Angelina Melnikova ... Top scorer in the Russia Cup AA competition today. Daria Spiridonova in second place was the leading senior in the field, followed by Maria Kharenkova. Seda Tutkhakyan in 4th had a fall on floor but would otherwise have finished top. As Melnikova is junior, this probably means that Spiridonova is Russia Cup AA champion! An unexpected but well deserved title for this distinctive and well prepared gymnast. Well done Dasha! congratulations to all the girls - will publish results as soon as they are available.
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...

I do believe that Melnikova, Skrypnik will diminish the chances of some of these seniors in the next Olympics year ...
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I do believe that Melnikova and Skrypinik should go to Rio.
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