Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

More information is now available about the BBC's coverage of the upcoming European Championships. In addition to the red button transmissions which I listed earlier (details repeated below) there is now also terrestrial TV on BBC1 on Saturday 19th May. R ed button : Saturday 12th May 14.00 - 16.30 European Team Gymnastics Sunday 13th May 12.45 - 16.30 European Team Gymnastics (12.45-16.00 on Freeview) BBC1 : Saturday 19th May, 14.30 - 16.30 Do please check these details in your local guides and make sure you are not missing out; they may be incomplete, or the timings may change.  I'm afraid that the information given on the BBC website is minimal - I will take a guess that the red button on Saturday and Sunday will cover Team Finals (Saturday) and EF (Sunday) live.  There may be some repeats or highlights factored in, explaining the rather long duration on the Sunday. The BBC's website does not suggest that the live red button programm...

I-g.tv has recently been updated with some stories from the diving world as well as gymnastics, including a commentary from Vladimir Zaglada on the gymnastics contribution of 2000 Olympic Champion Alexei Nemov.  This is soon to be supplemented by a video montage of Alexei's amazing work on the high bar. There is also a dual (Russian/English) language version of a profile of Alexei : Alexei Nemov – last of the Soviets, first of the Russians Writing a profile of 2000 Olympic Champion Alexei Nemov has not been easy.   There is something so completely intangible about Nemov’s gymnastics, something that defies simple description.  The beauty of his work goes beyond line, technique or acrobatics.  There is a softness that transcends the mere physical. At first, I wanted to write about Alexei’s heroic qualities, of how he reminds me of Detiatin, Tkachev and Mogilnyi.  Mentioning Nemov’s place in the role of honour of Soviet gymnastics seemed to be t...

Vladimir Zaglada's latest book, Gymmy the Owl and His Friends Do you want to know the difference between flexibility and plasticity?  Find out why it is so difficult to do a handstand on a balance beam?  Know what it is that your pet cat can do easily that you have to spend hours practising?  Vladimir Zaglada's latest book will help you.  A charming collection of poems and colourful, humourous pictures (by Katya Korobkina) explains some of the vital facts about gymnastics and is full of wonder at the gymnastic feats of the natural world as well as those we humans perform in the gym..  This book is for children, but parents and carers will love it too - it's perfect for a shared read. The book concludes as the King of Beasts, Lion the Coach in his Dynamo club tracksuit, introduces himself: " Gymmy's told me all about you And he knows a thing or two. You are all with gifts endowed, And I know you'll make me proud." This beautiful book is ...

Partial details of the BBC's red button coverage of Europeans are now available at the BBC website. To be covered on red button : Saturday 12th May 14.00 - 16.30        European Team Gymnastics Sunday 13th May 12.45 - 16.30       European Team Gymnastics (12.45-16.00 on Freeview) I'll update as soon as I find more information but it is comforting to know that the BBC is at least giving minimal coverage to the senior finals.

The UEG has now published nominative registrations for Europeans, which begin two weeks today. I'm pleased to see junior Evgeniya Shelgunova lead a strong junior team which also includes the very young Maria Kharenkova. The senior team list will no doubt be adjusted in the next few days to reflect a replacement for the unfortunate Ksenia Afanasyeva. I'm expecting the Romanians to be very strong at this competition, and the medal count to reflect their array of impressive event specialists. Do not be surprised to see the Romanians take a significant medal count here, even perhaps the lion's share. Note that a key national coach listed for the senior team is specialist bars coach Evgeny Grebenkin - perhaps reflecting the Russians' understanding that bars is their best shot for gold.  Juniors   Evgeniya Shelgunova  Maria Kharenkova  Yulia Tipaeva  Ekaterina Baturina  Viktoria Kuzmina   Seniors Aliya Mustafina Viktoria Komova ...

