Skip to main content

Sergei Starkin to coach Aliya Mustafina

By
Coach Starkin with his World Champion, Denis Ablyazin

Valentina Rodionenko: "Aliya asked Sergei Starkin to begin coaching her.  He gave her certain conditions, and she agreed."

IF this is confirmed, it is great news.  Sergei coaches Denis Ablyazin as well as other members of the senior MAG team in Penza.  He is obviously hard working, dedicated to gymnastics, and has a positive charge ...

UPDATE - Via Vladimir Zaglada's direct contact with Penza, this fabulous news has been confirmed!!! More later from RRG.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Lovenicky17 December 2014 at 14:40

    I'm glad that Aliya finally has a coach! I guess she had watched him coach at Round Lake and was impressed enough by him. Just curious if Sergei had coached women gymnasts before?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous17 December 2014 at 16:41

    Yay, finally some good news from Russia!!! This is an early Christmas gift!

    Russiafan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous17 December 2014 at 17:42

    Im curious to what conditions he gave her. It's well known that she can be difficult to work with and i really hope it works out. It has neen painful to see her decline oner the last two years, this could be the best think for her if she is willing to work with him.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous17 December 2014 at 18:05

    that's fantastic ! A gymnast who managed to win several world championship medals without a coach clearly has a lot of talent. It will be very interesting to see how she progresses with her new coach.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous18 December 2014 at 02:55

    Congratulations to Aliya! :)

    Queen Elizabeth, do you think Russia will have three Amanars by the Rio team final? :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Queen Elizabeth18 December 2014 at 04:00

      Don't think so - see Vladimir Zaglada's idea of the priorities for Aliya in the most recent post on this blog.
      If this appointment works it should help Aliya get closer to her potential as an all arounder - but the team as a whole will still face the same problems as before as nothing has changed on a national level, as far as I know.
      My hope is that this arrangement will insulate Aliya from the worst influences at Lake Krugloye - establish a strong positive mindset and environment for her and assert a reasonable competitive strategy to make her feel good on both physical and psychological levels.
      Keep thinking positive thoughts for her!!

      Delete
  6. Anonymous19 December 2014 at 04:58

    Definitely great news! Starkin is a hard working and conditioning oriented coach. He kind of shares similar methodologies with Alexandrov. Yet, I am not sure about his approach to coaching "all around" gymnasts. He is a great floor and vault coach, yet I don't know about his UB approach. I think he is a superb choice for Aliya though. He will definitely get her back to a great shape. And about Aliya being difficult, I think he is more hard headed than her :) . If I should be thinking about a future Head Coach for Russia it is going to be him no doubt.

    Alfi

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

By
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...
3 comments
Read more

National team coaches 2024, the Russian Federation - a full list

By
In January each year the Russian Gymnastics Federation publishes its list of coaches and gymnasts who have made the training teams for their country.  You will find below a transliteration of the list of national team coaches, 70 of them in total.  The oldest member of the team is Valentina Rodionenko, 88, the youngest Ivan Galonenko, 24 - he is a bars coach, to the junior women's team.   The senior coaches to the senior teams would all have qualified as coaches during the Soviet era.  Many of them work out of Moscow, Vladimir and Rostov, former Soviet strongholds of gymnastics.  The doctors are all attached to Yaroslavl.  St Petersburg has two coaches listed, but there are no St Petersburg gymnasts on the senior national teams at present.  There are no coaches from Russia's Far East.  This region has been highlighted as a geographical area President Putin is targetting for sports development and investment over the coming years.   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nelli Kim - 'Russian gymnastics has closed in on itself' - Lupita translates

By
Lupita has translated this ITAR-TASS interview with Nelli Kim.  It's controversial, to say the least. Ed's note : much of the initial response to this interview - both here and in the wider gymternet -  has focussed on the detail of Kim's words and especially her comments about Viktoria Komova, and smiling.  But I think these have to be taken in context, and not too literally. Don't forget that just a day ago Andrei Rodionenko complained bitterly about the judging in Antwerp, calling Kim's behaviour 'aggressive'. Kim is responding to this here, and to the wider current context of Russian gymnastics.  What she is essentially saying to the Russian coach is 'get your own house in order, produce confident, disciplined, well trained gymnasts - stop complaining, do your job, and I will do mine.'   She goes about saying this in a somewhat long winded way and says some things along the way that seem contradictory, unfair, inappropriate even for th...
30 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more