Skip to main content

Russia WAG win Gymnix International Junior Cup

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 videos of the Russians' routines for you to enjoy.

Comments

  1. Congrats to the junior team

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love the Russian juniors! Maria Bondareva is so adorable and cute !

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

More thoughts on US gymnastics, Karolyi - and Zaglada

I’d like to add some thoughts to my earlier post about USA gymnastics and Bela Karolyi:  1. What Bela did, he did. He would agree that his actions were his responsibility. 2. Abusive relationships in USA gymnastics (and no doubt elsewhere) pre-existed Bela’s move to the USA and still exist today. 3. Harsh training existed and exists in all of the ‘artistic’ sports and dance-related forms - eg ballroom dancing, ballet, ice skating, circus.  The training involved in most of these activities is founded on an assumption of the benefits of early specialisation.  It revolves around  ‘ideal’ forms, shapes and postures that are difficult to achieve without early years training - women especially.   4. Wherever prodigious early talent exists, there are predators whose main desire in life is to take advantage of that talent - music, entertainment, maths, sport.  The boundaries very easily become confused.  Who owns the talent?  Who decides how many hours to work, at what level?  FOR WHOSE BENEFI

Komova should have won!

It was a very tight battle in the North Greenwich arena today, with American Gabby Douglas beating out Viktoria Komova by a mere 0.259 points (see results below) and the legendary Aliya Mustafina sealing her comeback from that career-threatening injury with a well deserved bronze medal. Yes, she suffered a fall from beam after her Arabian somersault but elsewhere she was at her best, a real endorsement of the work of the Russian coaches in nursing her back to almost-top form since that fateful day in 2011. Komova had a faultless competition apart from a step on landing her Amanar vault. Frankly, she must feel utterly shattered after coming second once again by a very small margin to an American who was treated very generously by the judges. Komova soared and took every beam move to the max, rounding off with her rare double Arabian dismount in fine style; Douglas literally sidled along the beam, seeming frightened to take her feet off the apparatus for all but her somersaults. Kom

Britain 1, Russia 2 in Junior European Gymnastics Championships

Sergei Eltcov, Kirill Potapov, Artur Dalolyan, Nikita Nagorny, Valentin Starikov It was a close-ish competition, but Britain came out on top everywhere as a team, except for pommel horse where the British had a bad day, and rings, a strong piece for a Russia.  In truth, they are two brilliant teams.  Many of these gymnasts will turn senior next year, swelling the ranks of their respective teams.  I can't wait to see them fight for medals at the a Rio Olympics.  Coached by two Russians (Andrei Popov and Sergei Sizhanov from the historic gymnastics city of a Vladimir), the British team carries the classical mark of the Russian school. CORRECTION - The British Junior team head coach is now Barry Collie.  

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more