David Belyavski - Russia’s captain

David Belyavski was just 19 at his first World Championships in 2011.  Over the past 13 years he has become the leading gymnast of the Russian team, its captain.  He has led Russia to a series of amazing team victories at World, European and Olympic level, always there with his own brand of aesthetic, technically well performed gymnastics.  He moves like a dancer.  His gymnastics is about finesse, lightness and line, yet he still has the power to win medals even in his 32nd year, against a generation of gymnasts who have rewritten the sport’s code of points for themselves, to favour strength and spectacular acrobatics.  

His leadership skills motivated fiery, independent-minded athletes like Nagorny and Dalaloyan to come together for the team.  At the last Olympics the sometimes volatile gymnasts grabbed the gold with some remarkable last minute quick thinking, made possible by Belyavski’s calm and encouraging team talks.  His mental strength transformed a team that was steadily fighting for medals in the team event, to consistent gold medal winners.  

The Olympic pathway has been a troubled one for all of Russia’s athletes since the WADA controversy in 2014, when Russia was found to have systematically doped its athletes over a long period of time.  While the gymnasts maintained a clean record and were allowed to compete in the 2016 Olympics, the lead up to the Games was a rocky and uncertain one.  The gymnasts had to share the world’s doubt over the 2020/1 Olympics, and then since 2022 have been banned from international competition entirely, thanks to their state’s war crimes against Ukraine.  

David would be ready to defend Russia’s team title at the Paris Olympics, if it weren’t for world events that have led to the entire Russian team being removed from international sport.  It would be his fourth Olympics.  He is a legend, and no doubt it hurts him very much to miss the Games.  

Ask Belyavski what his most important role in life is, and I have no doubt it would be as husband and father to Maria, his wife and his little 6 year old daughter, Alyssia, who is the spitting image of her mother, and who already plays tennis like a professional.  Sometimes, being a father is very difficult, more difficult even than gymnastics, he says recently.  

https://youtu.be/R5VnVlWkLvY?si=y-Od5mLkYUmBOz62