Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Sad news - the great Soviet champion Yuri Korolev has died, aged 60.    Korolev was a great coach, very loved by his gymnasts and hugely respected in Russia.    Korolev was World AA champion in both 1981 and 1985, and took the silver AA in 1987.    He amassed a total of 14 gold medals across three World Championships and 3 Europeans.    The sadness of Korolev’s career was that he never competed at an Olympics - the Soviet boycott of 1984 denied him LA, and he snapped his Achilles tendon just before the 1988 Games.    …Yuri was one of a dynasty of champion gymnasts who came from the beautiful city of Vladimir in Russia.    He trained at the same club as Nikolai Andrianov and Vladimir Artemov, Yuri Ryazunov and Kirill Prokopyev.    Nikolai Kuksenkov also chose to train there during his time on the Russian national team.   Russia’s bar coach, Sergei Andrianov reported the sad news. Yuri was blond and handsome a...

There is that little face: the face of a child.  Brown eyes, contemplative eyes, eyes that stare at you emotionlessly, a little defiantly.  Dark rings; she is tired, she could sleep for hours.  Young Nadia looks as if she has been crying.  She is a child.  If you found yourself with responsibility for her, you would make her some hot milk, give her some cookies and put her to bed, not send her to train with the toughest coach there has ever been, or force her to have her photograph taken.   The metal chains around her neck give away that she has achieved something momentous.  The lettering declares her name:  'Nadia Comaneci'.  If only it had been in gold leaf; that would tell a story.  As you glance at the cover, you get the impression that the gymnast is wearing a golden crown, a laurel wreath perhaps, something to match the Romanesque features.  Nadia could easily be posing for a portrait, one that you might find in the ruin...

The fundamental premise of this blog is as a monitor and observer of all that happens in Russian gymnastics.  In as far as you can like a whole nationality, I like Russians and Russian culture.  I do not like the Russian state's use of violence against Ukraine; (nor do I like the use of violence by anyone in any context).  This was the first blog to take a regular view of aspects of Russian sport, from the perspective of the developing narrative in the Russian press.  Often the stories told lack resonance with what is commonly accepted about Russian gymnastics.  There are assumptions about the sport in Russia that are accepted in the West, but challenged by the Russian gaze, and Russia's view of its own place in the sport is often challenging, and difficult for us to understand and appreciate. In a similar way, the stories we read in this country about the War come from a heavily influenced Western perspective; our media lacks criticality in its treatment of thi...

In view of the Russians' absence from Europeans, I thought it might be interesting to look at the top three scores at 'their' competition, the Belarus Cup, and make some comparisons to Europeans.  Hmph.  I'm not sure it is possible to make comparisons between the marking in one competition and another, actually ... but for the sake of interest, here are some of the key scores.  Does anyone want to do some technical/critical breakdowns of the scores?   Are the standards comparable?  How would the 1, 2, 3 at Euros be affected, if at all, if the top Russian or top two Russians had been present in Antalya, and all gymnasts scored consistently? Videos of the Europeans are fairly easily available on Youtube.  If you want to see videos of the Belarus Cup, there are some available on Telegram, on the Karelian Gymnastics channel.  I'm not sure that I can link to them. It would be interesting to know what you think, in any event.  Please leave comments...

Travelling back in time to 1985, all 15 of the top spots in the women's all around competition at the European Championships were taken up by Eastern European countries who were part of what was then called the Soviet bloc.  The Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria were all in the mix.  Spain's Isabel Soria, 16th that year, was the first gymnast from the West to appear on the results sheet.  Event finals were an exclusively Soviet Bloc affair. 38 years later, we see this turned on its head almost completely.  True, we have Hungary's Sofia Kovacs in second place, and the Romanian team is making a return with its gymnasts, Anna Barbosu and Amalia Ghigoarta, in 9th and 10th place; but otherwise gymnastics is entirely Western.   Britain did look dominant from the very start, and Italy are their closest competition.  The gap between first and second placed Italy was almost three points; it was a similar si...

With the European Championships taking place this week, there is one thing on my mind - gymnastics.  And the big question for me is - will Russia be able to take part in the Olympics?  It's looking increasingly unlikely - Europeans were the last chance to qualify as a team, and of course they aren't in Antalya this week. Russia has been invited to participate in the Asian Games, but this doesn't appear to be a valid route to qualification as a team, either.  The only chance may be for gymnasts to qualify individually - but with an FIG ban on all Russians at international competition, this looks unlikely, too. We are all waiting for a decision from the IOC - can Russia be at the 2024 Olympics?  Yet it seems to me that this option has already been ruled out.  I get the impression that the four leading MAG in Russia - Nagorny, Dalaloyan, Ablyazin and Belyavski - have all but given up on the possibility.  Their demeanour seems almost to say, 'what kind of Olymp...