The New Russian Revolution - Musicality and the Radiant Way

A Russian team has never before won the world championships title in gymnastics history. The last time we heard that sad, soulful anthem played for a team of six women was in 1991, during the era of the Soviet Union, and there was not one Russian girl on that team. You would have to go back as far as 1985 to find more than three Russian women on a winning Soviet team.

So this era of Russian gymnastics is truly outstanding and exceptional, and full of promise. When Komova graduates to the Russian senior team in January, all things being equal, the two top all around gymnasts in the world will be training at Lake Krugloye.

Last night I saw a dominant Russian performance in the all around competition. For many, many years I thought I would never see this again. Brown-eyed Aliya Mustafina, only just turned 16 years of age, raised the flag for Russia. And if I sound uncharacteristically reticent in my description of this amazing gymnast, it’s simply because I lack the words to describe her. I find her beyond description. She possesses astounding beauty, both personally and gymnastically. She is as fierce as a tiger. And there is a force to her being, an aura that is indescribable. I will give you an example.

During the team competition, I watched Aliya as she watched her team mates on beam, the critical point of the competition. She experienced every twist and turn of their routines. Those mysterious, dark brown eyes turned to obsidian as she observed Dementieva, the baby of this very young Russian team. It was almost as though by sheer will she magnetised her team mate onto the apparatus. When was the last time we saw such ambition and drive? Mustafina reminds me of 1972 Olympic Champion Ludmilla Tourischeva. The sport of gymnastics radiates from her every pore. She is expressive and elegant, gracious and feminine, powerful and competitive. A winner who leads her team to victory. This is the very least I can say about Aliya.

As I reflect on the nature of the Russian team’s progress this year, I am forced to revert to the idea of a revolutionary change in the sport. If a revolution is a turning point, a pivot for a change of direction, which direction will the sport take in the coming years? I have already highlighted the work of Tanya Nabieva on bars and her efforts to bring Bolshoi Gymnastika to new, higher levels of risk and spectacle. But what can be done within the bounds of this Code to improve the aesthetic appeal of routines, make the gymnasts more expressive? On floor, these gymnasts simply have time for little more than the required elements and acrobatic diagonals.

So what direction will the Russians take? Will they provide some leadership in this respect? Will they train their gymnasts to wave their arms about in frilly and attractive kinds of ways (Porgras)? Coach them to perform with broad grins on their faces and to cheekily stamp their feet in time to the music? Whirl like a dervish, arms held wide, to give an impression of freedom (Jiang)? Find a gymnast with half decent range of movement and teach them to point their toes and do the splits (Larson)? No, that’s not what the Russians are doing.

Because it’s something more complex than that. You can’t confect it or write it into a Code. You can’t make someone artistic just because they’ve got nice toes, even if it does help a bit. It’s something you feel; a combination of personality, performance, aesthetics and choreography. And we do seem to be coming into a revival. I’m not a Russian, and I’m not a choreographer but for me, the floor exercises of Afanasyeva, Dementieva and Mustafina were the best three floor exercises I have seen for a long time. Afanasyeva for her posture and the grandeur of her presentation; Dementieva for her line, and the sheer charm of her performance. Mustafina for her composition and musicality. And I think it’s here that the genius of Russian gymnastics reveals itself. What do you do when there’s no time to dance?

You choreograph the tumbling. You make it as appealing to watch as the gesture and leaps. I love the way that Mustafina accents the rise and swell of the music with her tumbling and works to the music throughout her routine. We have seen this phenomenon before – Boginskaya’s work to Ravel’s Bolero; Strazheva’s work to Rites of Spring, both produced during Alexandrov’s time in charge of the Soviet team. But it seems especially timely to reintroduce this line of thinking into the sport as floor has become so dead recently and needs reviving. Not everyone will be able to do it but for a powerful gymnast like Mustafina, with a lot of tumbling difficulty, it makes for an alluring, aesthetically pleasing routine that is only enhanced by her clear enjoyment in its performance. It’s called radiant.

Hopefully, at some point in the next ten days or so, I will stop floating above the ground.