Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan and Crimea: world politics and international gymnastics

Does Ukraine have a future in men's gymnastics, or will its athletes move overseas to pursue their talents?  Oleg Stepko's personal photograph as he prepared to travel to Baku

Many of the stories to be found on this blog are about a relatively unspoken fact of life of the sport - the migration of gymnasts, coaches and officials from their home countries overseas.  While we discuss the personalities, we do not consider the phenomenon of migration and its influence on the sport particularly deeply.  This is a little surprising, as migration has shaped the sport significantly since 1991.  In particular, coaches from Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union - and their families - have figured as the main protagonists in the worldwide development of the sport.  In America, the phenomenon began earlier - during the 1980s - as Romanian head coaches Bela and Marta Karolyi defected to the States, and went on to build the nascent characteristics of American women's gymnastics and its success today.  Marta Karolyi still leads the programme today.  1988 Olympic champion Valeri Liukin, Kazakstan born, is likely to follow her as head coach post 2016; his Moscow-born daughter, Nastia Liukin was Olympic champion in 2008, and Liukin's coaching and business partner, former Sports Acrobatics world champion (Latvia born) Evgeny Marchenko, trained the Olympic champion, Carly Paterson, in 2004.

In Britain, there has been a transformation in results achieved by the country's male gymnasts, in large part as the result of the importation of expertise from the East; Ukraine-born Russian Vladimir Zaglada, Performance Director at British Gymnastics in the 1990s, was figural in creating the training system that has fed new talent onto the senior team, and Russian coaches Andrei Popov and Sergei Sizhanov have led the men's senior and junior teams to Olympics medal-winning standard over the past decade.  You do not have to look far to see a Russian name on almost any country's national roster and this has in turn led to a fairly severe deficit in the coaching ranks of Russia; in 2010 Kalmkova estimated that 364 coaches had left the country since 1992.

Carter (2011) says that the main perceived reasons for migration are economic; people need to move to another country in order to make a living and benefit from an improved environment.  This doesn't, however, take account of wider circumstances and the environment from which the individual is migrating.    During the 1990s Russian President Boris Yeltsin reduced moneys available for sport, and participation levels plummeted as public opinion rallied against sport in a backlash to the Soviet era, so many coaches had no choice but to migrate to be able to make their living doing a job that they love.  Last year, coach Alexander Alexandrov migrated to Brazil from Russia when inter-team politics made his position untenable. 2000 and 2004 Olympian Anna Pavlova migrated to Azerbaijan to train and compete as there was no room for her on the Russian team.  Six-time Olympian Oksana Chusovitina has competed for three different countries (Soviet Union, Germany and Uzbekistan) during her long career.  Ethnic Russian competitor Nikolai Kuksenkov migrated from Ukraine to Russia under a change in nationality, to benefit from improved conditions that made it possible for him to rehabilitate a nasty injury; his father Yuly Kuksenkov has joined the Russian national team as a men's coach.

The value that Azerbaijan has placed on sport is one of the things that makes it so attractive to sporting immigrants such as Oleg Stepko, who took this picture of his new training environment in Baku.

Carter (ibid) goes on to elaborate on three factors that are involved in understanding the phenomenon of international sporting migration: transculturation, mobility and visibility.  Transculturation is 'the process by which the values and meanings of a commodity change when it moves from one locality to another' (page 17).  In the context of gymnastics then, the skills, talents and expertise of coaches and gymnasts (the commodities) are of greater financial and/or cultural value in some territories than in others.  This provides the fundamental premise of sporting migration; if the work were valued the same everywhere, there might not be the need to move countries.  A country can therefore make itself more or less attractive as a place of employment according to the value it puts on a particular sporting commodity.  If the value of the work declines significantly it can encourage the tendency for overseas migration (eg Russia in the 1990s) or if there is a significant value placed in sport then it can encourage the tendency for immigration from overseas (as is currently ongoing in Azerbaijan).   In every example I have so far cited, it was not only circumstances at home that influenced or forced the moves; the opportunity to work overseas was also offered to the individuals concerned, so that as one door closed, another opened.

Mobility and visibility are qualities inherent within the process of transculturation (ibid), mobility relating to the transfer of skills and features of the environment from one territory to another; visibility to the renown or reputation of the individual concerned.  All of this is set within a complex context of institutional or national restraints, the way that individuals can circumvent these restraints to be able to work where they want to, and also the way that countries can get around them in order to attract talent.  For example, Germany has a special fast track to its national citizenship for certain talented sportspeople.

People face all sorts of stresses and strains once settled overseas.  Latvian born Natalia Laschenova, 1988 Olympic Champion, struggled to confirm her US nationality and lived under the threat of deportation for more than a year while lawyers finalised the rather complicated paperwork.  The problem affected her daughter, an aspiring and talented collegiate gymnast who was unable to take up her place at an American University before the problem was solved. Russian born Maria Filatova has been unable to visit her family in Siberia for many years as the status of her citizenship was and perhaps still is uncertain.  The life of these 'transnational sporting migrants' can be far from easy.

So we live in interesting times in gymnastics and sport in general, and in particular in the territories of the former Soviet Union which are now undergoing so much change, political and sporting.  Some territories (eg Azerbaijan) try to establish themselves as sporting superpowers by means of building new facilities and, essentially, importing as much talent as possible; others attempt to re-establish past prowess by means of large regeneration investments to refresh old facilities, build new ones and train up new talent to replace that which has been lost (Russia); still others (Ukraine) flounder as the value of sport declines, training facilities close down and both competitors and coaches look for new homes where they can practice their skills to their full potential, and make a living.

