Skip to main content

Aliya Mustafina: 'Masha is very determined'

From Aliya Mustafina on Instagram: 'thanks for the invitation' she says to Alexei Nemov

A brief interview with Sovietski Sport is summarised here.  Original interview is at http://www.sovsport.ru/news/text-item/712772

Olympic gymnastics champion Aliya Mustafina today went to a party organised by famous gymnast Alexei Nemov, entitled "Sochi-Moscow-Rio".  Alexei handed out some awards, sponsored by the magazine 'Grand Sport'.  It took place in the Veshny Arts Centre.

- Aliya, soon you are going to Germany for a check up on your ankle. How do you feel now?

- Walking does not hurt, it only hurts when I tumble.  I really would like the doctors to figure out what is going on with my foot, and why I cannot load it. And how to treat it  ...

- As I understand it the European Championships did not disappoint you in any way, despite the fact that you lost to Downie on the bars?

- No, no disappointment.  I did not show a routine of the highest difficulty, and just performed as well as I could.  I did OK, and didn't fall anywhere, so I see no reason to get upset. For the World Championships on bars, I will try to prepare a programme to compete at a World level.

- As far as I know, the coaches discouraged you from traveling to Sofia, but you still decided to go. With injury.

- I myself wanted to perform, I'm not used to missing out if I can compete at all.  Besides, I knew it was important to help the young girls, who were on the podium for the first time.

- Maria Kharenkova became European champion on the balance beam, beating Iordache.  Nobody expected it, including Masha herself.

- Well, why would no one have expected it?  For example, I knew that Masha has a strong programme, a good "start value".  If she does everything clean, she may well fight Iordache. Masha is still a little girl, she just came onto the team, she's only fifteen years old, but she is very determined.  I think she has a good future. Her bars are a little weak, but it will be possible to improve.





Comments

  1. Is that Alyona Zmeu in the red dress?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Aliya sounds like such a mature and grounded ambassador for the Russian WAG team, comparing to others.....I think she should do PR for the team when she retires! LOL!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

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...

‘My daughter likes gymnastics. For us, this is the big success’. Aliya Mustafina talks to Match TV

Via VK.com.  Google translate A big interview with Aliya Mustafina was published on MATCH!. We provide a small excerpt below, and the full version is available on the website at the link below  ❓ Aliya, you are now the head coach of the junior artistic gymnastics team. What does your typical day look like? 💜 My current life is similar to what it was when I was competing. In the morning, I have breakfast and go to work by 9:00, we train for four hours, have lunch, rest and train for another three hours. During the training camp, the athletes live at the base. They live and train on the same territory. ❓ Do you manage the gymnasts' personal trainers or do you evenly distribute the responsibilities? 💜 We work in contact with the personal trainers, I listen to their opinions. For example, if the trainer believes that their athlete needs to be given a little rest or do fewer repetitions of a particular exercise, we do so. ❓ Describe the current generation of children. Do they nee...

A timeline of Soviet Olympic history

'If you want to be like me, just train!'  1951 poster promoting the basic physical training system in the Soviet Union.  The man in the picture has the coat of arms of the Soviet Union on his top, indicating he competes at international level.  Picture courtesy of A Soviet Poster A Day Jim Riordan published his article, 'The Rise and Fall of Soviet Olympic Champions', in 1993.   In 1992 the Soviet Union, under the aegis of the Commonwealth of Independent States, had made its last hoorah at the Olympic Games.  The Barcelona Olympics had also marked the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's participation in their first Games, at Helsinki in 1952.  Soviet men and women had dominated the artistic gymnastics competitions at both. In the following timeline I extract from Riordan's article key points leading to the accession of the Soviet Union to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1951.  It makes for fascinating reading, addressing such...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more