Today, a three-day FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup finished in Baku. In the absence of the obvious favorites of the world stage - Russian athletes Yana Kudryavtseva and Margarita Mamun, who left the sport after the Olympics in Rio, as well as with the fundamentally new rules of refereeing, the tournament went through a tough competition for the medals, giving their holders a right to participate in the next Summer Olympics, which will be held in Tokyo in 2020.
Once again Russia was a leader at the tournament, but this time its position was not as unshakable as at the previous tournament in Baku. This year, the Russian Federation was represented by Arina Averina and Alexander Soldatov. Arina Averina collected the greatest number of awards: the gold medals in all-around, in the exercises with a hoop, the silver medals in the exercises with a ball and in the exercises with a ribbon and the bronze medal in the exercises with clubs.
Alexandra Soldatova, in her turn, won the gold medal in the exercises with a ball, the silver medals in the exercises with a hoop, in the exercises with clubs and in the all-around. Thus, Russians took only three gold medals out of five in the individual program (the last year Yana Kudryavtseva and Margarita Mamun divided all five top awards of the Baku World Cup).
The third place in the number of awards went to the famous Bulgarian gymnast Neviana Vladinova, who won the gold medal in the exercise with a ribbon. She also won the bronze medals in the exercise with a ball and in the all-around. An Israeli athlete Victoria Weinberg Filanovsky won the gold medal in the exercise with clubs, and a Belarusian athlete Alina Garnasko won two bronze medals in the exercises with a hoop and ribbon.
This year, there was no clear leader In the group program: all three gold medals went to different teams. The Bulgarian team became the best in the all-around. Today, the team became the second in the exercise with three balls and two rods and the third in the exercise with hoops. In the exercise with hoops, the best result was shown by the team from Italy, also becoming the second in the all-around. In the exercise with three balls and two horses, the gold went to the team from Ukraine, which previously took the bronze medal in the all-around. Finally, the team from Belarus won the silver medal in the exercise with hoops and bronze medal in the exercise with balls and ropes.
The special prizes of the Azerbaijani Gymnastics Federation - AGF Trophy -this year were given to Russian Alexandra Soldatova and Italian team.
The FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics World Cup was held in Baku on Apr 28-30. 94 gymnasts from 21 countries participated in it. 37 sportsmen performed in the individual program, and 57 gymnasts within 10 teams took part in group exercises. Athletes competed for 8 medal sets.
