The Russian women were the top qualifiers to Saturday's team final at the 2010 European Championships in Birmingham, England.
In a competition format where the top three scores on each event counted toward the team score, Russia had the highest totals on vault and floor to top Romania 168.325-166.8. Romania, competing with only four athletes, had the highest score on beam.
Third-place Great Britain (165.3), backed by exceptional bars and floor performances from star Beth Tweddle, had the highest team mark on uneven bars. France (162.8), Italy (161.525), Ukraine (161.15), the Netherlands (158.675) and Switzerland (156.75) rounded out the top eight teams.
The Russian seniors, trying to emulate the dominant performance of the Russian juniors in yesterday's junior team final, made fewer mistakes than their younger counterparts but lead the Romanians by a far smaller margin going into Saturday's final. Aside from Ekaterina Kurbatova's 11.425 on uneven bars, the Russian team did not count a score lower than 13.6.
First year senior and former European junior champion Tatiana Nabieva, who once squeaked around a "triple" twisting Yurchenko at a meet in Japan (OK, it was an overrotated Amanar and Nabieva jumped the last quarter turn once her feet were on the mat) was the top qualifier to Sunday's vault finals.
In this competition, Nabieva showed a double twisting Yurchenko and a piked Podkopayeva. France's Youna Dufournet, who performs a layout Podkopayeva followed by a 1.5 twisting Yurchenko, was second, ahead of 2009 European vault champion Ariella Kaeslin of Switzerland (Rudi, 1.5 Yurchenko).
Olympic silver medalist Oksana Chusovitina of Germany, who is returning from two surgeries in 2009, had problems landing her handspring pike full twist and 1.5 twisting Tsukahara and is the third alternate for vault finals.
2009 European bars and floor champion Beth Tweddle had no problem qualifying in first place on both apparatuses. Tweddle hit her intricate and innovative bar routine, punctuating it with a stuck full-twisting double back dismount. On floor, Britain's best ever nailed her 1.5 twist to Arabian double front to immediate split jump and followed up with an Arabian double pike and 2.5 twist to layout front full.
Russia's Aliya Mustafina, in her first senior European Championships, qualified in second place on uneven bars and balance beam. Mustafina, who is coming off an ankle injury that kept her out of last month's Russian Championships, did not compete on vault but did show a floor routine, where she was awarded 14.35.
Ukraine's Natalia Kononenko finished with the third-best score of the day on uneven bars, ahead of Nabieva and Dufournet, who opted not to perform her Def in qualifications.
Romania's Ana Porgras posted the top score on beam for a solid and graceful routine that included a back handspring, layout series, a switch ring leap, side somie, sheep jump and double pike dismount. Teammate Raluca Haidu finished third, followed by 2009 World beam finalist Elisabetta Preziosa of Italy and Ukraine's Valentina Holenkova.
2009 European beam champion Jana Demyanchuk of Ukraine qualified for beam finals in eighth position. Porgras, who has a bronze medal on bars from the 2009 World Championships, finished seventh on bars to qualify for Sunday's event final on that event as well.
This year's European Championships does not have an all-around competition, but of the gymnasts to perform all four events Thursday, Romania's Amelia Racea posted the highest overall score (55.6), followed by Switzerland's Kaeslin (55.45) and 2006 World Champion Vanessa Ferrari (55.125), who qualified fourth to floor finals. Ferrari is the reigning European silver medalist on floor.
2009 European all-around champion Ksenia Semyonova competed on bars, beam and floor for the Russian team and qualified to the floor final with a score of 13.7.
Related: Team standings after prelims, Event finals qualifiers
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Comments
"In a competition format where the top three scores on each event counted toward the team score, Russia had the highest totals on vault and floor to top Romania 168.325-166.8. Romania, competing with only four athletes and using only three per event, had the highest score on beam. "
This makes it sound like Romania were the only team using three gymnasts per event, but the format was actually three up, three count for everyone.
Mustafina qualified second to floor finals as well as beam and bars.
Semenova did not compete on bars.
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