Rhythmic gymnastics is on the cusp of a new era

The queens tremble and suffer, but they do not back down. The World Championships throne in Frankfurt is firmly held by Darja Varfolomeev (Germany, gold), Stiliana Nikolova (Bulgaria, silver) and Sofia Raffaeli (Italy, bronze), who secure Europe’s place at the top of the world. It has not been easy for the three veterans, who have accustomed the rhythmic gymnastics public to seeing their names consistently at the very top.

There are two ways to interpret the championship that has just ended – one of the most gripping. One focuses on the all-around result, which crowns the European stars. The other looks at their faces, etched with the terror of becoming falling stars. Dark shadows cloud Darja Varfolomeev’s eyes at the end of the first rotation, when the Olympic champion is only sixth. Her usual broad smile fades, due to the unfamiliar fear of failing – and on home soil. There are five gymnasts ahead of her – more than ever before. Young athletes who are now making their mark on the international stage and show great promise.

It’s “the black swan”. The unexpected outsiders are Rin Keys (USA), Megan Chu (USA) and, above all, Akmaral Yerekesheva (Kazakhstan), aged 16. No one had predicted them, especially the Americans: in this sport, to paraphrase Lucio Dalla, “America is far away, on the other side of the moon”, but it is investing heavily ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. In the end, Keys and Chu finished eighth and eleventh. If the World Championships were to end after the first rotation of Group A, Yerekesheva would be in the lead; behind her would be Chu, the Russians Sofiia Ilteriakova and Mariia Borisova, and only then Nikolova, Varfolomeev and Raffaeli. A performance to keep the audience on the edge of their seats: for the first time in four years, they are witnessing something different; other stars are beginning to shine. Group B competes before Group A: the scores of talented gymnasts such as Taisiia Onofriichuk (Ukraine) and the other Italian, Tara Dragas, will count towards the final ranking (they finish fourth and sixteenth, with Dragas also taking fourth place on the ball in the apparatus finals). But the competition lasts five hours. Perhaps this is what Varfolomeev’s coach, the Belarusian Julija Raskina – silver medallist at Sydney 2000 – reminds her athlete of during the breaks: it’s not over until it’s over. But right up until the end, any prediction is premature. This, too, is written all over their faces: Sofia Raffaeli and her coach Amina Zaripova are as still as statues. “Utterly focused,” comments former champion Milena Baldassarri in the commentary, having shared the gym and the sacrifices with Raffaeli. Sofia’s bronze is in doubt right up to the very end, as shown by her anxious grimace before the final performances by Borisova and Yerekesheva, who fail to knock her off the podium (they finish fifth and sixth). At the apparatus finals the following day, she also secured a splendid silver on the hoop, her speciality.

The veterans’ comeback begins in the second rotation and averts the other major threat. Alongside the air of revolution from the US and Kazakhstan, there is a (predictable) wind of restoration blowing from Russia: this is the World Championships marking the country’s return to the international stage following the invasion of Ukraine. The most formidable competitor is Borisova, a 19-year-old from Alina Kabaeva’s school, ‘the Tsarina of rhythmic gymnastics’, rumoured to be the mother of Vladimir Putin’s youngest children. She puts in an outstanding performance and finishes fifth, behind the Ukrainian Onofriichuk. The other ‘terrifying 16-year-old’ is Ilteriakova, hungry for success but still raw. Mistakes drag her down to twelfth place, but she has what it takes: she takes home a silver in the ball event in an all-Russian podium, shared with Varfolomeev (the German is Siberian by birth) and Borisova. “Of course, there were a few storms,” goes the lyric from “La canzone dei vecchi amanti”, the soundtrack to Raffaeli’s film. But the European team thrives in storms. The podium finish secures them a place at Los Angeles ’28, “but America is a long way off”: the hardest work to defend their stronghold begins now.