The individual rhythmic gymnastics competition at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing brought together 18 gymnasts, seven of them from Europe.
Qualification
The European entries came from Belarus, Bulgaria, Israel, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. Six of the seven reached the final; only Bulgaria’s Katerina Marinova missed out, in ninth place. Russia’s Irina Annenkova had the best scores on hoop, ball and clubs, and ranked third on ribbon behind Laura Zeng of the United States and Maryia Trubach of Belarus.
The final
Annenkova won the Youth Olympic title with 58.575. Trubach took silver with 56.950 and Zeng bronze with 56.750. Annenkova led after hoop with the highest difficulty and execution scores. On ball Trubach had slightly higher difficulty, but Annenkova’s execution (8.800 against 8.350) kept her ahead. Ribbon remained her weakest apparatus: she had the second-best score there, behind Romania’s Ana Luiza Filiorianu.
What the result shows
– Europe dominated the rhythmic event, with six of the eight finalists. – Consistent execution across four apparatus is what wins an all-around, even when a rival matches or beats the difficulty.
The artistic events at the same Games are covered in Nanjing 2014: Tutkhalyan and Nagornyy lead the Youth Olympic artistic events.