Ksenia Afanasyeva is officially now out of the running for the European Championships thanks to a nasty case of tonsilitis, reports national team coach Alexander Alexandrov via Sports .ru The three core gymnasts now progressing towards places on the team are Anastasia Grishina, Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina, with the final two spots open for a decision over the coming week.  My guess is that Anastasia Sidorova, Maria Paseka and Anna Dementyeva are in the running for the two spots, with the two younger gymnasts probably being favoured to give them experience.  Dementyeva looked a little tired in Switzerland and was limping quite heavily after almost every exercise.  The Europeans are the final big step on the way to the Olympics for the Russians and I don't expect they will show everything of which they are capable.  Russia Today has released the following news video shot at the recent press tour of Lake Krugloye.  It includes brief interviews with Ale...

Find here Lupita's translation of another excellent R Sport interview , this time with Ksenia Afanasyeva : Ksenia Afanasyeva at a recent press conference “The National gymnastics team has three strong leaders: Anastasia Grishina, Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina”, World champion Ksenia Afanasyeva told the agency R-Sport. Аfanasyeva was the winner of the team competition (2010) and won an event title (floor, 2011).  “I can’t say who the leader of our team is, because we have three strong gymnasts, three leaders – Аnastasia Grishina, Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina- “, said Afanasyeva. – “And they are all strong in their own way”. Concerning her own position in the national team, the sportswoman said:  “Those three girls are very strong in the all around, and I am very strong at floor”  “I am perhaps the leader on floor, but they are leaders in the all around and will be more useful to the team”, - she added. – “I know that I can help the team o...

Lupita has provided the following translation of an interview from Sovietski Sport (18th April). Valentina Rodionenko, coach with the Russian and Soviet teams for over 30 years, celebrates her 76th birthday in September this year.  Picture courtesy of RGF . Valentina Rodionenko, Russian national coach, tells us that the composition of the team that will fight for gold against the US is already known as far as three members are concerned: Aliya Mustafina, who missed one year of gymnastics due to a severe injury (although in Penza, Aliya competed and won), Viktoria Komova, who placed second at the world championships, whose tears in Tokyo for a lost medal were considered a personal tragedy in Russia, and a new name: Anastasia Grishina . -    We will be leaving for London on July the 21st. It’s no use arriving earlier.   Vitaly Smirnov, from the Russian Olympic Committee, thinks it’s better to arrive earlier .  We are better off here. If we have t...

Viktoria Komova with coach Gennady Elfimov, just prior to the 2011 World Championships.  Picture courtesy of RGF . Lupita has provided a translation of a short interview with Viktoria Komova from Sovietski Sport, which explains her no-show at the Russian Championships : April 20 th  2012 Russian gymnast Viktoria Komova, world champion, explained that she could not take part in the Russian Championships because her personal coach could not travel with her. “I was injured, but in fact my coach could not go to the championship, and they didn’t want to send me alone. I was sorry because all the girls were performing and I had to watch them on my computer. I was good to have a direct broadcast via the internet”,  Komova told Sovietskii Sport.

National team coach Alexander Alexandrov at the recent press day There is a great radio interview with Russian team coach Alexander Alexandrov at NPR . Alexandrov acknowledges the disadvantages Russia face: no Amanar vaults to date because of the injuries to Komova and Mustafina, and the American girls are all more athletic than the Russians (but do not benefit from the constant attentions of specialist choreographers, making them less elegant).  He rates the team's chances of gold as about 50-50, with probably the highest chances on the bars, but the lowest on the vault. Veteran Lidia Ivanova, however, points out that the funding from VTB Bank has improved conditions and  attracted top coaches like Alexandrov back to Russia -  stating that 'You Americans should be getting nervous'.

The Russian team of Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Dementyeva,Sidorova and Paseka won the tri-meet this Friday relatively easily, with a total team score of 177.30, almost two points higher than they achieved at last October's World Championships, although comparison is somewhat distorted as the competition formats were different.  Aliya Mustafina, performing only a portion of her full difficulty, won the all around with a score of 58.95 ahead of Grishina with 57.7 and Dementyeva at 56.55.  Observers (Maddie at the All Around forum and Trudi at the IG Forum) noted in particular the excellence of Mustafina's double twisting Yurchenko (15.2 with an execution score of 9.4).   Komova, performing only on bars and beam, acquitted herself well with a 15.85 on bars and a 15.2 beam.   Dementyeva's contribution of a 15 on beam should also not go without note. Maddie has posted videos of every Russian routine on her Youtube channel and you can read a report at the Couch G...

