Aliya Mustafina and team candidate Seda Tutkhalyan - both from Moscow Five days left before the MAG European Championships open in Switzerland, and Russian gymnast Nikita Nagorny is posting videos of himself practicing a full twisting Roche vault - I wonder if he will compete it in Berne? The men's team seems fairly well prepared and ready to travel as announced some weeks ago - Kuksenkov, Belyavski, Ignatyev, Nagorny, Ablyazin. But the composition of the women's team, who will travel to their first major competition of 2016 next week, seems somewhat undecided. Will Natalia Kapitonova make her major senior debut in June, or will Seda Tutkhalyan, her dynamic yet unpredictable rival, grace Russia's team? Or will other gymnasts be brought into play; will further, unexpected, changes be made? If head coach Valentina Rodionenko's recent announcement is to be believed, it is a simple case of replacing the injured Maria Paseka (a vault specialist) with Natalia ...
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Ok, if IOC will ban whole Russian team from Rio, that means that we will see Mustafina in Tokyo 2020?
ReplyDeleteIf so, her supreme performances in Bern are to be her swan songs, I suppose.
DeleteI doubt we'll see Aliya in 2017, let alone Tokyo! There's now even a chance we'll never see her compete again!
ReplyDeleteSigh. This is all so awful.
All the United States papers are stating the ban went through....WTF?!!! These are reputable papers.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDelete