Skip to main content

We want to win medals - Valery Alfosov

By
Nikita Ignatyev competes this spring at Russian Championships.  Picture courtesy RGF

Key points of interview with men's head coach Valery Alfosov http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=82847

- The team is at the final stages of preparation, undergoing control competitions.  Training is very good, he is satisfied with the gymnasts and their routines (elsewhere, Kuksenkov says the men have upgrades to show, his on high bar and pommels).  http://m.rsport.ru/artist_gym/20140508/744508287.html

- Their team is in 'perfect working condition', and working to peak for competition at the end of May - in time for Euros.  His only slight worry is Ablyazin's second vault - but there will always be these worries when you want to win medals.  'We can only hope for the best'.

- 'The most dangerous competitors - the UK, Germany, France, Ukraine and Romania.'

- 'We want to win medals. But we understand that our rivals are very strong, do not stand still, and are developing and complicating their programmes, improving items and so on. Therefore to predict winning medals at the European Championships is very difficult.'

- 'There was a period when different opponents considered it an honour to beat a Russian.  ... Our task is to train well, get ready to try to beat our rivals. That's all!'

- Selection for the World Championships will be made on the basis of the results of the Russia Cup.  He hopes there will be some new names on the roster, mentioning in particular 19 year old Vlad Polyashov from Cheboksary, who is reserve for the Euros team (8th all around in Russian Champs, competed in pommel horse and parallel bars finals, coached by A Vassiliev).

-  The athletes competing here are the foundation of the Olympic team, as we are mid Olympic cycle.  They want members of the youth team to now come forward and begin to prepare for the Olympics, hoping to rise to the senior team.  Strong competition always leads to good results.
Labels:

Comments

  1. M11 May 2014 at 17:33

    I hope they get medals too, the men can be so disappointing, they do well in qualifying and then awful in the finals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous11 May 2014 at 21:08

      Exactly, they run out of gas by team final.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russian gymnasts to apply for neutral status

By
Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists.  The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals.  Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes. This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts.  Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things.  In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good e...
Post a Comment
Read more

No Paseka for Russia in Berne

By
Barely two weeks will elapse before the WAG European Championships begin in Berne, Switzerland, and the news we had been fearing has been confirmed : world vault gold medallist Maria Paseka is  off the Russian team while she nurses a back injury.  This leaves Russia significantly weakened for the coming competition, with co-star Viktoria Komova also missing from the line-up.  It is a little disappointing, but it seems the right decision to rest the gymnasts so that they can be at their best when and where it really matters. Who will replace Paseka?  Valentina Rodionenko says that the youngster Natalia Kapitonova, who trains in Penza, has been chosen on the basis of her solid performances at national championships.  Well, we will have to wait and see - these announcements often turn out to be unreliable.   I personally would prefer to see the dynamic Seda Tutkhalyan be given a chance at this level, but Kapitonova has certainly shown herself to be more reliab...
41 comments
Read more

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

By
Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...
12 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more