Skip to main content

Russia Cup - Komova to compete on bars, Balandin out with injury


A short news video released today by the Penza Press agency shows Viktoria Komova training beam, but in an interview the Olympic medallist confirms that her ankle is still painful, and she will compete only bars this week in order to avoid injury.  

Only time will tell whether Viktoria will remain eligible for selection to the Russian team for Worlds, considering the team requirement that gymnasts must be prepared to compete on two pieces of apparatus at least.  Worlds begin on the 3rd October so assuming Komova can present a good bars routine in Penza she faces a race against time to prove herself competitive on beam.  


Aliya Mustafina, who is not obliged to compete here, has been seen in training on both bars and beam, occasionally icing the ankle which was operated on a few weeks ago.  Blog the Couch Gymnast has a correspondent in Penza and reported yesterday that the Champion looks determined and focussed, staying long after her team mates had left the arena to perfect beam skills with the help of her coaches.

Elsewhere in the video report, Denis Ablyazin says he hopes to show his 7.4 D value routine on floor, and a 6.4 vault.

A further update on MAG - interview with head coach Alfosov.  He wants to see the whole team compete for places on the team here.  They have been working on upgrades since Euros.  Stretovich, Potapov, Dalolyan and Britan have been preparing alongside the senior team and are in Penza.  Balandin is out with an injury; Kuksenkov is in Penza, but has a back injury and feels unwell.  Nagorny will join the senior team for 2015.  The team's main objective is Rio in 2016.

http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=85809


There are some good pictures of podium training on the RGF website and at Penza Sport.  Edited highlights can be found on RRG's Facebook page.

Comments

  1. Thanks for the info. If the requirements are 2 apparatus, I hope Komova doesn't go. I am not sure she will ahve enough time to perfect beam, which has given her problems more than other apparatus, plus there is no need to rush her back, just be prepared next year.

    Stretovich - is a name I am interested in, I hope that he performs well.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aliya Mustafina - I competed as best I could

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). 

The State of the Art - Gymnastics in 2013

Just picked up Peter Aykroyd's 1987 book  International Gymnastics: Sport Art or Science?.  Seeing it reminded me that gymnastics is in a constant state of flux and change; its identity has been subject to debate and conflict since the earliest days of competitive gymnastics, well before it existed in the form we recognise today.  I want to try to talk about the state of the sport today, how it compares to past models, how it arrived at this point, and what are the questions arising. I make no apologies for publishing the picture comparisons on this page, which were created by Lifje.  Some have seemed to find them rather challenging in the past, but they are not airbrushed or altered in any way.  Yes, the pictures are purpose selected for the sake of comparison, but they express a truth about the direction the sport has taken over the past few years.  They are not so much about Russia versus America as artistry versus athletics.  I do not pretend...

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more