Skip to main content

Leninsk-Kuznetsk School of Gymnastics to close.

By
The major centre of gymnastics in Kemerovo Oblast, Siberia - the Mametyev School of Gymnastics in Leninsk - is to close in July 2018, reports the RGF.

No announcement has been made in the Club's own website and the reasons for the closure are unclear.  National team members, Anastasia Ilyankova and Nikita Ignatyev, train at the Club and have their families and homes in the district.

Leninsk's greatest hero, Maria Filatova, had recently returned home to Leninsk after a long struggle to secure her Russian passport.  Filatova, who owns and runs a Gymnastics club in Rochester, New York, is much loved wherever she goes and was a trailblazer of difficult and artistic gymnastics during her competitive years.  She has always been loyal to her hometown, creating distinctive choreography for 1992 CIS and Russia team member Tatiana Ignatova.  There is a 2016 documentary about her emotional return to Russia on Youtube.

Other gymnasts who have trained at the Club include Valentin Mogilnyi, Alexei Tikonkikh, Maxim Devyatovski. Andrei Cherkasov and Igor Pakhomenko.



Photo of Ilyankova in Leninsk, courtesy of the gymnast's personal Instagram accoynt.
Labels:

Comments

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