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
'Should Mustafina compete in Glasgow, considering her fragile state of health? - aren't the Olympics more important?' are the key themes of this brief news piece by Elena Vaitsekhovskaya, a top sports journalist who has interviewed Alexandrov, Arkayev, Starkin, Mustafina and Rodionenko in the last five years since Aliya won the World Championships. Elena stresses that this year nothing unusual has happened. Aliya has worked hard with her new coach Sergei Starkin. She did a 'great job', demonstrating her work at the European Games in Baku where she won the all around, bars and team events as well as silver in the floor exercise. But, says Vaitsekhovskaya, more important than the medals was the fact that Aliya showed a new technical level, began work on upgrades for the Rio Olympics. Just competing in one event - the Baku games - could be enough for a veteran athlete of Mustafina's experience. The body ages in both time - and injuries. Athletes always respond...
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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