Skip to main content

Pictures, pictures, pictures ... and an Alexandrov update

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 page.

Lifje has also provided a link to a wonderful picture archive of Moscow competitions, including pictures from last December's Voronin Cup, and from January's regional championships.  The picture of Maria Paseka at the top of this post comes from that resource.

Comments

  1. Nice that Alexandrov is staying...for now.

    Thanks for the pictures.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Updates on Russia, and Russian gymnastics

  Kartsev: FX, PB, HB; Suedin: PH, PB, HB; Roschina : V, UB Kalmykova: V, FX; Vassilieva: BB, FX; Kaiumova: UB, BB At times, I have been at a loss as to what to say; I still am.  I don’t think that politics and sport make good bedfellows, but we live in a time of global confusion and sadness.  It has been more than twelve years since Russia has competed under its own flag at the Olympics, and for all I know it could be another twelve or more before things revert entirely to ‘normal’.  I don’t know how seriously to take any of the announcements being made recently, about junior athletes being allowed to compete as Russian, about athletes in the Winter Paralympics being allowed to compete under the Russian flag.  I’d like to see the athletes back and able to live their lives, for them to be able to show off a bit and feel pride in their accomplishments.  But I can’t ignore the bigger picture of death and destruction.  People are lucky if they can live in...

Artistry versus acrobatics???

Watching videos of this weekend's competitions - the qualification and all around rounds of the Russian championships, medal winners from the American Cup - I am struck, more and more, by the huge difference between the American and Russian schools of gymnastics. It led me to ask the question : do artistry and acrobatics have to be mutually exclusive? (I am afraid that I think naming 'American' gymnastics a 'school' is perhaps lending an undeserved dignity to work which has become excessively obsessed with the difficult and the consistent, but I am using the word here so as not to label unfairly those individual gymnasts who are blameless in the direction of their training.) The FIG's vision for gymnastics is said to embrace more artistry; at least the publicity it has put about on the subject of its new Code makes that fairly plain.  So perhaps the Russians, with their inconsistent brilliance and superior body carriage (Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasy...

Viktoria Komova - back pain has forced me to step down

I awoke this morning to a very simple statement from Viktoria Komova, on her vk.com site, which Papa Liukin has translated (via the IG forum): 'Dear friends, fans, and gymnastics lovers. Unfortunately back pain isn't allowing me to train to my full potential and get ready for competitions. I've made the very difficult decision to stop training and take care of my health. I want to thank everyone for their support! Without your love and warmth it would've been more difficult to go all the way. Thanks everyone and see you soon! Love and kisses.' Well, first of all, good wishes and best of luck to Viktoria, who has struggled since 2012 to re-establish herself fully as a competitive gymnast, whose talent was so great that she secured gold on bars at two different World Championships, four years apart, whose career was littered with controversy, who must be allowed to live her life as she wishes.   I know that the 'gymternet' will now be overflowing...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more