Skip to main content

Natalia Kapitonova - personal travelogue to Rio

Image
By

Natalia, seen left here in this personal picture with team mates Angelina Melnikova and Maria Paseka, is a relative newcomer to the senior national team, but not its youngest member - having turned 16 in May (Angelina only celebrated her 16th birthday a few days ago).  She is Russian Cup champion on the uneven bars - and strong enough in the all around to provide a good back up, as first reserve, if back up is needed.

The famous gym club in Penza - home to 2014 World floor champion Denis Ablyazin - is where Natalia has trained since childhood under the direction of the Starkin family - who also direct the training of Russian team captain, Aliya Mustafina.  Despite her relative lack of experience internationally, Natalia has shown herself to be a steady and optimistic team mate.  

The flight to Brazil - over 12 hours - was the longest of her life.  At first she slept, but she also read, watched movies and listened to music.  She says that the team weren't too worried about whether they would be allowed to compete; they felt reasonably confident about the IOC decision.

'I can hardly believe that I am in Rio!' said Natalia to local newspaper Penza Sight.  Everything has happened very quickly.


Natalia is sharing a room with Evgenia Shelgunova, and the two reserves are housed in a separate accommodation bloc to the main team.  They haven't had a chance yet to see much of Rio - just the gym, the supermarket and their hotel.  The main thing now is to stay in good form for the Games - no time for much rest.


Source - http://penzavzglyad.ru/news/11419/natalya-kapitonova-do-sih-kazhetsya-chto-ya-ne-v-rio-de-zhaneyro

Please visit RRG's Facebook page for more pictures of the team in Rio, and follow my Twitter feed (RussianGymnast) for quick updates.  With thanks to the Gymnastics group page on vk.com.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous27 July 2016 at 09:54

    Valentina says that FIG has questions about Kapitonova, coz she doesn't suits IOC criterium and they may disqualify her from Rio Olympics :/ Also Paseka has now a back injury and only on 3 august doctors will decide will she compete in Rio at all ;( Rodionenko says that they also need to lose some dif for Melnikova coz her injury((( PS Russia why!?( http://tass.ru/sport/3489095

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Does Russia need Mustafina in Glasgow? Vaitsekhovskaya adds her voice

By
'Should Mustafina compete in Glasgow, considering her fragile state of health? - aren't the Olympics more important?' are the key themes of this brief news piece by Elena Vaitsekhovskaya, a top sports journalist who has interviewed Alexandrov, Arkayev, Starkin, Mustafina and Rodionenko in the last five years since Aliya won the World Championships. Elena stresses that this year nothing unusual has happened.  Aliya has worked hard with her new coach Sergei Starkin.  She did a 'great job', demonstrating her work at the European Games in Baku where she won the all around, bars and team events as well as silver in the floor exercise. But, says Vaitsekhovskaya, more important than the medals was the fact that Aliya showed a new technical level, began work on upgrades for the Rio Olympics.  Just competing in one event - the Baku games - could be enough for a veteran athlete of Mustafina's experience.  The body ages in both time - and injuries.  Athletes always respond...
26 comments
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

Remembering last summer - Nelli Kim, her judges and Viktoria Komova

By
In view of Nelli Kim's recent interview , Lupita and I thought it timely to revisit the performance of some of the WTC President's judges over past competitions ... this article from 27th August 2012 is reposted here, as a reminder. You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  M...
42 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more