Couch Gymnast has some fantastic coverage of training this morning, with videos from the Russian girls.  I have yet to see any of these videos, but I am reliably informed that Grishina's second beam routine is more than worth a good look!! Here are the links: Friendly training report and videos More videos Enjoy! 

Viktoria Komova at last week's press day.  Courtesy of the RGF R Sport has a new interview (published this evening)with Viktoria Komova - it provides a link to a new resource including video (see below). The headline makes much of the loss at the Tokyo World Championships, but the interview isn't really about this. Key points made in the interview are : 1 Vika watched the Russian Championships online, like so many of the rest of us did! 2 Her injury is healed to the extent that her bars and beam are back to strength, although she needs another month to restore her Amanar vault (so I guess we won't see it at Europeans). 3 The most difficult part of recovery is fitness - she says she can get through three apparatus, but the fourth is very difficult, she gets very tired and finds herself making mistakes. 4 She loves gymnastics and performing. They do get paid a salary for what they do, but even so she simply loves her work. 5 Losing in Tokyo was ve...

Randomly scanning Youtube for items of interest, I came across this video of 1990 World Cup All Around Champion and 1992 Olympic Beam Champion, Tatiana Lyssenko. 'The beam obeys me' is one of the most memorable quotes by a champion gymnast. Lyssenko pronouced this some years before she won the beam gold medal in Barcelona and performed this rhythmic, well balanced routine at the 1993 World Championships in Birmingham, UK. She went on to take the bronze medal all around in a closely matched competition behind Romania's Gina Gogean and USA's Shannon Miller. She was a remarkable gymnast : as precise and powerful as Podkopayeva but with the spontaneity and line of Omelianchik and a haughty pride that was all her own, Lyssenko is one of the most underrated gymnasts of that time. If only the Ukrainians could produce her like once more. It was a time of change for gymnastics. Not only had the team of the Soviet Union (well, technically, the hastily assembled Commonw...

    On Friday we will have a chance to see how the Russian women's team is progressing, when they compete in Switzerland (Sporthalle Lindenhof in Wil) against the British and Swiss. Relatively little is confirmed yet; all the information on the website other than the time and place of the competition is subject to change.  But the Russian women's team is planned to include : Aliya Mustafina Viktoria Komova Anastasia Grishina Anna Dementyeva Maria Paseka Anastasia Sidorova Details of the other teams can be found here .   The competition begins at 5.00 pm local time and finishes with the awards ceremony at 9.15. Good luck to all the girls competing!

Sovietski Sport has published a collection of wonderfully moody photographs of last week's visit to Lake Krugloye. Worth a look just for the cover photograph of Aliya Mustafina - is that a new opening pose for her soulful floor routine, or is she just waiting for a lift? The last gymnast I can remember with similar presence and charisma is 1989 World Champion Svetlana Boguinskaia - she draws the eye, seems graceful and expressive, whatever the circumstances. There is also an interview with Alexander Alexandrov. We really need to wait for a proper English language translation although I don't think it adds too much to what we have already read about. There are significant rumblings of the added value Anastasia Grishina brings to the team, including a possible Amanar vault which she is beginning to practice now, ahead of Komova and Mustafina who are still recovering from their injuries. Alexandrov also raises the possibility that Mustafina will not perform on floor at t...

