Aliya Garayeva has become a silver medalist of the regular World Cup series held in Portuguese Portimao city.

According to the press-service of Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation, Garayeva won the second place in the final of an exercise with a ball, having taken one-point’s lead over Neta Rivkin from Israel who became the third.

“I became only the 7th with a ball at the last week’s series in Budapest, and, now, I have risen for 5 points in Portimao,” Garayeva said. Of course, I wished I would have won the first place with a ball, but Yevgeniya Kanayeva was simply unreachable in this tournament. To say the truth, I can console myself with one more medal – “bronze” for my performance with a rope.”

In the all-around, Aliya took the 5th place with 108.6 points. Another gymnast Anna Gurbanova became the 18th (101.8), and a third representative in the individual tournament Zeynab Javadli – took the 26th place (97.325) among 42 competitors.

An Azerbaijani group team also performed in the final of the series held. The girls took the 5th places in both exercises, and the collective became the 6th in the all-around.

“A tournament among juniors has also been held here. Our three sportswomen performed in separate finals of the juniors’ competition,” the national team’s head coach Mariana Vasileva noted. “Among them, the highest place was taken by Lala Yusifova. She won the 4th place in the final exercise with a ball. Aysha Mustafayeva became the 5th with a rope and Jala Garatova took the 7th place with clubs. In a team competition, the juniors won the 5th place among the 21 countries. And I have nothing to say but “well done, girls!”

Our youngest gymnasts also successfully performed at the rhythmic gymnastics festival held in Moscow within the framework of “Alina 2010” qualification tournament devoted to the Day of Children’s Defense.

Azerbaijan was represented by two teams which demonstrated Gala performances.

The first team consisting of 19 girls received 94 points from possible 100 for their “Russian disco” dance and took the 5th place. Our second team consisting of 8 sportswomen received 93 points for the “Flowers’ waltz” and became the 6th. Both collectives qualified for the festival’s final to be held in “Lujniki” in May.

Azerbaijani gymnasts’ performances were personally noted by an Olympic champion Alina Kabayeva whose fund was the festival’s organizer.