Skip to main content

Interview with Vera Kolesnikova

Image
By
Vera Kolesnikova competed for the Soviet Union at the 1985 World Championships, and the next year became all around champion at the Goodwill Games, ahead of team mates Oksana Omelianchik and Elena Shushunova, who had taken the world all around title the previous year.  After retiring from competitive gymnastics she began coaching gymnastics, married a fellow Master of Sport gymnast, Alexander Komov, and had two children, Viktoria and Alexander.  One of them, Viktoria, is expected to do rather well at the upcoming London Olympics.

There is an interview with Vera at the VTB site.  It includes some gorgeous pictures of the tiny Vika, so you must go to look, even if you cannot speak Russian.  Unfortunately, the Google translate is rather rough and difficult to understand, with lots of references to the 'pope' ;-), but the key points that can be clearly understood (please note : this is far from a word for word translation) are :

  • The 2010 Youth Olympic Games (where Vika won the all around) is her most memorable victory to date;
  • Viktoria never really had much choice but to go into gymnastics if she chose any sport at all; as a toddler she had to accompany her mother to the gymnasium where Vera coaches, and everything happened from there
  • Viktoria's talent is down to genetics.  Both of her parents were talented gymnasts.
  • Viktoria likes to make pizza at home.

I have cheekily screen grabbed some of the pictures, with thanks to the Komov family - and credit to the VTB site which is becoming increasingly interesting for us gymnastics fans.  Please, do visit the link to see all the pictures.


With her brother

Vika and Vera together - I think this must be 2005 judging by the background



Labels:

Comments

  1. M18 July 2012 at 12:25

    Haha Awesome.

    So cute there. So she has a hampster, cat and a puppy. I hope the puppy and the cat get along!

    Thanks for posting will check out the site.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous22 December 2013 at 14:46

    Vera is very proud of her daughter... <3 So,it must be!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mustafina on Roschina

By
ROTTERDAM (Netherlands), October 24. /TASS/. Russian gymnast Lyudmila Roshchina, who won silver in the individual all-around at the World Championships, succeeded precisely because she focused on challenging herself rather than competing for medals. This is the assessment of Aliya Mustafina, a coach for the Russian national team and a two-time Olympic champion, who spoke to TASS. "Of course, I wasn't certain that Lyudmila would end up on the podium in the all-around, though I certainly hoped she would," Mustafina said. "The general instruction was not to think about medals or rankings. As they headed from the warm-up area to the competition floor, I told the girls: 'Don't worry about where you place—just focus on challenging yourselves.' And Lyusya managed to do exactly that." "Her mindset played a major role, too; she was in a very positive frame of mind even back in the warm-up area. So, I wouldn't say that winning this silver was an incre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roschina on Mustafina

By
 Roshchina discusses Mustafina’s role in the Russian national gymnastics team The Olympic champion has been working with the Russian senior national team since the beginning of 2026 and specializes in the balance beam. "Aliya Fargatovna gives us all sorts of advice and handy tips, which is a huge help to us," Roshchina admitted, adding that Mustafina has been her idol since childhood. Mustafina has been working with the Russian senior national team since the beginning of 2026, specializing in the balance beam. Prior to this, she served as the head coach of the women’s junior national team. Roshchina is 18 years old, and the world championships in Rotterdam mark the second high-level competition of her career. At the 2025 World Championships, she finished 11th in the individual all-around. In August, in Zagreb, she became a European champion as part of the Russian team, which competed under the "World Gymnastics" banner.
Post a Comment
Read more

Roschina on her success in Rotterdam

By
  — Let’s sum up the World Championships. How did it go for you? — First of all, it was a great learning experience for me. Overall, the competition went well, though there is still room for improvement. — If someone had told you before the World Championships that you would take second place in the individual all-around, how would you have reacted? — I probably would have been surprised. I’m not even sure what else to say to that. — How difficult was it to be the leader of the women’s team in the absence of Angelina Melnikova? — I tried to encourage the girls, and they encouraged me as well. I think that, overall, we were a good team. But Angelina is still our leader, and I will look up to her. — I spoke with coach Aliya Mustafina, and she mentioned that the competition within the national team will be even tougher next year…  — It’s great to have such strong competition; it gives you something to strive for and an incentive to keep working. — Did you start out in artistic gy...
Post a Comment
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more