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Aliya Mustafina Wins the All Around in Kazan

Aliya Mustfina took home another gold medal in the all around earlier today at the Universiade/University Summer Games in Kazan.
I'm ready to join the X-Men, Professor X!

Aliya won the gold ahead of teammate, Ksenia Afanasyeva who took silver in the all-around. Kim Bui of Germany took home the bronze.  As per usual, Aliya was beautiful on bars and had a kerfluffle on the beam when she fell coming out of her double turn. She looked great on floor. She opened with a pretty impressive  double arabian and finished with a nicely landed double back tuck. A nice change from the sea of double pikes we usually see at the end of a floor routine.



Aliya still looked like she was still not feeling the best. She was kind of half assing her choreography on beam and after that double turn, she looked like she might puke just before she fell off.  She's apparantely joined the X-men because she was wearing a yellow and black leo that wasn't quite Larisa Iordache Pikachu, but it was there. Maybe she's developed a huge crush on Hugh Jackman and is honoring him in a Wolverine leo.

Ksenia Afanasyeva had the highest score on floor, as per usual and she looked gorgeous in her purplish blue leo. I haven't seen all of her routines, but her floor is awesome as usual, but that music inspires sleep more than anything else. I really hope she chooses a different set for Worlds. She looked great during the competition. Miss Afan started out with the highest score on vault, but Bars Princess Musty easily outscored her and pretty much everyone else on the uneven bars. Yawn, no surprises there. Her beam looked very nice and of course, like I said before, her floor was gorgeous even if her music was boring as hell.

To be honest, it's really hard to be surprised with the outcome when nearly every other country brought their B-listers. I mean really, the Russian's, as fantastic as they are, brought Olympic caliber athletes with Olympic caliber routines. The top three finishers in the all around were all Olympians.

Although being an Olympian looked like it was a huge boost for Ellie Black of Canada. She looked a lot more confident and it was definitely showing.


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