Oleg Stepko and his coach, Pavlo Netreba, outside the Hilton hotel in Baku, which is their current home from home

The future for Ukraine's men's gymnastics programme thus looks bleak as rumours of the forthcoming migration of stars Oleg Verniaiev and Igor Radivilov are discussed in the Ukrainian press, with team mate Oleg Stepko already comfortably ensconsed in the Hilton Hotel in Baku, Azerbaijan, and training well underway with those he describes as his new team mates in one of Azerbaijan's brand spanking new training facilities (see pictures).  Some of those rumours suggest that Verniaiev may be considering a move to Russia, but we won't know until the star makes the announcement himself; at present it is a wait and see situation.  I personally would love to see these three gymnasts compete alongside each other once again; there is something in the way that they carry themselves that reminds me of the Soviet men's teams of old; perhaps it is something they learned from their head coach, 1989 World Champion, Igor Korobchinsky, who trained and competed with all of the old Soviet legends.

Of course, one thing that remains unsaid so far in respect of the Azerbaijan example is whether it is investing money in development programmes for its home grown athletes.  In rhythmic gymnastics the country certainly has a pedigree, and is regularly producing champions, whereas in artistic gymnastics - apart from the noteable cases of (Soviet) Valeri Belenkyi, 1992 Olympian from Baku, and Emin Garibov - an ethnic Azeri leader of the Russian team - the talent pool seems somewhat weaker.  Azerbaijan has invested in building gymnastics facilities around the country - but whether this can translate into longer term success will be under question.  Certainly, it would seem that a strategy to 'buy off' talent from other teams can only prove to be a short term, immediate solution to the lack of top class artistic gymnasts.

Elsewhere, in the Russian press (Slyusarenko, 2014), there is discussion of the influence the accession of Crimea to the Russian Federation will have on its sporting canon.  While artistic gymnastics is not mentioned, rhythmic is; Crimean town Simferopol is home to the SDYUSSHOR training centre, home gymnasium to World All Around silver medallist Ganna Rizatdinova, and while the gymnast now trains in Kiev with Irina and Albina Derjugina, it is clear that questions will be asked as to her eligibility to join Irina Viner and compete for Russia.  The same question is being asked of Alexandra Gridasova, a member of Ukraine's national team who comes from Simferopol, as well as athletes in other sports including weightlifting, Greco-Roman wrestling, track cycling, sailing and athletics.  The article makes it clear that there is a real desire within Russia to make the best of this change in sporting terms and we will have to see if this translates into investment effort that might create the conditions for further immigration into the Russian national gymnastics team.

In the meantime, as I have mentioned, former Ukrainian international, the talented Oleg Stepko, is making  first steps in his new home and has recorded some of his experiences in personal photographs published on his Instagram account.  I wanted to share a few of them with you, with thanks to Oleg himself and all good wishes - I would like to see him win a medal or two at Worlds this autumn.

Oleg can enjoy croissants with Nutella, and cappuccino coffee, every morning in Baku :-). 'They are delicious' he says, in another post about a chocolate treat he and the team are enjoying (has chocolate become a commodity in Azerbaijan's sports strategy?)

'Now I'm their kid', says Oleg in his caption to this picture 

An intriguing one, with thanks to Nico Jackson for the translation, 'Actions speak louder than words' says the handwritten sign.  And underneath the picture, a message from Uzbekistan's Anton Fokin, which I will paraphrase as - 'Can we talk?  Have you made a decision yet about the Bundesliga?'

...

I hope Oleg can do great things - it is a major step he has taken

Oleg will need to decorate a lot more omelettes to fuel his training 

Oleg has been doing some sightseeing

And, finally making friends in his new home.  I couldn't resist this one.

Good luck to all gymnasts, whatever their nationality or citizenship!

References

Carter, T F (2011) In Foreign Fields: The Politics and Experiences of Transnational Sport Migration London: Pluto Press

Kalmkova, S (2010) 'Artistic Gymnastics: Russia versus Russia' Voice of Russia, 8th October 2010 retrieved from http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/10/08/24773120.html

Slyusarenko, E (2014) 'New Russia: which Crimean athletes can strengthen the Russian team?' Sportbox.ru retrieved from http://news.sportbox.ru/Vidy_sporta/Events/Rio_2016/spbnews_NI443352_Novie-russkie-Kakie-sportsmeni-Krima-usilyat-sbornuyu-R

Further reading

Alexandrov, A, Alexandrova, A, Booth, E (2012) 'Alexander Alexandrov in his own words 1 : A Difficult Decision' Rewriting Russian Gymnastics retrieved from http://rewritingrussiangymnastics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/alexander-alexandrov-in-his-own-words-1.html

Zaglada, V (2010) One Coach's Journey from East to West: How the fall of the Iron Curtain changed the world of gymnastics Bloomington IN: Authorhouse

See this website for a map of sports in Crimea http://xsport.ua/other-sports_s/news/chto-poteryaet-ukrainskiy-sport-v-svyazi-s-okkupatsiey-kryma-infografika_65968/

February 2014 video of the new gymnastics arena being built in Baku: http://www.mehriban-aliyeva.org/en/video/item/910