Skip to main content

Photos - awards ceremony, Lake Krugloye, 11 February

A selection of lovely pictures appears on the Russian Federation's website, recording an awards ceremony during which head coaches of the women's and men's teams, Alexander Alexandrov and Valeryi Alfosov, handed out medals to their gymnasts and coaches, including juniors.  A commentary notes that coaches are often better at evaluating the success of their gymnasts than judges.  The medals were given out in recognition of the success of the Russian teams in the last year.  Apparently missing from the gymnasts honoured were Ekaterina Kurbatova and Anna Myzdrikova - although this may just be an unintended slip of the camera.

Or perhaps the girls were staying warm, tucked up in bed somewhere.  This must be a welcome distraction for the teams during what is a very cold snap indeed, even by Moscow standards - it must be hard to keep your spirits up when it's below -20 outside.  Tanya Nabieva looks taller than ever in these pictures, and Mustafina, bundled up in a bright red tracksuit with scarf, with her fine, curlicue features and scraped back hair, resembles a Tatar princess more each time I see her.  Judging by the smiles, it seemed to be an event that everyone enjoyed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Alexander Alexandrov in his own words 1 - A Difficult Decision

Alexander Alexandrov with his daughter, Isa, at the statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio.  (c) Alexander Alexandrov Russian coach Alexander Alexandrov has been prominent in the sport since 1983, when he came to the public eye as coach of the brilliant Dmitri Bilozerchev.  He has over thirty years’ experience of coaching World and Olympic Champions both in the country of his birth and in his adopted home, Houston, USA.  In his most recent position as Head Coach of the national women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) team for Russia, he quite simply resurrected his country’s gymnastics programme, re-establishing his team at the very top of the sport.  Prior to Alexandrov’s appointment, at the 2008 Olympics, Russian WAG had walked away empty handed, without medals.  At last year’s London Olympics, artistic gymnastics was one of Russia’s most successful sports.  Alexandrov’s Russia won the most gymnastics medals of any country competing, and his athlete Al...

Valentina Rodionenko on Alexandrov's dismissal - Lupita translates

76 year old Valentina Rodionenko.  Picture courtesy of the RGF . Read below Lupita's translation of what Valentina Rodionenko had to say yesterday evening about the current staff changes at Russian Gymnastics, from Sovietski Sport . Valentina Rodionenko : Alexandrov stays as coach to Mustafina. Therefore, he is not allowed to be a national coach! Head coach Valentina Rodionenko commented on Alexander Alexandrov’s dismissal specially for “Sovietski Sport”.   - Alexandrov hasn’t been fired. You don’t need to make up things like that. We have been assigning the duties. When we dismissed Leonid Arkaev, it was decided that the team’s coach doesn’t have the right to be a personal coach at the same time. Alexander Sergueievich combined both functions, but it was against the rule. Now we have eliminated this. - In an interview with “Sovietski Sport”, Alexander Alexandrovich said that he had been blamed for working poorly. Do you personally think that he d...

Elena Produnova - interview

The gymnastics group at VK.com has published an interview with 2000 Olympian, Elena Produnova.  Thanks for their permission to provide an edit of it here. People will remember Elena in particular for two reasons: her original vault that no one else has been able to emulate; and her own special brand of powerful  acrobatics, energetic temperament and musical flow, a heady mixture that today's gymnasts find impossible to match. Recently there have been some photographs of Elena working in a gym.  Although she has always said that she wouldn't have a coaching career, it seems that now she is a coach at a gym in Nalchik,  a town in the very south of the Russian Federation, in the foothills of the Caucasian mountains, in the republic of Kabardino-Balkaria.   The first question, tell us how you ended up in Nalchik? - Nalchik came up at the right time, in terms of my life circumstances.  Through my previous work I had a very good friend - head of the sports depart...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more