Russian Aleksandra Soldatova is in action in the club final at the rhythmic gymnastics world championships in Stuttgart, Germany on Sept. 10...
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Russian Aleksandra Soldatova is in action in the club final at the rhythmic gymnastics world championships in Stuttgart, Germany on Sept. 10, 2015. She finished second in the event. |
Trailing her best friend and teammate Margarita Mamun by two tenths of a point heading into the fourth and final routine, the ball, of the night, Kudryavtseva showed some of the grit that has earned her the nickname "Angel with Iron Wings".
In the end, the 17-year-old collected an overall total of 75.632 points and her fifth gold medal of this Championships.
Kudryavtseva was crowned in the ball, the club, the ribbon and the team events in the first two days of the competition. She opted not to compete in the hoop final to nurse a slight leg injury and the event was won by Mamun.
Mamun, as she typically has for the past two years in international competition, settled for silver (74.766). Veteran Melitina Stanioiuta from Belarus, already a bronze medalist with the ball here, allowed the apparatus to slip out of her hands early Friday night but recovered well enough to finish with a second bronze in the all-around (72.132)
On a night where Olympic qualification berths were at stake, few among the 24 finalists managed four clean routines. Reigning world bronze medalist Ganna Rizatdinova of Ukraine saw her chances of a fifth medal at this Championships vanish after she failed to catch her clubs and went diving out of bounds at the end of her first routine. She hit her next three exercises, but was never again in medal contention and finished fifth. Son Yeon Jae of South Korea, another pre-competition medal favorite, made several errors during her ribbon routine and ended 11th overall.
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