Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

 

Injury was a main concern for the Russian women at this competition.  Of the Olympians, only Gerasimova competed at full strength.  Both Listunova and Melnikova were suffering with pain; you could see this on their faces and in their movement, by the end of the day's competition.  For Listunova, foot and back pain were problems, while Melnikova had severe achilles pain.  Melnikova is booked in for an MRI as soon as she returns to Moscow after a short break in Sochi, where she is staying with David Belyavski and his family.   Slava Urazova didn't make the competition at all after injuring her knee in training.  Ilyankova has retired.  Both Diana Kustova and Alena Glotova are still recovering from chest infections and Kustova did not compete at all.  Up and coming gymnasts worth watching include Lyudmilla Roschina, Leila Vasileeva (a favourite of mine) and Maria Agafanova.  The standard of execution was generally good, although there were ...

There are two main domestic gymnastics competitions in Russia.  The first one, Russian national championships, takes place in the spring, and is for regional teams, All Around, and Event Finals.  As the first major competition of the year, nationals have often traditionally been qualifiers for places on the national team training for Europeans Championships.  The Russia Cup, in July, is an individual AA and EF competition and is far more important in that it qualifies gymnasts for the major competitions such as Worlds, and Olympics.  Gymnasts are often less ready for nationals than they are for Russia Cup.  The standard and difficulty of work is lower here than it will be later in the year. This article is the first of a series where I will briefly look at the results of Russian nationals.  As a reminder, Russia will not be competing in any FIG or IOC competitions this year.  This means we will only see the gymnasts in domestic competitions, and in loc...