Skip to main content

Kustova and Vorona have retired


TASS reports that promising junior Diana Kustova (Moscow) has retired, and taken up work as a fitness trainer.  Yana Vorona (Voronezh), a great beam worker who looked likely to achieve as a full member of the senior team, has also retired. Both gymnasts have been unable to get back to elite level after injury.

No further news on Vlada Urazova (Rostov).  The only Olympians who will be present at Novosibirsk for the Russian Cup will be Angelina Melnikova and Viktoria Listunova.  Russia is almost entirely reliant now on the new generation of  2007/8 born gymnasts to carry forward their gymnastics legacy.  

Here is what head coach Valentina Rodionenko has to say:

Members of the Russian national artistic gymnastics team Diana Kustova and Yana Vorona have ended their careers. This was reported to TASS by the senior coach of the national team Valentina Rodionenko.

💛"Kustova ended her career in artistic gymnastics and went into fitness, according to my information, she is now working as a coach in one of the clubs," Rodionenko said. "We were counting on this athlete, we expected results from her and did not want to lose her, since a lot of effort was invested. Diana told me in our last conversation that she can no longer train in the same mode as the national team."

💜"The reason for Vorona's departure is an injury, after which, unfortunately, she was unable to fully recover. According to her coach, Yana is ending her career. For us, her departure is also a loss, but this is gymnastics, to which, unfortunately, not everyone returns after injuries," the TASS interlocutor added.

The Russian Cup begins in just over a week’s time and will give us a look at how the team has progressed since the BRICS Games in June.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Who needs difficulty? Portraits of a young gymnast - Ivan Stretovich

These pictures of young Ivan Stretovich, taken by Elena Mikhailova at last week's European Gymnastics Championships, are available in a gallery at the Russian Gymnastics Federation website.  I wanted to share a sequence of them with you. Stretovich turns 16 in October, and comes from Novosibirsk in Siberia, where he is coached at the Dynamo club by B Konvissar.  This young gymnast emerged at April's Russian Championships, where he took gold or silver medals in every event final except for vault.  In Montpelier, he contributed to the Russian team's silver medal. But pictures speak louder than words, and medals aren't all that matters.  Stretovich's start values (in qualifying 5 (F), 5.1 (PH), 4.8 (SR), 5.4 (V), 5.1 (PB) and 4.9 (HB) leave some room for development, but the special quality of his work is even rarer than a double twisting double back somersault.  That quality is the ability to elevate the simple to a pitch of perfection, and to make the diff...

Men's team results : Russian national championships

Full results are available here . In summary, 1    Moscow    (Olennikov, Garibov, Gogotov, Bondar, Stolyarov, Ablyazin)    261.55 2    Siberia       (Devyatovski, Pakhomenko, Ignatiev, Cherkasov, Golutsotskov  259.85 3   Central       (Barkalov, Nyudakin, Markelov, Perevoznikov, Bondar, Ignatenkov   255.00 Interesting - Mikhail Bondar appears to have competed for two teams simultaneously here - Moscow and Central - not sure how this works but quite pleased with myself for noticing it ;-)  Only his high bar score counted for the Central team.  One of the wonderful mysteries of Russian gymnastics.  Hopefully we'll have the women's team results later.  And perhaps I'll discover something even more wondrously mysterious there.  Who knows. 

RIP Bela Karolyi

RIP Bela Karolyi. We were all mesmerised by the gymnastics that Nadia Comaneci brought to the world.    Some of us wanted to be like Nadia.    Others wanted to share her glory. When Kerri Strug saluted the judges with a hop and a cry of agony, thousands of adults cried for joy, felt inordinate pride that a love of country had inspired such courage and strength.   When generations of elite gymnasts, many of them gold medal winners, spoke out about the abuse they had experienced whilst practicing their sport, those thousands and millions of cheering adults didn’t stop appreciating the gold medals. They did start to look for someone to blame, someone who could take responsibility for the entire systemic nastiness that enabled the abuse to take place.    Some chose the man who came to fame as Nadia Comaneci’s coach, and went on to shape elite gymnastics training in the USA, Bela Karolyi. But who facilitated and enabled Karolyi?    Who endors...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more