won again on the equal bars.

Lyudmila accidentally made it to the finals.

She was among the reserves and was able to perform due to the withdrawal of Anna Kalmykova, who was injured in the all-around.

A gymnast from the Krasnodar Territory showed a very difficult program with a difficulty coefficient of 6.7, and without any serious mistakes.

The judges rated her performance at 14.993 points.

Neither Listunova nor Melnikova even reached the 14,700 mark.

As Roshchina admitted to Match-TV after the start, silver in the all-around gave her psychological confidence, so she finally did everything.

“I felt that I could do anything.

This is my most difficult combination.

However, there is still work to be done.

We need to make the stands cleaner, and then the grades will be even higher,” Roshchina modestly summed up.

Duel of generations

For the men, all the “veterans” were in the ranks at the Russian Championship.

However, they approached the tournament in different physical conditions.

So, Denis Ablyazin has just recovered from a shoulder injury.

He came to Sochi, but took part only in the vault.

“I have three scars from shoulder surgery.

This was the 10th operation in my career.

For now, my health and desire allow me to perform.

I have already restored two apparatuses: rings and vault.

But there’s still a little bit of catching up to do on the rings in physics.

Recently, for example, I already did a combination,” Ablyazin noted before the championship.

It should be noted that he showed up to the tournament for a reason - the gymnast took bronze in the vault.

Nikita Nagorny, unlike his teammate, does not have any health problems, but the day before he did not hide the fact that he was ready to compete at 20% of his maximum.

Nevertheless, for the sake of the Moscow team, I passed all the all-around qualifications and even qualified for the final with the seventh result.

But the gymnast did not fight for the title of absolute champion of Russia.

The Olympic champion made a bet on performing in certain events and was right.

He was in the top eight in 4 out of six events and won a medal in three of them.

Nagorny had no equal in the vault and parallel bars.

And in floor exercises he remained second.

But Arthur Dalaloyan was clearly determined to seriously fight with the youth in the person of last year’s champion Daniel Marinov in the all-around.

Earlier in an interview with RT, the Olympic champion said that he was preparing complex ligaments for the new season and was functionally in good condition.

“Now I’ve managed to pull myself together, gradually get in shape and set certain goals.

There is motivation, since this year promises to be more competitive - with the BRICS and Friendship Games.

Internally, there was a desire to work differently, to the fullest.

Otherwise, set priorities, focusing on training,” admitted Dalaloyan.

And he confirmed his words at the Russian Championship, staging a real battle for gold with Marinov.

On the first two events - floor exercise and pommel horse - Arthur made minor mistakes and lost to his opponent.

He managed to redeem himself a little on the rings: the Olympic champion regained 0.250 points, but his opponent was again better on vault, albeit by a tenth.

Daniel could have won ahead of schedule, but unexpectedly faltered on the uneven bars, maintaining the intrigue until the last apparatus.

“I just flew off the counter and stuck two fingers in.

But for me they are flexible.

I stuck my fingers in, stood in the stance and thought: “God forbid they are looking to the side now.”

I looked, saw everything and thought: “Phew, okay, let’s move on.”

Now the finger is already swollen,” the gymnast told Match TV.

However, Dalaloyan no longer had enough strength for the final event of the program: a fall while flying on the crossbar deprived him of the opportunity to qualify for the main gold of the tournament.

And Marinov coped with his combination without any problems and became the champion of Russia for the second time in a row.

The top three were rounded out by Kirill Prokopyev, who completed the entire program smoothly. 

Another Olympic champion, David Belyavsky, actually dropped out of the fight while still on the horse, which was not given to him later in the finals in the individual events of the program (7th place).

He also received low marks on the horizontal bar and floor exercise.

Ivan Kulyak performed unsuccessfully at the tournament.

In the all-around, he remained only sixth, losing to his opponents on uneven bars and rings.

At the same time, in certain types of the program, Marinov did not have such dominance as Melnikova.

He managed to take gold only in the floor exercise, in the parallel bars he lost to Nagorny, and in the horizontal bar to Sergei Naidin.

In the vault he finished fourth, but withdrew from the rings due to minor damage. 

“My shoulder hurt during preparation for the competition, although by the end of the training camp the situation improved.

And when I came here and performed on the first day of rings, I again felt discomfort in my shoulder.

I realized that the trauma had not gone away.

For me, the most important thing at this tournament was to perform in the all-around finals, and when I did the rings program yesterday, my brain turned off and I didn’t feel pain.

But when I jumped off, my shoulder hurt again.

And then I decided to withdraw from the rings final,” the gymnast added.

In the absence of Marinov, gold in this type of program went to Ilya Zaika.

And on the horse there was again no equal to Vladislav Polyashov, the bronze medalist of the 2019 European Championship on this apparatus.