Skip to main content

We want to win medals - Valery Alfosov

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.

Comments

  1. 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. Exactly, they run out of gas by team final.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Virtual tour of Lake Krugloye

Ksenia from Russia wrote to me as follows : 'I decided to write about a little update on this site .  Suddenly you do not know but you may be interested in "The virtual gym" where you can see the training center for gymnastics at the "Round Lake" A very interesting thing if you want to look into what's inside.' She is right - it is fascinating - with tours of both the men's and women's gyms, pictures of the coaches and gymnasts, and all the different areas, including a reception with displays of awards and the rehabilitation and recovery facilities.  Take some time to click on the arrows and try out all of the different features.  It is in Russian but the tools are reasonably intuitive and if you have a basic grasp of the Cyrillic alphabet you can make sense of the whole. Scrolling round the panorama makes me feel a little bit dizzy and also gives a slightly distorted perspective to some of the views, which I think is a characteristic...

Mustafina, Melnikova and Afanasyeva - Russia’s three divas train together to the tunes of Michael Jackson

M elnikova, Mustafina and Afanasyeva take creative control at Round Lake.     You can see the video on Angelina Melnikova’s YouTube channel. They are discussing a new floor routine for Angelina; she wants to dance to Michael Jackson. Afanasyeva, 2012 Olympic medalist and a world champion on the floor, has been a choreographer for the national team for a few years now.    She says, ‘Gel, first we need to understand the plan—what we’re actually doing.’ They discuss how many tumbles Angelina will perform, and where the tumbles will come in the routine.    Angelina says, she likes ‘Billie Jean’, it’s her favourite … But Afanasyeva has other ideas, linking into the dance shapes she has seen in a video: ‘Thriller . Start with  Thriller . It begins with that image, right from the beginning when it starts.’    She shows us the dance. ‘I suggest taking a 1.5-minute or 1-minute segment of the dance directly.’ They promise to be in touch by email. ...

Andrei Rodionenko explains Russia's performance at Worlds - Lupitatranslates

Rodionenko with European Champion David Belyavski  Courtesy RGF/Elena Mikhailova This is the interview that many people on the internet have already commented on, regarding Andrei Rodionenko's alleged racism.  The original, Russian language version, appears on VTB Bank's website (VTB are sponsors of Russian gymnastics).  It takes cleverer people than me to decide what is racism, what is deliberately perjorative, and what is inferred in an interviewer's question.  For now, I will not comment on this, therefore, but I would ask you to read Lupita's translation carefully before you form your own opinion.   I am providing some links below which might help you to decide where you stand. Definition of racism Definition of sexism BBC Sport article by Matthew Syed : Is it wrong to note that 100m winners are always black?            Updated 24/10 CSKA Moscow: UEFA opens racist chants case         ...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more