Skip to main content

Alexander Alexandrov shows confidence in Russian team for Rotterdam

Image
By
Russian team coach Alexander Alexandrov has expressed some optimism about the Russian women's prospects at the upcoming world championships.

http://www.sportgymrus.ru/press/news/4066/default.aspx

He feels that Mustafina is a good prospect for the all around; and makes special mention of Nabieva's straight Tkachev-Pak combination as 'unique and historic'.

And I have to say, Tanya Nabieva is quite probably the fastest improving gymnast I have ever seen - hope she will do well in Rotterdam.

If, like me, you struggle to read Russian and find Google translations somewhat bizarre, try International Gymnast online for a better translation.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous8 October 2010 at 15:37

    Bourdieu says in 'distinction' that there are as many different capitals as there are fields of struggle. If sport is the subject of a struggle for distinction (econmically, culturally etc) then he would expect their to be a form of symbolic capital associated with it that would be unequally distributed between the haves and the have nots. I read Clive Barnett et al's 'culture, class distinction' recently which updates Bourdieu for the contemporary UK (sadly not russia!), but which places the emphasis not on cultural consumption as bourdieu does, but in participation. I'm guessing Gymnastics is a sport (art?) with quite high barriers to entry and so I'd expect that participation, active and passive, would denote a form of status distinction. To be fair though, I'm just guessing!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Queen Elizabeth8 October 2010 at 22:16

    Well, there's some more reading for me - thank you. I think this does add quite a lot to think about!
    Does it necessarily have to be ethnically/nationally bound? I suppose different cultures do have different ways of seeing ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Queen Elizabeth9 October 2010 at 12:25

    Full bibliographic references for James' reading suggestions above are now added to the bibliography.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10 October 2010 at 19:51

    Sorry - should have used Harvard. If our students found out I'd never live it down! I don't think it has to be bound in those ways. Lots of people criticise bourdieu for being either 1) too french in his frame of reference or 2) too structuralist and not open enough to that kind of diversity. I don't think either of those criticisms really hold, but he made such a point of saying that all theoretical work should be grounded in fieldwork that it was kind of inevitable that he kept his research within his own boundaries....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Queen Elizabeth11 October 2010 at 12:34

    Thanks James. I can feel something with a little more depth coming on ......... ooer.

    I'm using this site as a repository for useful references so that I don't ever lose sight of anything useful again ... that's the plan, anyway. Know how to back up a blog?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous12 October 2010 at 14:49

    hmmmm...not sure! will find out...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A timeline of Soviet Olympic history

By
'If you want to be like me, just train!'  1951 poster promoting the basic physical training system in the Soviet Union.  The man in the picture has the coat of arms of the Soviet Union on his top, indicating he competes at international level.  Picture courtesy of A Soviet Poster A Day Jim Riordan published his article, 'The Rise and Fall of Soviet Olympic Champions', in 1993.   In 1992 the Soviet Union, under the aegis of the Commonwealth of Independent States, had made its last hoorah at the Olympic Games.  The Barcelona Olympics had also marked the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's participation in their first Games, at Helsinki in 1952.  Soviet men and women had dominated the artistic gymnastics competitions at both. In the following timeline I extract from Riordan's article key points leading to the accession of the Soviet Union to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1951.  It makes for fascinating reading, addressing such...
Post a Comment
Read more

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

Komova should have won!

By
It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011. Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Kom...
45 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more