Skip to main content

Kharenkova - I trained in pain


Speaking in an interview with Allsport today, European beam champion Maria Kharenkova, who contributed Russia's highest beam score today of 15.033, revealed that a leg injury hampered her preparations for the Nanning World Championships.  

"I have a sore leg and trained through the pain" admitted Kharenkova. "But now the pain has gone, I am slowly recovering. I started tumbling just two weeks before the World Championships, and managed to get everything back. Today, almost everything turned out!"

"The first day I was a little nervous, and because of this, I fell off beam. I was shaking from the realization that for the first time I was competing at the World Championships. And today I felt much calmer and more confident.gymnast.  It is true that for some of the time we were a little concerned that we might end up without a medal, but we were able to pull ourselves together. I myself am a little sad that I did not get to the finals on my favourite beam. But what can I do? Now, I'll be rooting for all of our boys and girls!"

Good luck to all the gymnasts as they progress towards individual finals ... Well done to the girls for their bronze medal today, an excellent outcome ... And congratulations to Maria for her great contribution to the team effort!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

More thoughts on US gymnastics, Karolyi - and Zaglada

I’d like to add some thoughts to my earlier post about USA gymnastics and Bela Karolyi:  1. What Bela did, he did. He would agree that his actions were his responsibility. 2. Abusive relationships in USA gymnastics (and no doubt elsewhere) pre-existed Bela’s move to the USA and still exist today. 3. Harsh training existed and exists in all of the ‘artistic’ sports and dance-related forms - eg ballroom dancing, ballet, ice skating, circus.  The training involved in most of these activities is founded on an assumption of the benefits of early specialisation.  It revolves around  ‘ideal’ forms, shapes and postures that are difficult to achieve without early years training - women especially.   4. Wherever prodigious early talent exists, there are predators whose main desire in life is to take advantage of that talent - music, entertainment, maths, sport.  The boundaries very easily become confused.  Who owns the talent?  Who decides how many hours to work, at what level?  FOR WHOSE BENEFI

RIP Bela Karolyi

RIP Bela Karolyi. We were all mesmerised by the gymnastics that Nadia Comaneci brought to the world.    Some of us wanted to be like Nadia.    Others wanted to share her glory. When Kerri Strug saluted the judges with a hop and a cry of agony, thousands of adults cried for joy, felt inordinate pride that a love of country had inspired such courage and strength.   When generations of elite gymnasts, many of them gold medal winners, spoke out about the abuse they had experienced whilst practicing their sport, those thousands and millions of cheering adults didn’t stop appreciating the gold medals. They did start to look for someone to blame, someone who could take responsibility for the entire systemic nastiness that enabled the abuse to take place.    Some chose the man who came to fame as Nadia Comaneci’s coach, and went on to shape elite gymnastics training in the USA, Bela Karolyi. But who facilitated and enabled Karolyi?    Who endorsed the training that earned the medals?   It was

Vladimir Zaglada - coach, author, friend, father

It is with great sadness that I report here the sudden and completely unexpected death, on 5th October, of our friend Vladimir Zaglada.  I send my love and condolences to his daughter, Olesya.  My thoughts are with the whole family.   Vladimir was born in Lvov, Ukraine, in November 1944.  His father was a progressive lawyer of great courage who was known to defend those who challenged the Soviet authorities.  Vladimir trained as a sports acrobat under the developing Soviet sports system, working in the same club as Olympic champion Viktor Chukarin.  After moving to Moscow, he became a leading coach of women's gymnastics, supporting the development of high level acrobatics.  He worked particularly closely with the up and coming young gymnasts of the early 1980s - you can see him at work in the video 'You in Gymnastics'.  At the national training centre, Lake Krugloye, he worked with Filatova, Mostepanova, Yurchenko, Arzhannikova, Mukhina and more.   Around the mid 1980s Vlad

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more