Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Aliya competed this weekend in Ukraine - probably our last chance to see her before Euros in just over two weeks' time.  I haven't seen full results yet but even with a fall on floor, Aliya won the all around, with Russia taking gold in the team competition ahead of Ukraine and Japan.  Competing with her on the Russian team were Anna Dementyeva and Polina Fedyorova.  Ukraine's Oleg Vernaev won the men's competition, leading the winning team ahead of Russia and the Netherlands. Thanks to Alexandra Kuznetsova for videos, and for the pictures in this press report .  Aliya Mustafina floor Aliya Mustafina uneven bars Aliya Mustafina beam Aliya looks to be concentrating on developing new combinations for her beam routine and I guess that her competition goals this year are somewhat longer term than Moscow Europeans which are coming earlier in the year than usual. I'm feeling a replay of 1987 Europeans may be on the cards, with the feisty veteran lookin...

For many years, Collet's socialist bookshop on Tottenham Court Road, London was somewhere I went to find little treasures of Soviet gymnastics.  It was a subject that was sparsely, often very cynically treated by the British press, and it is hard to explain how ridiculously valuable every last jewel of information seemed.  I read more than I could buy, but remember the thrill of finding my first copies of Sport in the USSR .  And there were, occasionally, books and booklets, too.  I stumbled across this little biography of Nikolai Andrianov when sorting through some books and papers recently.  I love the look of it, the use of black and white photography, the presentation of Andrianov as a man of the people, the arty farty shots of the chalked up hands, the Olympic champion exhausted in a pile of foam.  It was 95p, not much then or now, but worth a whole lot more to me, always.  I have a new camera, ready for my trip to Moscow later this spring, an...

Anastasia Grishina at the Russian Championships in Penza earlier this month.  Picture courtesy of RGF Nominative registrations are now out for the upcoming European Championships in Moscow. Women : Aliya Mustafina, Anastasia Grishina, Maria Paseka, Ksenia Afanasyeva I'm delighted to see Afanasyeva on the team - to me, she is the natural selection over the still developing Evgeniya Shelgunova, whose selection could really only be justified on developmental grounds - and perhaps this could be seen as rather indulgent given the current competitive climate in world gymnastics.  Afanasyeva really adds clout to what is a mature and classy Russian team.  She was also looking on good acrobatic form at the French International recently - perhaps less focussed on her dance, but then since when did this really matter to the scores? Aliya Mustafina is reportedly competing at the Stella Zakharova Cup in Ukraine this weekend so we shall have a chance to see how her preparatio...

A nice interview with Aliya from just before the Russian Championships. Key points from the Google translate : She won second place in an R Sport vote for the best Russian sports woman, behind Evgeniya Kanaeva but ahead of Maria Sharapova.  She says Evgeniya came first because she is a beautiful gymnast; but knows little about Sharapova. She has no time for life outside of gymnastics, as she trains three times a day - can only meet with her friends on rare occasions, and declines to comment about whether she has a boyfriend in gymnastics. Her father is her main supporter, but the person whose opinion she values most in gymnastics is her coach, Alexander Alexandrov :-) She does not have any gymnastics idols. Good luck to all the Russian gymnasts as they prepare for the European Championships!  

Elena Vaitsekhovskaya is one of Russia's leading sports journalists, herself a former Olympian.  You will have read Lupita's translation of at least one piece of her writing here - the article entitled ' Undesirable Alexandrov ' which was so insightful on the staffing changes that so upset the Russian camp last autumn. Just this afternoon I found her website , which though in the Russian language is a treasure trove of authoritative interviews with and articles about leading coaching figures such as Alexander Alexandrov, Andrei Rodionenko, Leonid Arkayev and many of the top gymnasts of the past twenty years, including Dmitri Bilozerchev, Aliya Mustafina, Nikolai Kryukov, Alexei Voropaev and Maxim Devyatovski.  It's well worth a few Sunday afternoons navigating the complexities of Google translate.  The Russian language gymnastics listing is here , and there is a resource of article translations, though not much gymnastics, here . One article I found particul...

The evergreen, always opinionated Valentina Rodionenko Lupita translates below an interview with Valentina Rodionenko from the 28th February.  This was before the Russian Championships had closed, but it provides some useful insights into likely selections for the European Championships.   On the women's side, Rodionenko echoes what Grebenkin said earlier this year - there are few up and coming gymnasts who can replace the members of the London Olympics team.  Euros looks likely to revolve around Mustafina and Grishina, with some juggling of the places going on around Shelgunova, Paseka, Afanasyeva and (less likely) Dementyeva.   On the men's side, she emphasises that fierce competition is emerging for places on the first competitive team this year.  There are six places available for Moscow, and I am intrigued to know who the second all arounder is likely to be! The aim of the Russian championship is to select the team for the E...

Maria Bondareva, courtesy of RGF Russia's charming young gymnasts, Maria Bondareva, Anastasia Dmitrieva, Polina Spirina and Ekaterina Sokova, knocked out the rest of the competition with their artistry in Montreal this weekend.  Bondareva and Dmitrieva shared the all around title.  The team beat Canada and Japan by a narrow margin.  These girls are not yet performing work of outstanding difficulty, but it is a pleasure to watch their gymnastics, particularly Bondareva on beam who has such confidence and authority.  You can find top five AA results below, full results are available at Gymnix International - team results link is not working properly at the moment but you may find them later.  There is a start list for today's event finals - Bondareva and Dmitrieva are qualified to vault, bars and beam, with Bondareva appearing on floor with Sokolova.  Good luck girls, and well done so far! There is a Youtube channel (thanks Lisa!) with good...

