Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

  War and violence are taken to be the domain of men, in the main … but women suffer too. The Russian female gymnasts are showing a few bruises.    Our ‘new generation’ of Kalmykova, Vasilieva, Roschina, Andreeva and others look well trained, but the lack of opportunity for overseas competition must be a severe disappointment.   24 year old Melnikova has commented that her career has crossed some very interesting times … the doping scandal with all its uncertainty, leading to neutral competition status for the team, Covid and the postponement of competitions, if not a battle with the illness itself for some individuals; and, now, the war with Ukraine, leading to sanctions against Russian competitors.    Finally, Russia’s rather pointless decision to ban themselves from competition as a kind of ‘protest’ against the neutral status they were seeking for so many of their team members.   The fact that Melnikova could carry away individual and tea...

 Mustafina will return to Round Lake on 3 September to begin preparations for Euros in August 2018, says Valentina Rodionenko.  The Olympic Champion, who gave birth to daughter Alisa in early June, contacted the head coaches to ask for an invitation to camp.   Good luck, Aliya! Tass/Albert Starodubtsev http://tass.ru/sport/4514671

Plans for the Olympics, the family cat, how Aliya managed her nerves in 2012 and much more - translation on Liubov's blog http://israeligymnerd.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/aliya-mustafina-radio-interview.html?m=1

Valentina Rodionenko has reported that Aliya Mustafina yesterday said she would take a two year break, then begin to train again for the Tokyo Olympics. I'm unsure what to make of this ... I can see Aliya of all people being the one who pulls this off, but it seems quite a bit too soon for her to make such a decision with any certainty, and of course only today Aliya was telling journalists 'let my dreams stay with me'.  Aliya is a young woman and all sorts of adventures are ahead of her.  Not sure what authority Rodionenko had to make such a far reaching announcement on behalf of another.  Let's wait and see. http://tass.ru/sport/3537359

The purple monkey toy which Aliya held while waiting for her bars score today is a present from her boyfriend which she takes with her almost everywhere, the champion told reporters earlier today. Aliya continued to say, 'All I want now is to relax, lie down.  What is my dream job?  Let my dreams remain with me ...'  Source - RSport -  http://rsport.ru/rio2016_gymnastics/20160815/1031063249.html

With Evgeny Grebyonkin, Aliya's bars coach since childhood.  Aliya's personal coach, Sergei Starkin credits Grebyonkin with Aliya's continuing gold medal potential on the apparatus. President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov, has been in the audience at the gymnastics and presented the gymnasts with their medals.   The beautiful face and unmatchable gymnastics of a unique, charismatic champion.  Is it goodbye ... or au revoir?

Head of the Burtasy School of Gymnastics, Valery Starkin (father to Sergei Starkin, who coaches Aliya Mustafina and Denis Ablyazin) has spoken to Penza Pravda about Aliya's bronze medal performance in the AA.  Sergei has trained many Olympic athletes, including rhythmic group members  Natalia Lavrova and Olesya Belugina. 'The result can be considered good, if not excellent.  We knew that Aliya would be able to compete for silver or bronze, and that the gold would only be obtained if the leader, Simone Biles, made a mistake. ... Aliya managed to hold onto her third position despite fierce competition from a Chinese gymnast; her experience helped her a lot. The marking was proper.  Aliya missed some connections, acrobatic elements and so the complexity of the D score was reduced.  For example on the beam it was 5.3, and also in the floor, despite the fact that usually Aliya scores better there.  If you add back in the difference, she could easily have be...

In the end, it was as predicted : Simone and the others, with Simone's teammate, Alexandra Raisman, providing the back up.  I do not need to point out that, by definition, the Americans are scoring significantly higher marks than the rest of the field.  Congratulations to them! Aliya Mustafina finished in third place.  The 2012 bronze medalist led the competition after vault and uneven bars, but had a very nervous outing on beam that might have taken a less experienced gymnast out of the medals.  A bravura performance on floor brought Aliya back though to confirm her third place all around.  From her senior debut in 2010 to today, Mustafina has continuously set high standards of grace.    It is the first time since 2000 that a gymnast (Amanar) has medalled in the all around at two consecutive Olympics, and  if Aliya can medal on Saturday's uneven bars final, she will once again be Russia's biggest medal winner of the women's gymnastics.  Russ...

'When we fell out of the top three, I told the girls to keep on fighting till the end' 'We are happy, silver is the most that we could do here.  We didn't expect the Chinese to make a mistake on floor, but we fought to the very last moment.' 'It was as hard here as it was in London.  That was my first Olympic Games, the victory is in the past now, and we had to try to perform no worse than we did there.  You realise at the beginning of the competition - any error can be fatal.  You are under pressure - but it's OK.' 'It wasn't hard to compete on beam [after Melnikova's fall].  I just knew that I had to do as much as possible to reduce the gap to our rivals.  I didn't feel worried about it.' 'Our success here will inspire me in the individual competitions.' ' I decided to come to the Olympics just to help the team.  I can't say anything about the next competition because I just want to relax now.  But I have achieved my...

Moments after qualifying for the team, AA and UB finals, Aliya gave a short interview to Elena Vaitsekhovskaya for Sports Express.  The accompanying pictures tell as much as the words. Asked about her fall from beam, Aliya said, 'I have forgotten about it already.  There is no point in remembering it.' 'It was very hard waiting for the competition to begin; I could only just bear it.  Every morning, I wake up with the same thought, wanting it all to be over as quickly as possible,' said Aliya. Asked about her bars performance, where she scored the highest of all to date, Aliya said, 'Can I tell you a secret?  It was me who did it!'      Team captain, consoling a disappointed Angelina Melnikova     The life of a champion is essentially a solitary one, when it comes to the hard moments of competition.     Seda Tutkhalyan is the top Russian qualifier in the AA Source - Sports Express.ru

At 4 o'clock this morning BST, the IOC Executive Board made an announcement to the effect that three individuals appointed by them will have a final say on which Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Olympic Games. 'Participation of Russian athletes in Rio The EB decided to delegate the final decision on the acceptance of entries of Russian athletes to a Review Panel composed of three IOC Executive Board Members: Uğur Erdener, Claudia Bokel and Juan Antonio Samaranch.  The Review Panel is due to make a final decision in the coming days.' RRG's take on this This latest, very last minute twist in the controversy surrounding Russia's participation in the Games, suggests that the IOC has a degree of concern over the likely consistency of decisions taken by the sports' governing bodies to whom they delegated decision making only a few days ago.   It is difficult to see how an appointed panel of three individuals will have time to consider the data pres...

Argumentyi i Fakti interview with Aliya Mustafina Translated by Marina Vulis ‘I have no fear’, says Aliya Mustafina.   ‘My father [Farhat Mustafin, the bronze medallist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 1976 Olympics] took me to my first gymnastics class.   In his opinion children need to do sports, and he saw gymnastics as useful for my general development.   He had no goals – just to let us practice.’ It did not end with ‘just practice’ – she became the World Champion at 16, but then had an ACL injury the next year (2011) at the Europeans.   Even just returning to gymnastics is a feat; then she came back to win four medals at the 2012 Olympics. Aliya Mustafina – That injury.   I do not know why I was ashamed – so many people were watching me and I could not even walk.   My parents!   They saw everything on TV (the coach had to carry her from the podium).   Of course I was aware that anything could happen in gymnastics, but I di...