Viktoria Komova at last week's press day.  Note the background banner advertising sponsors VTB.  Photo by Elena Mikhailova, by kind permission of the RGF The Russian gymnasts and coaches are busy preparing for the London Olympics, and barely interrupted their regular training to make time to speak to journalists at the Russian National Training Centre in Round Lake ( Krugloye in Russian). Photographer Elena Mikhailova was on hand to record proceedings.  As ever, the reticent Russians do not reveal over much about themselves - what is said could probably have been intelligently guessed anyway, on the basis of results and other reports.  Nevertheless, it's helpful to hear how the girls themselves are feeling about their preparations and to see how happy and healthy they look in the pictures.  Alexandrov gives some details of their travel plans to London and Valentina Rodionenko reveals a framework for the national team composition, suggesting it revolves aro...

In gymnastics, the word 'choreography' is heard frequently in discussions of artistry, normally in respect of floor exercise, sometimes about beam (many teams have specialist beam choreographers, for example the Russian team work with the fearsomely experienced Larissa Ushakova) but rarely about the more athletic pieces, bars and vault. I was looking at the floor routine Anastasia Grishina performed at the Jesolo Cup the other day. It's beautiful and powerful and expressive. One of the best floor routines on the competitive circuit at present; in fact I would put it a close second to Afanasyeva's in the world rankings. But my analysis of the routine is this: 1 The actual dance composition of the routine as a whole is relatively ordinary, although good in parts. There is a predominance during the early part of the routine of straight line work. For the first 40 seconds, Nastia does not veer off the diagonal on which she started. This is because she is ...

Russian Championships came to an end on Saturday with event finals in both the senior and junior categories.  As usual, the juniors competed in two separate classifications, Master of Sport and Candidate Master of Sport.  We saw the emergence of a very young new star, Ivan Stretovich, who turns 16 in October and trains in Novosibirsk with coach B Konvissar.  Ivan won either gold or silver on every apparatus except vault, for which he did not present (the first day's results can be found here ).  Stretovich's success further underlines the growing dominance of Siberia as a force in Russian men's gymnastics with strength in depth throughout the ranks. Left : Ivan Stretovich picks up one of his silver awards last week.  Identity of the other two gymnasts to be confirmed as soon as possible!  Picture courtesy of the RGF In the Master of Sport category Grigory Zyrianov took gold on both parallel bars and high bar. Full results are given below. Master of...

Sergei Khorokhodin, David Belyavski and Alexander Balandin receive their awards on the parallel bars.  By kind permission of the RGF The Russian Championships 2012 closed on Saturday as Denis Ablyazin confirmed his status as the outstanding individual apparatus gymnast of the competition with his second gold, this time on vault.  David Belyavski, who according to an interview in IG  is struggling at present with a neck injury, asserted his class with gold on parallel bars.  Konstantin Pluzhnikov, took the gold on his specialist piece, rings. In the immediate aftermath of the competition Andrei Rodionenko confirmed the twelve strong membership of the training squad who will continue to the Europeans and beyond to the Olympics.  The names of the gymnasts are : Emin Garibov Nikita Ignatyev Sergey Khorokhordin Andrei Cherkasov Igor Pakhomenko Denis Ablyazin Maxim Devyatovsky David Belyavsky Alexander Balandin Konstantin Pluzhnikov Anton Golotsutskov...

Full results of the Junior men's event finals are given below, first for the Master of Sport category, then for the Candidate Master of Sport.  The musically named Kirill Prokofiev fared well today in the Master of Sport competitions, winning gold on floor and pommels, and bronze on rings where National Junior Champion Sergei Stepanov came first.  Ivan Stretovich won floor and pommels in the Candidate Master of Sport events, with Viktor Britan taking gold on vault. Master of Sport competitions Candidate Master of Sport competitions

High Bar champion Emin Garibov The first day of event finals took place today, embracing an unusual performance order for the senior men of floor, pommels and high bar.  Denis Ablyazin secured floor gold with his SV of 7.1, while Andrei Perevoznikov took the pommel horse title.  Emin Garibov took his first gold of a relatively disappointing competition for him so far, achieving an SV of 7.2.  Albert has kindly captured many of the videos from the live feed and made them available on his Youtube channel .

