10. Juni 2021  
Russia  
Artistic Gymnastics

2021 Russian Cup

Nikita Nagorny: No. 1!

The 2021 Russian Cup of artistic gymnastics serves as one of the selection stages for the Tokyo Olympics. The main contenders for the Olympic teams were more or less known in advance and Russia even sent the projected teams to Euros to test them (with Kirill Prokopev replacing injured Artur Dalaloyan last minute). In the all-around final on Thursday, June 10, the reigning European champion  Nikita Nagorny won gold, Alexander Kartsev won silver, and Nikita Ignatyev won bronze. David Belyavskiy and Artur Dalaloyan did not compete in the all-around here. Ignatyev was an alternate on the Rio Olympic team and is likely to serve as an alternate again because he isn’t quite at Kartsev’s level.

Viktoria Listunova won gold in the all-around final, same as the Russian and European Championships earlier this year but her victory was not as predictable as Nagorny’s. At the Russian Cup, the winner is decided by the qualification and final scores combined. Listunova came into the final in third place, losing to Melnikova by over a point and to Urazova by over 0.5 after her two falls in qualification. After bars, she was still in third after Melnikova and Urazova. However, Melnikova had a fall on beam, while both Urazova and Listunova got high scores and moved to first and second place respectively. On floor, Melnikova outscored them both but it was not enough to move from the third place. Listunova scored over 0.6 higher than Urazova on floor and clinched the first place by only 0.032. All three finished within a few tenths of each other but around five points higher than the fourth place finisher, Lilia Akhaimova.