Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Via Natalia Kalugina. 1968 Olympic champion, Larissa Petrik, BB.  How difficult to make such simplicity beautiful. http://youtu.be/EMUEo5P1dGE

It's worth watching these timeless videos.  Check out the routines of Alla Shishova, especially on beam.  She was ahead of her time.  Also observe the magnificent artistry of Olga Mostepanova and Natalia Yurchenko.  Neither gymnast had intricate choreography, but they were both captivating.  Their work conveyed emotional as well as technical impact.  Yurchenko moves slowly, floating through the air.  Who would think that such a light, slender gymnast as Mostepanova could find all that air time in her tumbles?  Technique, not muscle, gave these gymnasts their power.  Their artistry came from the consummate grasp of technique, something that cannot be expressed as execution or entertainment.  Ilienko, Bicherova, Frolova are other classical members of this team.  They will all be remembered for a very long time. The Soviet team managed to fall off beam even in those days, but their superior difficulty and technique lifted them above ...

For those of you coming to the story about pregnancy doping late, and wondering what on earth those translations I published this morning are all about, some context -  The Observer published a history of cheating in sport on the 15th November that featured allegations of pregnancy doping in the USSR gymnastics team at the 1968 Olympics. The allegations were pivotal to their story, although they could have chosen a different example to make their point. I have now published three articles on RRG about this - the first an opinion piece with reference to sources refuting the allegation, and this morning translations of two Russian language reports from 1998 and 2001, including a Vladimir Golubev interview with Karasyova in which she describes the whole story as a 'monstrous' lie.  The chronology has become clearer, and a few confusions been cleared up. I wanted these pieces to go on the record in the English language.  I have written to the Observer readers' editor twice ab...

  Olga Kharlova (left) in 1966, with the USSR World Championships team.  This is before her marriage to gymnast Valeri Karasyov. Lauren Cammenga found the original Kommersant story about the bogus pregnancy doping story.  The date of the article is 10th December 1998, and not as reported in my original article on RRG of 29th November. Do you agree that The Observer should now print a correction to its story of 15th November? SPID-Info is up the Creek 35,000 Rubles Author: Maxim Stepenin Translator: Lauren Cammenga Olga Karasyova, a USSR, European, world, and 1968 Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics, has been awarded 35,000 rubles in damages from the newspaper SPID-Info . The Ismailovsky District Court awarded this, a record-breaking amount for suits of this kind, in emotional damages for a 1997 interview supposedly conducted with Karasyova. In reality, the interview supposedly given by Karasyova was given by an impostor from Germany. It was the German ...

At the recent press conference, both Aliya and Vika gave short interviews.  You can finds videos of them and the ROC's website. Olesya Mikheeva has found time to provide some translations - thank you!! Aliya's Interview. “Operation was done on November 3rd, so about 3 weeks ago, so now I’m recovering/ rehabilitating until December 7th, I’m not allowed to jump/run/go upstairs, I’m still wearing a cast. This is the last week of this. After that, I will start a more difficult recovery to build muscles, rehabilitate so in February I can get back to jumping. “ The interviewer asks about her injury and she says she had a meniscus injury. (don’t know how to translate the details) When can you start training again? “I think I’ll start training again when I’m out of the hospital because I’m still concurrently rehabilitating my back so until the New Year I will be doing that.” The interviewer asks something about the judging and Aliya gives a quote, but I’m not quite sure how to translat...

   Olga with her coach Sofia Muratova in 1971.  You can also see a video of Olga training with Sofia at  http://youtu.be/rDLY5Ctbe38  I wanted to record in English the key points of this 2001 interview with Olga.  Thanks to Maryam Vulis who gave me the link. Date of article - 7th March 2001 Author - Vladimir Golubev Link to Russian language source -  http://viperson.ru/articles/olimpiyskaya-chempionka-razoblachaet-dvoynika Olga invited me to visit her cozy one-bedroom apartment. I see family gymnastic albums, remember her youth, and gradually ask a few questions. - What a voluminous file of documents!  It shows how much time and effort had to be expended to get to court. Correspondence, lawyer requests, decisions, resolutions, agenda ... - Actually, this story began a long time ago.  Once, German broadcaster RTL screened an interview ... with my double!   A certain woman who said that she was Olympic champion in gymnastics, Olga Kovalenk...

