Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

        Lupita translates a Prosport interview with 1976 and 1980 Olympic Champion, President of the WTC, Nelli Kim.    Not long ago, Nelli Kim came to Almaty on the invitation of the Kazakhstan Gymnastics Federation. Nelli Kim is a well-known five-time Soviet Olympic champion, European champion, master of sports of the Soviet Union. This time her visit to the capital was due to an international judges’ course. The talented gymnast’s name competes with the name of excellent gymnasts like Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and Tourisheva. It will always be related to the history of sport at the world level. Nelli Kim was the first gymnast to receive a mark of ten in floor and vault. In 2004 she was elected president of the Women’s Technical Committee of the FIG and she became one of the major promoters of the introduction of a new judging system in artistic gymnastics. Being an important specialist in this field, she runs specialized cou...

Map of Russia: courtesy of Infoplease Go-Tribe has developed this great guide to the Russian regional system of gymnastics at her website, Videos of Russian Gymnasts . That explains the mystery of all those competitions! An extremely interesting and useful blog that has links to videos of all the national team members as well as transliterations of the available results of the Russian domestic competitions. 

I posted a link to this 2011 article on Facebook in response to a request for more videos of classical gymnastics. A follower called Vince Miller posted a response: 'I was there and it was the most incredible 15 minutes of artistic gymnastics I've ever seen!' That is exactly how I feel about this 1989 team. I feel privileged to have been there, in the flesh. They were led by Russian coach Alexander Alexandrov, who won his first Worlds gold with Dmitri Bilozerchev in 1983, capped his Soviet/Unified achievements with gold for the WAG team at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, pulled the Russians back to first at the World Championships in 2010, and brought back from the 2012 Olympics the Russians' best medal haul for many years. In the autumn of 1989 I travelled to Stuttgart, Germany, for the World Gymnastics Championships. There, I was enthralled by the performance of the best Soviet women's team I ever saw, and the six best floor exercises there have ever b...

Lupita translates a brand new interview with Russian head coach, Valentina Rodionenko.  This is taken from the Ministry of Sport website . February 8 th 2013 For summer sports a new Olympic quad has started. If generally, after the Olympics, the best athletes can relax a little bit, important competitions are on the Russian gymnastics team’s agenda. Valentina Rodionenko, head coach of the Russian team, told the RTSP-Press correspondents about the changes in gymnastics and the challenges ahead for the team. -         What is specific to this post-Olympic season? -         The beginning of a new Olympic quad is always a slowdown time. It’s a good moment to include new athletes into the team. This is what happens in all countries and in our country. Yet, at this year’s European championships our best gymnasts will perform because the competition will be held in Russia. Mustafina, Afanasyeva and ...

2012 Olympian Maria Paseka competes in January 2013 As you may have seen, Gym Blog Brazil has confirmed that Alexander Alexandrov will be remaining in Russia for the time being.  Apparently the Brazilian Federation were unable to strike an appropriate agreement at this moment in time.  There is the possibility of further negotiations later in the year.  But my personal feeling is, given Alexandrov's bond with his personal athlete, Russia's World and Olympic Champion Aliya Mustafina, it seems unlikely that he would leave Russia.  Let's just hope that Alexandrov is given the appropriate professional freedoms at Lake Krugloye. I have been building a small gallery of Olga Korbut images drawn from the excellent RIA Novosti archive.   Olga Korbut is where gymnastics began for me at the age of 12.  It's impossible to write enough about this iconic champion, a few pictures say so much more.  You can view the gallery here , at RRG's Facebook pa...

Lupita translates a Sovietski Sport interview with newly adopted Russian MAG team member, former Ukraine Olympian, Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov. Nikolai Kuksenkov and his sister, journalist Irina.  Courtesy of Sovietski Sport KUKSENKOV INTERVIEWED BY HIS SISTER JOURNALIST IRINA KUKSENKOVA A STOLEN MEDAL – Tell me, Kolya, when did you first ever think about going to live in Russia?   – Irina, it was a long time ago, when we were living in Belgium, where Dad was the national team’s coach. You entered the Journalism School in Moscow University and I thought it would be nice to go to Russia. I was still a kid and I went back to Kiev with our parents. Later I was seriously injured before the Beijing Olympics, I had surgery and a long recovery. You remember, I came to see you in Moscow, we went to different specialists. I didn't know if I would come back to elite sport. The doctors didn’t give a very promising prognosis. At the end, I watched the Olympics on ...

Lupita translates here the first interview of any significance with Evgeny Grebionkin, newly appointed senior coach of the Russian WAG team.  The article appears on the press website of the Russian Ministry of Sport.   The gymnastics national team’s head coach, Evgeny Greb ionkin , has talked in an interview to FTP-Press about the changes in the staff, the specificities of the new season and the new Code of Points. - Evg eny Anatolevich, what has changed in your work as the national team’s head coach? - I’ve been working with this team for four years. The thing is that I have more duties now. I used to focus on bars, essentially. Now I follow the athletes on all apparatus. I have to organize the training process right now. - How do you feel about the young gymnasts who have joined the team? - So far it’s difficult to say something specific. Four years ago Mustafina, Komova, Nabieva joined the team the same way. It was to...