Skip to main content

'Head and intellect is very important' - Anastasia Sidorova 2008 Podcast

11 year old Anastasia Sidorova and her coach Olga Sagina give an interview as one of a series of Podcasts to be found on the website of the Bellahouston Gymnastics Academy in Glasgow, recording the visit of gymnasts and coaches from the Olympic Reserve School in Rostov on Don in 2008.  Anastasia provides an outline of the daily working life of an elite Russian gymnast, pretty predictable in its content.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of time for school in her busy schedule!

The interviewer points out to Anastasia that her understandably rather stock answers might be influenced by the fact that her coach was standing behind her!  (Never mind the fact that she was only 11 ...)  Coach Olga Sagina, who previously has worked with 2000 Olympian Elena Produnova, added that Anastasia's simple responses were typical of a champion gymnast.  Good attitude and work ethic define success in gymnastics, as much if not more than physical talent.  And while Anastasia is an excellent competitor, she did not immediately appear as the most talented gymnast in a trio of girls recruited the same year.  'In our sport, head and intellect is very important' she explains.

I seem to remember Gavrichenkov saying the same about Shushunova, going back to the mid-1980s - good old Soviet work ethic, or is it simply the reality of competitive gymnastics wherever you go?  Along with stories of champion gymnasts' 'difficult characters' (Andrianov/Mustafina), though, today's Russian Gymnastics PR and rhetoric provides intriguing echoes of their past.

Sagina appears separately in an interview, joined by Lia Fudimova, Director of Choreography who has formerly worked with Natalia Yurchenko and Elena Produnova.  Director of the School, Vladimir Fudimov, was also interviewed for this project.

A gallery of pictures recording the visit can be found here, and apparently a DVD of a workshop delivered by Fudimova and Sagina at the School can be purchased online.  A thoroughly interesting resource.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

‘We all love her very much’ - Roschina speaks of Mustafina and the need to perfect an Amanar vault

From sport.ru via vk.com.  Google translate  A big interview with Anastasia Loginova from Sport24 with Lyudmila Roshchina following the Strongest Cup, where the gymnast won four out of five gold medals. We quote several fragments, the full version is available on the publication's website, link at the end. ❓ The Strongest Athletes Cup has recently ended. Did you have time to analyze your performances? 💬 I just rewatched the broadcast, looked at my shortcomings. ❓ Did you set a medal plan for this start? 💬 I didn't think about it. Only that I needed to do my program - and then what will happen. ❓ Did you have time to discuss the competition with your coach? 💬 She praised me, said that I was great. She didn't scold me for mistakes on the beam - on the contrary, she supported me. ❓ Can we say that the beam is your weak spot? This is the only final you didn't get to. 💬 Probably yes. I have this apparatus that is a bit unpolished, so to speak. Treacherous. I need to work...

Tatyana Nabiyeva on work and love in China

Some highlights from a long interview with 2010 World champion Tatyana Nabiyeva.  Source: Russian team page on VK.com.  Translation - Google translate A big interview with Tatyana Nabieva about the peculiarities of work and life in China, the bright years of her sports career, a little about modern gymnastics and about love. On the Nabiyeva flight — At the same championship, you presented a new element on the bars, which was later added to the rules with your last name (flying over the top bar with a straight body, difficulty group F. — Sport24). How did you come up with the idea to try something new? — Actually, it happened spontaneously, I think. We worked with Vera Iosifovna [Kiryashova] on the purity of the elements on the bars, sometimes I didn’t fly all the way to the Shaposhnikova element. Once I didn’t fly all the way to the bars either and stood on my feet between the bars, bending my legs in flight for safety. Then Vera Iosifovna said that this was a different eleme...

Angelina Melnikova photo session

Daria Isaeva has done a photo session with Angelina Melnikova at Dynamo Moscow.  Here are Angelina’s words about it.   "  The first time I was on a balance beam I was six years old. I was scared because of the height, so at first I walked hand in hand with my trainer." "The hardest thing on this apparatus is to keep your balance. Usually, when I'm on the beam, I imagine that I'm in a corridor 10 centimeters wide." "You can't be afraid of the beam! Coaches say that if you have fear, you will perform poorly." "The first difficult element I did at the age of eight was a backflip. In adult gymnastics, this element is considered one of the easiest." “I still can’t do a cartwheel on a log; I can easily fall off it, although children can do this element at the age of six.” "It's better to perform on the balance beam barefoot - you feel the apparatus better that way. But to avoid injuries, we sometimes tape our ankles." "It...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more