Russians Nikita Nagornyy and Aliya Mustafina triumph at Birmingham World Cup

In front of a sell-out crowd in the Resorts World Arena in the British city of Birmingham, Russian teammates Aliya Mustafina and Nikita Nagornyy captured the all-around titles at the third World Cup stage of the year.

The men’s competition opened an action-packed day with World all-around bronze medallist Nikita Nagornyy going all out on floor in the first rotation. Opening with a triple back, he showed great difficulty for the lead early on. After a solid rings routine, a brilliant Dragulescu vault and a great display on parallel bars, Nagornyy ended the afternoon by putting his hands down on his high bar dismount. Luckily, the lead established after 5 events proved enough to take the gold medal, ahead of China’s Sun Wei and Japan’s Kazuma Kaya.

In the evening, 9 women took to the stage with Russian veteran Aliya Mustafina started her quest with a double twisting Yurchenko vault. As usual, her bars routine was jammed packed and she made it look easy. Like in Stuttgart last week, beam was her weakest event, coming off after a double turn. A solid floor routine earned her the gold medal, beating American Riley Mc Cusker who put her hands down on vault and suffered a fall off beam. Brazil’s Thais Fidelis claimed the bronze medal while newly crowned British all-around Champion and reigning European all-around champion Ellie Downie had a difficult evening in front of the home crowd, finishing seventh:

Results

Men

1. Nikita Nagornyy (RUS) 85.065
2. Sun Wei (CHN) 84.730
3. Kazuma Kaya (JPN) 83.731
4. Joe Fraser (GBR) 83.265
5. Petro Pakhniuk (UKR) 82.330
6. Allan Bower (USA) 80.898
7. Bart Deurloo (NED) 80.532
8. Christian Baumann (SUI) 7797
9. Jamie Lewis (GBR) 78.231

 

Women

1. Aliya Mustafina (RUS) 53.564
2. Riley McCusker (USA) 53.065
3. Thais Fidelis (BRA) 51.382
4. Carolann Heduit (FRA) 51.632
5. Victoria Woo (CAN) 51.099
6. Leah Griesser (GER) 49.799
7. Ellie Downie (GBR) 49.333
8. Nagi Kajita (JPN) 4998
9. Liu Jieyu (CHN) 47.866

 

The next all-around World Cup will take place in Tokyo (JPN) on 7 April!