Skip to main content

Happy Birthday, Ksenia Afanasyeva!

By

Ksenia, who turns 24 today, will most likely be team captain in Glasgow, assuming she does well in the forthcoming series of qualifying events for Worlds and makes the team!

Ksenia has an impressive list of honours to her name, going back as far as her international senior debut in 2007.  She has won gold medals at World, European and Universiade and has competed at two Olympics so far, winning silver with her team in London 2012.

Quiet determination and a strong need to fulfill her team responsibilities seem to fuel Ksenia's continuing improvement.  This stylish and powerful gymnast has an ability to maintain discipline and fitness even during injury down times - a talent that has been essential to her impressive competitive longevity.

She is a kind, supportive and inspirational team captain who has substantial moral and physical courage.  Her expressive brand of gymnastics pays respect both to the classical tradition of fine technique, and to the current trend for high level difficulty and acrobatics.

Have a happy birthday today, Ksenia - and good luck as your career develops! 


Labels:

Comments

  1. Rolando Pinacho14 September 2015 at 06:28

    My gosh, I love her.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vintage Reading14 September 2015 at 23:06

    Happy birthday, indeed! I think she is simply the best Russian gymnast today. Reminds me of the great Elena Mukhina. I love her elegant attitude spins on the floor.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Russian gymnasts to apply for neutral status

By
Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists.  The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals.  Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes. This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts.  Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things.  In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good e...
Post a Comment
Read more

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

By
Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...
12 comments
Read more

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more