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...

Angelina taking her gold medal AA at the Junior European Championships in 2014. Picture courtesy of UEG . Yesterday, at the Massilia Cup, Russian junior Angelina Melnikova scored 57.5 to win the all around competition ahead of France's Marine Brevet and Romania's Diana Bulimar, both established senior competitors.  This score would have seen her finish in fifth place a few weeks ago, at the World Championships in Glasgow.  The Russian team, including fellow juniors Daria Skrypnik and Natalia Kapitonova, and senior Evgenia Shelgunova, finished second behind France, after a tight battle.  See scores below. Angelina on bars -  http://youtu.be/oeVEt8UzkHo On beam -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIMiesOKsdw&sns=tw On floor -  http://youtu.be/JKfUEYt5RSE Natalia Kapitonova, beam -  http://youtu.be/JF1xNqiv2TU On bars -  http://youtu.be/B6jnRxWOyKs Shelgunova, beam -  http://youtu.be/D4sTTo1Fs88 On bars -  http://youtu.be/VYtmhnvOcvg...

There is an unsung heroine on the Russian team, one who is often taken for granted - Daria Spiridonova.  In amongst all the missed connections, the razzmatazz of announcements and big tumbles that characterised the World Championships at Glasgow, Spiridonova calmly maintained her position as a world leader on bars.   The judges' baffling and bungled decision to 'coincidentally' award the medal to four different gymnasts of varying ability and performance can't conceal the fact that this young gymnast has now medalled on bars in every major competition, senior and junior, that she has entered since 2011. More than that, Spiridonova's elegance and mature attitude in competition show evidence of a strong head and an adherence to the fundamental principles of gymnastics - economy of line, an effortless, gravity-defying appearance to all her work, and complexity that does not rely on tumbling as its main source of difficulty.  In any other era Spiridonova would have the ...

Aliya has responded to a few questions about her health.  At present, she is at home with her family, undergoing rehabilitation at the clinic where she had a procedure on her right knee on the 3rd November. 'I am not allowed to jump or squat until December 7th' she said.  'I can walk, but with one crutch, which I will need until next week.  I will be at home throughout rehabilitation - so as not to overload the leg.  In another two weeks I will have to have treatments and do exercises.  We'll have to see after that, the doctors will advise ... Once the stitches are removed, there won't be any pain at all'. Good luck! http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=99245

Our thoughts are with our friends in France.  Please stay safe.   There are messages of solidarity from many of the Russian gymnasts.  We are all together at this time.  мы все вместе.  Nous sommes tous ensemble.   Love and peace.

British Head Coach Andrei Popov took up his position in 2004.  Before that, he had been a successful international gymnast competing for the Soviet Union, a coach at his home gymnastics club in Vladimir, and a club coach working in the UK. Russia Behind the Headlines has published a digest of a Russian language article about the migration of coaches abroad following perestroika.  It features British MAG head coach Andrei Popov, who with his colleague Sergei Sizhanov (Head coach of the junior team) is leading the British men to greater victories than ever imagined possible just ten years ago. Popov and Sizhanov are arguably the most successful migrant Russian coaches on the men's international scene, having lifted British gymnastics from a relatively lowly standing to their medal-contending status today.  Popov says that when he took over leadership of the coaching efforts, there were hardly any top seniors competing in Britain, so he looked for the best juniors: ...

Believe it or not, only four months have passed since RRG published its interview with the former WAG national coach of Russia, less than a year since Alexander Alexandrov left Lake Krugloye (for good?), and not even 18 months since Russia took the silver in that Olympic team final.  So much has changed in Russian gymnastics since 2010 ... there has been a toning down of expectations, a growing hush around goings-on at Lake Krugloye, an almost deliberate talking down of the prospects of the next generation (who are, admittedly, very thin on the ground).  I am speaking here exclusively of WAG - the situation in MAG seems different and will not be addressed in this post. Checking the statistics of my blog readership is an almost daily activity for me.  Finding links to my blog posts is always a surprise, and I am delighted that anyone finds time to read my blog at all, let alone comment on it!  When I published the Alexandrov interview I knew there would be ple...