Skip to main content

Anna Dementyeva: I'm no cry baby - media link

By
It's about time someone wrote something about this talented gymnast.  Despite the common perception that she's leading the Russian team only by default, I consider this jewel of a gymnast to possess unusual strength and artistry.  My blogging colleague Kristal at Double Front has similar ideas.  Perhaps the hardest worker on the Russian team (according to Alexander Alexandrov in May's IG) will soon get the full recognition for her beautifully performed routines - I certainly hope she doesn't risk injury or compromise the balance of her presentation by over inflating the difficulty content of her routines.

The Russian Gymnastics Federation website has an English language translation Moscow News interview with this enigmatic gymnast. 

Anna speaks here of her mother's interest in sport and of her relationship with her coach, Yelena Zhiganova.  It adds just a little colour to a picture of a rather under-rated gymnast who I hope will continue gracefully and add longevity to her long list of positive characteristics.

The Code has reduced the beam to little more than a tumbling track these days and most 'routines' suffer from a lack of harmony and rhythm.  Dementyeva manages to make her difficulty-packed routine watchable thanks to the quality of her line and good old fashioned amplitude.  Thanks to Betweentheolympics for this video of the beam final at April's European Championships.




Link to the Youtube video here.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

By
It was a Sunday morning.  I was drinking my coffee and contemplating the day ahead - a workout at the gym, shopping for groceries, an evening reading a book, or catching up on last night's episodes of crime thriller The Bridge .  How nice it was not to have to think about work for a day. Then I saw it - a story about the history of doping in The Observer .  Interesting reading. Of course, cheating is as old as the hills.  It is, unfortunately, human nature for some people to try to gain easy advantage in any kind of competition.  That is why we have laws, rules, ethical guidelines.  People who cheat should face justice and shouldn't complain when they are found out. But the story about pregnancy doping bothered me.  Hadn't that been found to be fictional?  The author began with Olga Kovalenko's allegations made in 1994 - but the rumours had started way back in 1991 with the documentary series More Than A Game .  The practice...
3 comments
Read more

‘My daughter likes gymnastics. For us, this is the big success’. Aliya Mustafina talks to Match TV

By
Via VK.com.  Google translate A big interview with Aliya Mustafina was published on MATCH!. We provide a small excerpt below, and the full version is available on the website at the link below  ❓ Aliya, you are now the head coach of the junior artistic gymnastics team. What does your typical day look like? 💜 My current life is similar to what it was when I was competing. In the morning, I have breakfast and go to work by 9:00, we train for four hours, have lunch, rest and train for another three hours. During the training camp, the athletes live at the base. They live and train on the same territory. ❓ Do you manage the gymnasts' personal trainers or do you evenly distribute the responsibilities? 💜 We work in contact with the personal trainers, I listen to their opinions. For example, if the trainer believes that their athlete needs to be given a little rest or do fewer repetitions of a particular exercise, we do so. ❓ Describe the current generation of children. Do they nee...
2 comments
Read more

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

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more