Skip to main content

Melnikova’s personal grace

Image
By

 


Angelina Melnikova is not only an ambitious gymnast, she also wants to pursue acting as part of her career.  This picture came with congratulations on her medals in Paris, from one of her agents.


I can see real determination in her face - it must have taken a lot of courage to put herself in the public eye at a time when the international environment is uncertain and unpredictable, and her own country is at the centre of chaos.  


Sport is about bringing people from different cultures together, to appreciate human achievement and celebrate respect, competition and, wherever possible, friendship.  This gymnast has remained consistent in her pursuit of excellence since childhood, and she has persisted in the most difficult of circumstances, with incredible personal grace.  She is down to earth, charming and professional, a real example to everyone.   

The circumstances have been very trying, but you would never see Angelina show the strain.  Her country’s possible exclusion from the 2016 Olympics, her first year of senior competition, came first.  She survived the uncertainty and competed well in Rio, despite a hamstring injury.  


Then in 2020 came lockdown, which had international repercussions with the cancellation of major competitions worldwide, and the closure of national training centres.  In 2021 Angelina led the Russian national team, under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee, to gold, Russia’s first ever Olympic team gold for their women.  She followed up with gold AA at the World Championships. 


Then there followed a long absence (4 years) from international competition because of an IOC sanction against Russia’s involvement in international sport, for the state’s acts of aggression against Ukraine.  


Angelina has patiently waited for her opportunity to compete once more, under a neutral flag, for herself.  She is leading her team with great strength and purpose and I hope she will be able to compete alongside her team mates at Worlds later this year, and possibly even through to the Olympics in 2028.  Good luck, Angelina.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

30 years in elite sport: Oksana Chusovitina

By
You've been competing internationally for over 30 years. How has gymnastics changed over that time? Is there anything about your sport that has remained the same for decades? First of all, the age has changed. More mature athletes are competing now, which makes me happy. Secondly, the apparatuses. They've become more comfortable and sophisticated. Gymnastics in general has become more challenging, but in my youth, people performed mostly the same elements as they do now. Back then, this was par for the course, but now it surprises many. It's a bit amusing. Has the nature of the training itself changed? For me personally, absolutely. Now, my life isn't just about my athletic career. I'm involved with the Oksana Chusovitina Academy, which was personally opened by the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. It has 155 students, both girls and boys. I used to train three times a day, but now I train once. The entire afternoon is taken up with the academy and organi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tatyana Nabiyeva on work and love in China

By
Some highlights from a long interview with 2010 World champion Tatyana Nabiyeva.  Source: Russian team page on VK.com.  Translation - Google translate A big interview with Tatyana Nabieva about the peculiarities of work and life in China, the bright years of her sports career, a little about modern gymnastics and about love. On the Nabiyeva flight — At the same championship, you presented a new element on the bars, which was later added to the rules with your last name (flying over the top bar with a straight body, difficulty group F. — Sport24). How did you come up with the idea to try something new? — Actually, it happened spontaneously, I think. We worked with Vera Iosifovna [Kiryashova] on the purity of the elements on the bars, sometimes I didn’t fly all the way to the Shaposhnikova element. Once I didn’t fly all the way to the bars either and stood on my feet between the bars, bending my legs in flight for safety. Then Vera Iosifovna said that this was a different eleme...
Post a Comment
Read more

Maria Filatova: Russian Sparrow Made in the USSR

By
Maria Filatova – the first ever picture taken of her doing gymnastics! By kind permission of Maria Filatova Kourbatova My first memory of Maria Filatova is a little girl with huge, white ribbons in her hair, so tiny she seemed to have to stand on tiptoe to be able to see over the balance beam.  At 4’ 6” tall, she was the smallest competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, yet she was already part of the Soviet senior team, competing alongside such established stars as Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim, Elvira Saadi and Olga Korbut.  The ‘Siberian Sparrow’, trained in Leninsk-Kuznetsk by Innokenty Mametyev since a very early age, celebrated her 15 th birthday on the 19 th July 1976, the day of the team final.  That night, she slept with her first – not her last - Olympic gold medal beneath her pillow. For all her cuteness, Maria Filatova was a fearsome gymnast and competitor.  If the crowd were awed by the pyrotechnics of Romanian technician Nadia Comaneci, they we...
5 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more