Not so very long ago, the Russian national training centre was rarely seen in the public eye. Now, thanks to the investment of VTB who have helped the Russian Gymnastics Federation to create a state-of-the-art training facility complete with all the latest rehabilitation equipment, Russia invites us to learn more about the training centre. The following videos were shot in April, before the European Championships, as part of the press tour that is recorded on this blog on April 14th and 15th. There is also, of course, the virtual tour of Lake Krugloye.
Along with last week's Russia 2 documentary, this provides a fascinating insight into the daily environment of the men and women of Russian gymnastics.
VTB: A Look Inside Gymnastics
VTB Group : Gymnastics Team
Become a professional with VTB : A trip to the base of the Olympians
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 we...
Thanks for the videos.
ReplyDeleteThe last one was especially cute.
A pity that they show gymnasts crying almost all the time! Gymnastics is hard, but they are there because they want.
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