2008
Semenova's first major meet came in April with the European championships, where she helped Russia take silver in the team competition and secured gold in both the uneven bars and the balance beam, with scores of 15.9 and 15.95 respectively. In May she competed at the Moscow Stars World Cup, where she won another gold on the bars, scoring 16.075. Her success continued in June when she finished 2nd at the Dutch Open, behind Anna Pavlova, the two of them leading an all Russian sweep of places 1 to 6. Semenova had problems during the Russian Cup in July, where she fell on beam in qualifications and on vault in the all around final, but she still managed to take silver behind her teammate Afanasyeva.
Aged just 15, Semenova represented Russia at the 2008 Summer Olympics and placed 4th in the all-around, just out of medal contention but surpassing all expectations. Semenova's team was considered to be one of the top four competitive teams (along with China, the USA, and Romania), but narrowly missed an opportunity to medal in Beijing, trailing the third place Romanian team by less than a full point. Semenova also placed 6th in the uneven bars competition. In the team preliminaries, she placed 8th overall on balance beam; her excellent scores almost qualified her to compete in the balance beam finals. However, only two athletes from each country may compete in the event finals. Her teammates Anna Pavlova and Ksenia Afanasyeva qualified in sixth and seventh place, edging her out of the competition. Semenova and Afansyeva both earned a score of 15.775, but the tie-breaking rules gave the advantage to Afanasyeva. Semenova competed in the uneven bars finals, placing a respectable 6th, but was left behind the front runners Nastia Liukin, Yang Yilin, He Kexin and Beth Tweddle because of a deficit in start value, which Semenova had little time to upgrade due to her determination to excel in the all around competition. Semenova ended the season with a wrist injury that prevented her from competing at the World Cup finals in Madrid.
Read more about this topic: Ksenia Semenova