Olympic medallist Denis Ablyazin was the star this week in Penza The spectacular events of beam, floor, vault, parallel bars and high bar took place last week and I am finally updating the blog with these results, which can be found in full on the RGF website ( WAG and MAG ). They were interesting results : over the two days of event finals, four different women won gold medals (Paseka, Grishina, Shelgunova and Afanasyeva).  The absence of Komova from the competition, and the withdrawal of Mustafina and Grishina from beam and floor finals mean that these results cannot be considered to be the comprehensive book on Russian WAG form, but it is good news that the Russians have such plausible champions on each piece of apparatus.  I am particularly pleased to see that Ksenia Afanasyeva is continuing at full force - her beam routine was especially interesting. For the men it was a stunning endorsement of the specialist work being done by the fiery Denis Ablyazin (gold on...

Tatiana Nabieva is working hard to prepare for this summer's Universiade, and performed a strong routine today.  Photo : courtesy of the RGF. Full results are now available at the RGF website - I'll transcribe below. WAG Vault 1  Maria Paseka   13.475 2  Kristina Kruglikova  13.4 3  Anna Pavlova  13.05 4  Olga Bizmurkina  12.75 5  Alyona Polyan  12.625 6  Maria Smirnova  12.225 7  Anna Myzdrikova  12.175 8  Ekaterina Tsvetkova   11.30 WAG Uneven Bars 1.  Anastasia Grishina  15.10 2.  Tatiana Nabieva  14.625 3.  Aliya Mustafina  14.55 4.  Anna Dementyeva  13.975 5.  Evgeniya Shelgunova  13.625 6.  Kristina Goryunova  13.525 7.  Alla Sosnitskaya  13.5 8.  Maria Paseka  11.725 Rodionenko clapped his hands in dismay and turned his back on Maria Paseka when she had the fall on bars.  I g...

A press release from the FIG.  FEDERATION INTERNATIONALE DE GYMNASTIQUE PRESS RELEASE (for immediate distribution) +++   Artistry and Music in Gymnastics IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EUTERPE! Lausanne (SUI) / FIG Office, March 05, 2013 : At its recent meeting in February 2013, the Executive Committee decided to organise two workshops on artistic and musical content, which are part of the judging criteria in Artistic and Rhythmic Gymnastics exercises. The workshops will be held this year at the World Championships in Antwerp (BEL) for Artistic and in Kiev (UKR) for Rhythmic. They will be led by the 1st Vice-President of the FIG, Ms Slava Corn, and target choreographers and coaches primarily, with access for judges. A panel of internationally recognized experts will be appointed under the technical leaders of both disciplines, particularly Ms Lyn Heward (CAN), Creative Director ...

Graceful David Belyavski has been Russia's leading AAer at these championships. Central beat Moscow (a close result again - 259.95/259.6) ... in today's MAG competition. Find the full results here . Kuksenkov, competing for the gold medal winning team, managed a 15.25 on pommel horse and a 15 on parallel bars - I think these scores could add something to Russia's team totals in international competition. Garibov achieved a 15.1 on p bars and a 15.55 on high bar, with Ablyazin achieving in the 15s on all three pieces he competed. Belyavski is thus looking the strongest - perhaps the only - all around in the senior national field at this competition - are Russia steering their men's team towards specialists? Go Tribe has transliterated the results in full . There are some lovely photographs at the RGF website , where you will find the image of Belyavski above.

Central team veteran Anna Pavlova is still competing well. Central beat Moscow in tight team final ... 166.85 to 166.75. Paseka scored 15.75 on vault for Moscow with her best Amanar! Afanasyeva is still leading floor efforts with a score of 14.45; Mustafina ahead on bars and beam with 15.4 and 15.2 respectively. See full results here. This picture of Anna Pavlova is used courtesy of the RGF

A fresh start has been made in the Russian Federation, and yesterday Russia's stars presented themselves anew in their first small steps towards the Rio Olympics in 2016.  The team's leading Olympic medallist, Aliya Mustafina, won the all around competition ahead of the unlucky bird of London, Anastasia Grishina.  In third position we have youngster, first year senior Evgeniya Shelgunova.  Of course, the subtext here is that the best of all, graceful, powerful, Viktoria Komova, could not compete thanks to a nagging back injury ... surely she would have beaten the lot of them if she had only been at full strength.  On the men's side, David Belyavski confirmed his position as Russia's leading all around gymnast, and joker Nikita Ignatyev gave him strong competition in second place.  Many of Russia's leading male gymnasts did not appear in the all around competition, however, preferring to present on their specialist pieces.  The most encouraging work came f...

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...

The Russian Championships for MAG and WAG begin tomorrow - a good opportunity to judge how training has been going for the gymnasts.  Remember that Viktoria Komova is not competing here as she has a nagging back injury, but we will be able to see  Aliya Mustafina, Maria Paseka, Anastasia Grishina, Ksenia Afanasyeva and senior team newcomer Evgenia Shelgunova.  Tatiana Nabieva and Anna Dementieva are also in the mix.  Personal coach Alexander Alexandrov is on the floor with Mustafina, as is one half of Grishina's new coaching team, Viktor Razumovsky.  The senior men are there in depth, as evidenced by a video I have seen, but their start lists have yet to be published so I will avoid mentioning names at this stage. These national championships are part of the qualification process for the Russian teams for April's European Championships, so a lot is at stake.  The Russian Gymnastics Federation will be live streaming some of the competitions, and you ...