Skip to main content

Coach Nabiyeva, happily engrossed with her little gymnasts in St Petersburg

By


'My little ones' says Tanya Nabiyeva in this personal photo of a training session she is leading. Tanya has been posting many videos of herself recently, in training for the Russian Championships where she will compete for her home team, St Petersburg - and perhaps hope for some individual reward. She looks very happy!



Alina and Anfesa, two young gymnasts from St Petersburg trained by World Champion Tatiana Nabiyeva in her hometown. 'Anfesa reminds me of myself as a child', says Tanya, 'blue eyes, big tummy, pigeon-toed. Doesn't understand the whole bargain at all!  Just looks up and smiles'.

Alina and Anfesa, who (I am guessing) are about 7 or 8 years old, will be 21 or 22 by the time the 2028 Olympics take place. One of the candidate cities for those Games? St Petersburg.

With thanks to Tanya for these lovely pictures, and her thoughts.  Oh ... GOOD LUCK for the forthcoming competition.

PS I am getting the same question from a lot of people - will Tanya 'definitely' compete?  My answer is - wait and see - there are no certainties in life, and especially in this sport.  Only a week to go till the Champs begin!  

Perhaps Tanya was joking - but she seems to be working pretty hard for a joke!  And enjoying it.  Her St Petersburg team would benefit from her contribution in Penza. I do not think you have to take her participation at nationals as a full 'comeback' attempt at international level - but who knows what might transpire in the coming months?  

My guess is that Tanya is happy in her new life and won't look back - but only she will know the answer to that ... And it might not be a decision that has been taken with any finality ... Life just isn't like that.  Patience.  It is the unexpected in life that can provide so many joys :-).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is gymnastics still artistic?

By
Such a lot is said about artistry these days - but you don't really see much evidence of it in the gymnastics.   There are flashing moments of brilliance that some people enjoy - for example, a gymnast like Brazil's Flavia Saraiva is a favourite for her spirited and expressive floor and beam.  Others might prefer the structured work of a gymnast like Kyla Ross.  For me, though, the idea of consummate artistry has been lost almost totally - the last time I saw anything like it was in 2012 when Komova performed her floor so brilliantly in the all around final.  But without a mechanism to reward artistry - something that is absent from this Code of Points - there really isn't much point even trying any more. Aliya Mustafina was interviewed recently while on holiday in Italy and expressed the opinion that artistry was something that was inborn, rather than trained.  She uses a metaphor to describe this - some gymnasts have five gears, not four, and the abilit...
36 comments
Read more

Viktoria Komova - apology

By
Viktoria wrote some hasty words last night in the heat of the moment.  We all have such times, when hurt feelings lead us to behave uncharacteristically.  It is not important what she said; it is important that Vika has reflected and wants us all to read this message which she published on VK.com this morning. "Dear friends! I want to apologize for my statements about American girls, about drugs, all my words were spoken on emotions. Of course I haven't any proof and didn't really mean it and so on... I am so sorry. I want to apologize for my character to all of you". Vika, we are still with you every step of the way.
38 comments
Read more

Aliya Mustafina - I competed as best I could

By
Picture credit RGF Aliya speaks in Sports Express http://news.sport-express.ru/2014-05-18/699607 I am very pleased with my performance today, I don't know what the judges didn't like about my bars, but I didn't ask them ... I did my routine fairly well without serious error. On beam I didn't have the start value but I received the highest execution score.  We will try to fix that before the World Championships. Considering the problems I had with my ankle, I think I performed to the optimum at the moment.  I did everything I could. I'm not  the least bit sorry that I performed here -  Very glad that I could help the team. I think my presence made things easier for the girls.   It is very difficult to compete at such serious senior competitions for the first time.  Of course they were very worried.   But I'm sure that with time they will learn to cope easily with their nerves (smiles). 
38 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more