The all round-competitions in the individual program of the FIG World Rhythmic Gymnastics Cup’s finals in Baku finished with an unconditional victory of Russia: the Russian gymnasts Margarita Mamun, Yana Kudryavtseva and Alexandra Soldatova, whose participation at the Olympic Games in Rio is at stake, showed all their best in the capital of Azerbaijan and the three of them took the podium.
During both days of the qualifying competitions the battle for a place, in fact, was conducted among the Russian women. Finally, Margarita Mamun turned out to be the best, by scoring 77.15 points in total for four exercises, with a maximum score of 19.4 in the exercises with juggling clubs. Yana Kudryavtseva received the highest judicial assessment among all the athletes – 19.45 points for the juggling clubs, but due to an unfortunate performance for her with the ball (18.9 points) she lost one-tenth to Mamun and with a total score of 77.05 points won second place in the all-round competitions.
Alexandra Soldatov performed morw weakly than her more experienced friends with a maximum score of 19 points in the ball and ribbon, and took third place with 75.85 points in total. The French athlete Xenia Mustafayeva, who had to perform after surgery, took fourth place with a difference of 2.5 points.
The Azerbaijani grace Marina Durunda took tenth place in the all-round competition with 70.5 points in total, showing the best result of 18.5 points in the exercises with ribbon. Another representative of the Azerbaijani national team, Jala Piriyeva, took 14th place with 68.85 points in total and the best result of 17.55 points in her favorite exercises with hoop.
The participants of tomorrow's individual finals in the clubs and ribbon were identified according to the results of today's qualification tournament.
The Russians Margarita Mamun (19.35 points) and Yana Kudryavtseva (19.3 points) will compete tomorrow for the FIG World Cup in exercises with ribbon. Alexander Soldatova came third with 19 points, but because of restrictions on the number of finalists from her country she will not compete tomorrow in this exercise. Marina Durunda got to the finals of the exercises with ribbon, taking 4th place with 18.5 points. Neta Rivkin (Israel, 18.55 points), Laura Zeng (USA, 18.35 points), Xenia Mustafayeva (France, 18.35 points), Veronica Bertolini (Italy, 18.15 points) and Nevyana Vladinova ( Bulgaria, 18.1 points).
The top list in the exercise with clubs looks similar, but this time Yana Kudryavtseva was the best with 19.45 points, and Margarita Mamun came second with 19.4 points. Alexandra Soldatova came third again with 18.9 points and again she will not go through to the individual finals. The Russian women will have to compete in the exercise with clubs against Ksenia Mustafayeva (France, 18.4 points), Laura Zeng (USA, 18.3 points), Veronica Bertolini (Italy, 18.2 points), Yekaterina Volkova (Finland, 17.9 points ), Patricia Bezzubenkov (Canada, 17.75 points) and Catherine Tasev (Bulgaria, 17.65 points).
