Once again the Gazprom team from Russia won the AEON Cup. The club has won every edition of the competition known as the Clubs World Championships.
The format of these competition is a little different. In the qualification rounds gymnasts from all clubs compete, except if their respective clubs finished in the top 5 in the last edition of the cup. The 2016 top clubs were Gazprom (RUS), Dinamo (BLR), Deriugina School (UKR), Ojag Sports (AZE) and AEON (JPN), these clubs and their gymnasts earned an automatic spot for the finals. The top 3 clubs from qualications earn a spot in the finals, these year those 3 spots went to Rythmo-Cats Club GR (LUX), Garmonia Elit (UZB) and Angel R.G. Kagawa Nittyu (JPN). The club from Luxemburg this year invited russians Ekaterina Selezneeva and Ekaterina Vedeneeva to join junior Elizaveta Iampolskaia, who spends large periods of time training in Russia, to represent their clubs.
The format also allows for the top 4 seniors and top 2 juniors from qualifications to compete for the individual all-around medals in the finals. The top 4 seniors were Ekaterina Vedeneeva, Ekaterina Selezneva, Sabina Tashkenbaeva (Garmonia Elit) and Sumire Kita (Angel R.G. Kagawa Nittyu), all belonging to the top 3 clubs. Roumanian Ana Luiza Filiorianu just missed making the finals finishing in 4th place in qualifications. The top 2 juniors were Takhmina Ikromova (Garmonia Elit) and Denisa Mailat (Steaua Bucharest), making Denisa the only one to make the finals who didnt belong to a top a club.
Sadly, Alina Harnasko who was scheduled to compete for the belarussian Dinamo, sustained a knee injury which took her out of the competition, impeding Dinamo to fight for the clubs medals. But since Dinamo already had a spot in the finals because of their silver in the last edition, it was possible for Katsiaryna Halkina and Anastasia Salos to compete as individuals. Also as the famous ukranian club Deriugina School didn't send a team to Tokyo, only 6 teams were competing for medals.
Russian Gazprom integrated by Anastasia Sergeeva, Dina Averina and Iuliia Bravikova, won easily the the club title even though Sergeeva made mistakes with clubs and ribbon and Bravikova had a mistake in her split jump series in clubs. Silver went to Garmonia Elit, overcoming shakier perfomances from their junior teammate Takhmina Ikromova, Sabina Tashkenbaeva and Nurnisso Usmanova both did better jobs in the final. AEON managed to take the bronze medal with an average performance of junior Karin Koike, Kaho Minagawa, who still has a very injured right knee, made mistakes with the ball but made up the lost ground with her ribbon and Takana Tatsuzawa had also an average competition with big mistakes in ribbon. In 4th place and 0.7 points behind, was Rythmo-Cats Club GR from Luxemburg, their overall scores went down in the final round but what kept them off the podium was Ekaterina Selezneva's mistake with the ball... it didn't turn out as expected for the club from Luxemburg.
In the individual awards, the senior champion was the new queen of rhythmics gymnastics, Dina Averina, who posted the highest scores of the whole competition earning easily the title. Fellow russian Iuliia Bravikova won the silver despite the hick-up with clubs, and belarussian fan-favourite Katsiaryna Halkina edged out Ekaterina Vedeneeva to win the bronze medal.
The individual junior podium had Anastasia Sergeeva at the top, despite her mistakes, Anastasiia Salos showing stable perfomances earned silver and Takhmina Ikromova completed the podium.
For full results and more information on AEON Cup click here.
No comments :
Post a Comment