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About this blog

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Reporting and analysing Russian gymnastics since 2010. Includes original and exclusive interviews with leading coaches and gymnasts, and historical issues dating back to the Soviet Union. The first blog to report extensively on the sport using Russian language sources.


This blog is edited and written by Elizabeth Booth.  You can find my profile and publication details at Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-booth-36b0b620/?originalSubdomain=uk

If you would like to contact me, please do so via my social media :

Twitter @RussianGymnast
Facebook : www.facebook.com/rewritingrussiangymnastics

Most of my translations, particularly since about 2019, are Google translates.  I have a rudimentary, slowly but constantly growing grasp of the Russian language as well.  

Others have helped with the translations - in particular Liubov Baladzhaeva of Gymnovosti, Lupita and Marina Vulis.

I would particularly like to acknowledge the help of Vladimir Zaglada, an ace gymnastics coach who has endless enthusiasm for the sport and brought to me many of the contacts that have made so much of this blog possible.  Russian sports journalist Natalia Kalugina has also helped.

My thanks are also due to Isa Alexandrova and her father, Alexander, who gave me the astonishing interview in 2013 that told so much about the internal workings of Russian gymnastics.  I have also had interviews and support from Natalia Yurchenko and Maria Filatova, who have shown so much patience as they have answered my questions.

The gymnasts and coaches of the Russian Federation too add much colour to the telling of the Russian gymnastics story with their candid posts on social media.  We now face times of division and conflict that are without precedent in the history of our sport since 1952, but the gymnasts still maintain a public face that is friendly and relateable.  

This blog is about sport, not politics.  Sports has always found the best in people.  I hope that I can continue to find the best as I move forward with this developing history of gymnastics in Russia and so many of the compelling, hardworking and creative people I find there.  I understand why things are the way that they are, but I hope that soon things will change.  May peace and normality return to our relations as soon as possible.

I would also like to acknowledge the suffering of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Russian state.  War is never right and the wrong people always pay.  May you find peace and freedom from fear, as soon as possible.

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