Golotsutskov, Pluzhnikov, Devyatovski, Pakhomenko, Cherkasov, Ignatiev The men from Siberia won Thursday's team final over Moscow and the Central Federal District.  Results can be found here .  It was a closely run battle for gold with only 1.6 points between places 1 and 2. Moscow's Denis Ablyazin performed strongly on floor (7.1 SV), vault and rings, with Siberia's Konstantin Pluzhnikov achieving a 15.968 on rings.

L to R : Emin Garibov, Nikita Ignatyev, Igor Pakhomenko took the honours at today's Russian Championships Siberia showed their strength at today's Russian Championships as two of their gymnasts finished in the top three in the all around competition.  Nikita Ignatyev, born 21st June 1992, trains at the Dynamo team in Leninsk Kuznetsk alongside training mate and bronze medallist Igor Pakhomenko (10th June 1992).  Both share the same personal coach: Dmitriy Chunosov.  Silver medalist Emin Garibov (8th September 1990) trains at the Dynamo Moscow club. Ignatyev is rarely to be seen without a smile on his face and seems to be the life and soul of the party whenever the cameras are turned on him.  In a recent interview (Antonova, 2011) he commented : I'm a happy person, loving life.  I just have that feeling inside me.  Sometimes I'm in a bad mood, of course, when it's grey outside for example, but overall I have a positive outlook on life.  I c...

Once upon a time sportsmen were heros and role models, a shining moral example for all of society as to the values of a strong work ethic and a healthy body. USSR is a might sports power!  B. Reshetnikov, 1962  Picture courtesy of A Soviet Poster a Day I love these Soviet era posters and the way they capture the spirit of the time, something special about the purity of the collective sporting effort.  Of course today, sport is about different things.  The political and behavioural symbolic value of sport has been replaced by sport as a commodity.  Sports stars exist as brand heroes in our shopping centres and glossy magazines, the sometimes lurid details of their everyday lives trumpeted on the pages of such magazines as Hello! and the gossip pages of the internet. Compare photographs of Olympians Svetlana Khorkina (1996, 2000 and 2004) and Ludmilla Tourischeva (1972, 1976): Khorkina is in all her glamour shot, sexually charged splendour; Svetlana...

The following is a slightly longer version of the Russian language interview with English language commentary and an additional segment including an interview with Alexander Alexandrov. Alexandrov speaks of Aliya's father, including reference to his distinguished career as an Olympic bronze medal winning (1976) Greco Roman Wrestler with the Moscow CSKA Club. Via The Couch Gymnast and Gymnastics Coaching blogs.

The Championships begin today, with the following schedule : 4 April Juniors CI 9 am - 3 pm Seniors CI & CII 3:30 - 9:30 pm 5 April Seniors CIV 4 - 9 pm 6 April Juniors CII & CIV 1-7 pm 7 April Jr & Sr EF day 1 11 am - 2 pm 8 April Jr & Sr EF day 2 11 am - 2 pm There will be a live feed here . Thanks to Nora Schuler for the translation of the schedule.

Thanks to Alar, Kyan, Albert and all at the All Around Forum who keep us all up to date with translations and links. Vladimirova, Alexandr (2012) We have ten gymnasts trying for London - Alexander Alexandrov, rsport.ru 25th March 2012 English language translation via Russian.Gymnasts.Net.  Russian language version available at http://rsport.ru/interview/20120325/587639713.html accessed 3rd April 2012 Russian TV (unknown channel) Aliya Mustafina : the hardest thing is working day in and day out late March 2012 complete with English language translation of Aliya's interview Gallery of video of the Russian gymnasts at the Jesolo Cup , via Russian Gymnasts.net Vladimirova, Alexandr (2012) Grishina: I need more competitive experience rsport.ru 25th March 2012 English language translation via Russian.Gymnasts.Net.  Russian language version available at http://sport.mail.ru/news/qymnastics/8444717/ accessed 3rd April 2012 Russia, Ukraine win at Zakharova Cup - via The A...