Skip to main content

One thousand posts - five years of RRG


Yesterday, I published the one thousandth post for RRG since it began, almost five years ago, on September 24th 2010.  Thanks to you, dear readers, the blog has accumulated 3.7 million page views in that time, and has over four thousand followers on its Facebook page.  

It has been a fascinating time during which I have travelled to Moscow, interviewed some of my gymnastics idols, and most importantly made friends.  I hope to continue with my work here.

I want to say thank you to everyone who has helped with the production of this blog.  I have enjoyed every moment of it, and hope you will stay with me as I continue to develop it.  Welcome to all new readers and contributors, too.  And an especially big thank you to all of you who post such interesting comments.  It has been a great time.

In no particular order, and with advance apologies for any omissions.

Vladimir Zaglada
Lupita
Irina from the RGF
Leonid from VTB
Natalia Kalugina
Olesya Engel
Nikky Veronika
Olya Terentyeva
Everyone at Gymfever, especially Laerke, Nico, Lauren, Jennifer Ann, Adrien, Sere and Rachael
Brigid McCarthy
Isa Alexandrova
Alexander Alexandrov
Catherine Bates
Dr Jithendran Kokkranikal
Dr Vicky Katsoni
Dr Olga Burukina
Dr Clive Palmer
Jim Holt
Dave Kondris
Len Arnold
Vitaly Akimov
Vitaly Ivanchuk
Olga Mostepanova
Maria Kourbatova-Filatova
Natalia Sklyarova-Yurchenko
Matt Hicks
Kristina Aleshnikova
Marko Cinko
Rick McCharles
Alan Owen
Bernard at Gymnet
Svetlana Boguinskaia
Elizabeth Squires
Mikhail Radko
Anna Toropova
Amanda Turner
Peggy Peng
All the crew at Gymcastic - Jessica, Tim, Blythe
Dvora Meyers
Gigi Farid
Natalia Karamushka
Marina Goryunova
Alexey Demyanov
The staff at the Olympiski stadium
The UEG
Valeria Shevchenko 
Everyone at the Artistic Gymnastics page on VK.com
Katherine Le Ruez at The Guardian





Comments

  1. Congratulations! I think I have read every post over the last five years. Here's to the next five years of keeping gymnastics fans all over the world up to date with the Russian team, and keeping the memory of Soviet gymnastics alive.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yippee!!! What a milestone! Congrats.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just wanted to say that I enjoy your blog and thanks for keeping up all updated on the Russian gymnasts.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Amazing. I look forward to reading the next thousand posts!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The State of Gymnastics - 'Soviet' or 'American' style?

Lioudmilla Tourischeva, 1972 Olympic All Around champion in artistic gymnastics, was held up as an example of the ideal Soviet citizen.  Here she coaches one of the Soviet Union's leading gymnasts from the 1980 Olympics, Natalia Shaposhnikova The Soviet Union had a genius for lifting sport beyond the textbook, injecting the aesthetic where previously only goals had been in plain view.   This was not only manifest in gymnastics.  Do you remember the ‘Russian Five’, the players who elevated ice hockey to a creative sporting display, mesmerising their opponents and spectators with intricate patterns of play, so rhythmic and entertaining that they could have been set to music?   In gymnastics, a sport where the aesthetic counted as much as the outcome, it was this ability to create spectacle out of competition that resulted in the most extraordinary athletic performances.  The ‘Golden Era’, most commonly understood to cover the years from 1952-1...

Russian gymnasts return to the world stage

According to the Russian Gymnastics Federation via sports.ru.  Google translate. ‘The Russian Gymnastics Federation announces the return of the Russian gymnastics community to the world arena. 🤸Participation of athletes: 🔸Participation in the 2025 Trampoline World Cup stages in Portugal (July 5–6), Germany (September 20–21), Bulgaria (September 27–28), and France (October 3–5) has been confirmed. 🔸Participation of Russian athletes is planned in the Trampoline World Championships (Madrid, November 2–10) and the World Championships (November 10–17). 🔸A preliminary application has been submitted for the participation of Russian athletes in the 2025 Candidates' Cup in artistic gymnastics, which will be held in Paris on September 13–14. The final number of participants will be determined by July 16, 2025. ✍Participation of judges in competitions: 🔹Alina Gusarova and Irina Berek will work as neutral judges at the Tbilisi Cup in rhythmic gymnastics from June 11 to 15, 2025. 🔹RGR Vic...

Komova v Douglas 2012

I’m reading a post on Twitter that relates Komova’s second place in the AA to her botched Amanar landing.  History often rewrites such stories, forgetting the whole picture - an AA comp is the best of four apparatus, not a vault control duel.  We often see the same arguments about other close finals - was Shushu’s vault in 1988 really a ten?  People forget, or choose to ignore, or never knew in the first place, that the AA comp in those days was a composite score of Compulsory and Optional TF + the AA score.  Silivas had errors on floor in team final and on beam in AA final.  Without those errors she would have beaten Shushu by a country mile in the AA, but Shushu was on fire and didn’t give a mm.  The vault scores don’t say it all. The 2012 quad was a curious point in gymnastics history.  Russia had made their rush for world lead in 2010, but wouldn’t have got the gold in Rotterdam without the help of mistakes from the USA team.  Mustafina was ...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more