Skip to main content

Ivan Stretovich - star of the future

Image
By
Ivan Stretovich competes at last year's Junior European Championships
Siberian-born, 16 year old Ivan Stretovich featured on this blog last year after his appearance at the Junior European Championships, and was one of the rising stars at this month's European Youth Olympic Festival, taking bronze medals all around and on rings, in addition to gold on parallel bars.  There is something about this gymnast that I like; his competitive bearing is confident and strong, his work presented with an economy of line that reminds me of a young Dmitri Bilozerchev.  Between last year's Junior European Championships and this year's EYOF, Ivan improved his D value on parallel bars from 5.1 to 5.6, including a brand new double front with half twist out dismount.

The local Siberian sports committee has produced this video of Ivan in training.  Lupita provides a brief summary of what is said below.



Ivan Stretovich is one of the candidates to be nominated "April Russian Athlete". He is a member of the Russian junior team.
 
- My goal was to perform everything as I usually do in training. The rest doesn't depend on me. I competed and then the judges assessed my routines.

His mother took him to a gym club when he was 6.  He came first at his first competition.  He is only 16, but when you talk to him, you have the impression he has already finished school and he knows what he wants.
 
- If I didn't want it, I wouldn't do anything. Nobody pushes me.
 
After a competition he analyzes his mistakes and decides to train harder.
 
- I'll be successful next time. I work towards my goal.
 
Ivan often trains in Moscow with the other members of the team and then goes back to Novosibirsk, where his teachers help him with school assignments.


See Ivan's EYOF results here.

Ivan's gold medal winning parallel bars exercise

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Who will travel to Berne? A Russian mystery

By
Aliya Mustafina and team candidate Seda Tutkhalyan - both from Moscow Five days left before the MAG European Championships open in Switzerland, and Russian gymnast Nikita Nagorny is posting videos of himself practicing a full twisting Roche vault - I wonder if he will compete it in Berne?  The men's team seems fairly well prepared and ready to travel as announced some weeks ago - Kuksenkov, Belyavski, Ignatyev, Nagorny, Ablyazin.  But the composition of the women's team, who will travel to their first major competition of 2016 next week, seems somewhat undecided.  Will Natalia Kapitonova make her major senior debut in June, or will Seda Tutkhalyan, her dynamic yet unpredictable rival, grace Russia's team?  Or will other gymnasts be brought into play; will further, unexpected, changes be made? If head coach Valentina Rodionenko's recent announcement is to be believed, it is a simple case of replacing the injured Maria Paseka (a vault specialist) with Natalia ...
22 comments
Read more

Alexander Alexandrov - some better translations and additions

By
Isa Alexandrova has kindly translated Alexander's interview word for word.  It gives a  different emphasis in some places to my summary, and adds some more information, so I wanted readers to have access to this right away.  With many thanks to Isa. 1) Alexander didn't quite imply that he is ready to come back to Russia by the end of this year if there is an offer. He said that "it is still hurtful for me to think the way I was treated in 2012. However, enough time had passed, that I was able to better analyze the situation, and I understand that perhaps I did some things not the best way. At that time, I was working for the "final result" and did not pay attention to much else. Mutko and I had a conversation before I left, where he let me know that he didn't want me to leave. Now, the only way I could talk about my coming back is when and if he calls me. I am not going to invite myself back. I am ready to come back to Russia if I am wanted, but I do...
20 comments
Read more

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

By
It was a Sunday morning.  I was drinking my coffee and contemplating the day ahead - a workout at the gym, shopping for groceries, an evening reading a book, or catching up on last night's episodes of crime thriller The Bridge .  How nice it was not to have to think about work for a day. Then I saw it - a story about the history of doping in The Observer .  Interesting reading. Of course, cheating is as old as the hills.  It is, unfortunately, human nature for some people to try to gain easy advantage in any kind of competition.  That is why we have laws, rules, ethical guidelines.  People who cheat should face justice and shouldn't complain when they are found out. But the story about pregnancy doping bothered me.  Hadn't that been found to be fictional?  The author began with Olga Kovalenko's allegations made in 1994 - but the rumours had started way back in 1991 with the documentary series More Than A Game .  The practice...
3 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more