Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

You will have read about Maria's struggles to obtain the Russian passport she needs to be able to travel home to be with her family and close friends. This surely is a fundamental right for a gymnast who has represented her nation and ethnicity so brilliantly for so many years, both as a gymnast and as a coach. Public support is growing apace. Go to Sovietsky Sport for a round up of their campaign to help Maria, including a video of one of her best performances from the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Lupita has been scouring the internet for videos of this wonderfully innovative and versatile champion and sent me links to two different floor routines from 1977. Maria performs the first one to Spanish jota music, at the 1977 World Cup, held in Oviedo, Spain. There Maria became World Cup Champion, taking two golds in the all around and floor competitions. The second video is of the 1977 European Championships in Prague, infamous for the Karolyi-led Romanian team's walk o

Albert from the All Around writes here about the recently announced 2012 training squad and prospects for this summer's London Olympics: Russian Gymnastics Federation published the list of men's national team members earlier this year. There are 14 gymnasts fighting for 5 Olympic spots. In the reserve group, there are some gymnasts that might join the national team if they improve throughout the year. Denis Mikhailovich Ablyazin 3rd August 1992 Trains at - Penza, Moscow Dynamo Coach - S Starkin Alexander Sergeivich Balandin 10th June 1989 Dynamo Petrozavodsk, Karelian Republic V N Bubnovski, S G Zagorski David Sagitovitch Belyavskiy 23rd February 1992 Ekaterinburg V N Lomayev, P A Kitaiski Emin Nadirovich Garibov 8th September 1992 Moscow Dynamo A I Sabyelin Dmitri Alexandrovich Gogotov 12th September 1987 Moscow Dynamo V F Kalinov Anton Sergeivich Golutsotskov 28th July 1985 Tomsk L Y Abramov, V V Skyryukha, A V Yanets Maxim Igorevich Devy

Maria Filatova – the first ever picture taken of her doing gymnastics! By kind permission of Maria Filatova Kourbatova My first memory of Maria Filatova is a little girl with huge, white ribbons in her hair, so tiny she seemed to have to stand on tiptoe to be able to see over the balance beam.  At 4’ 6” tall, she was the smallest competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, yet she was already part of the Soviet senior team, competing alongside such established stars as Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim, Elvira Saadi and Olga Korbut.  The ‘Siberian Sparrow’, trained in Leninsk-Kuznetsk by Innokenty Mametyev since a very early age, celebrated her 15 th birthday on the 19 th July 1976, the day of the team final.  That night, she slept with her first – not her last - Olympic gold medal beneath her pillow. For all her cuteness, Maria Filatova was a fearsome gymnast and competitor.  If the crowd were awed by the pyrotechnics of Romanian technician Nadia Comaneci, they were wooed by the cha

The national team had an outing yesterday to Moscow's famous Dynamo Club. This was more of a training competition than anything, but it is nice to see the girls and be able to chew over how they are doing. Lauren has done a good report on the competition at the Couch Gymnast and there are links to videos on Triplefull's Youtube Channel. Brigid from the Couch Gymnast also has a picture of the results on her Facebook page, which I will transcribe here. Y Belokobylskaya 13.6 13.6 14.7 13.75 55.65 A Dementyeva 13.7 14.1 13.2 14.6 55.6 K Goryunova* 13.5 13.4 15.0 13.6 55.5 Y Inshina 13.7 13.45 13.8 14.05 55.0 A Sidorova 14.4 12.5 12.85 13.5 53.25 A Rodionova 14.0 12.3 12.85 13.6 52.75 K Afanasyeva 14.4 12.4 - 14.2 41.00 T Nabieva 13.9 14.4 11.25 - 39.55 V Komova - 15.6 15.1 - 30.7 A Grishina 12.9 14.00 - - 26.9 A Mustafina - 14.55 - - 14.55 The board also shows the top two gymnasts in the junior division : M Kharenkova 12.9 14.00 12.2 13.7 53.1 K Levshina 12.5 12

Lupita sent me this link to a beautiful quality video of young Elena Shushunova on the beam in 1982, all beribboned and full of Shushunova's trademark concentration. Shushunova is a legend of the sport - an innovator (just look at that full twisting double back dismount) who combined power with great fluidity and harmony (that arabesque was peerless throughout her career). Her artistry on floor belied the idea that a gymnast needs to be slender and long to have good line, and her expression went beyond a big smile to encompass something more - the 'emotional depth' her coach, Viktor Gavrichenkov, referred to at one point. She was World, European and Olympic all around Champion, World Cup champion, and World Student Games Champion (winning all five golds in the form of her life in 1986). She contributed something new to all four pieces of apparatus, and evolved visibly throughout her career. One day, I will publish something substantial about Shushunova that can