Maria Paseka had a back surgery in December and has slowly started training in May. While the initial claims about her comeback were a bit crazy, expecting her to be back by Worlds, the new timeline seems more reasonable. Her first competition is expected to be the Melbourne World Cup, pending the doctor’s approval, and she is supposed to continue competing at Apparatus World Cups after that, trying to earn an individual spot at Tokyo Olympics.

Valentina Rodionenko said to RIA Novosti:

“Maria is fine. Now she’ll go to Germany where the doctors are supposed to decide whether she can start training seriously after the surgery. We can’t do anything yet without the [doctor’s] permission. The plan for her first major competition is the World Cup in Melbourne but it will all depend on whether she will get the permission to train or not”.

Paseka and Denis Abliazin the two most successful specialists on the Russian team were the candidate for the World Cup route from the start as both of them don’t fit on the four-person team and can’t do AA due to their health issues but are medal threats on their events. Even though a country that qualifies a team to Tokyo can only earn one extra spot through the Apparatus World Cup series, it seems that Russia might send other gymnasts to these competitions just in case. One of the candidates for the World Cup route, according to Rodionenko, is Daria Spiridonova. Spiridonova’s been having a hard time getting back to her previous level, didn’t make any major teams since Rio and even stopped getting camp invitations for a while. However, last month she started training at Round Lake again and posted a piece of her UB routine on Instagram that showed she finally got her inbars back.

Rodionenko said to TASS:

“We can send different gymnasts to the World Cups and not just Abliazin. As I said, Paseka will start competing at qualifying competitions next year. Possible, Daria Spiridonova will participate as well. And the one spot to the 2020 Olympics will be won by the person who will achieve the highest result [in the World Cup series]”.

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