Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Does she appreciate classical dance in gymnastics?

Nico Jackson writes: Two-time Olympic bronze-medalist, Anna  Pavlova , won Azerbaijan’s first World Cup medal in artistic gymnastics by taking gold on uneven bars at the World Challenge Cup in Ljubljana, Slovenia this past weekend. In a fairly weak women’s field,  Pavlova  easily won gold with low difficulty but superb execution scoring 12.825 (4.5/8.325). To the surprise of many,  Pavlova   even  upgraded her dismount to  a  double pike  after competing  a simple layout flyaway the past few years. It was certainly interesting to see her win on what has been her weakest apparatus throughout her career.   Unfortunately the balance beam final did not go quite as well for Pavlova  where she showed obvious signs of nerves, wobbling after a number of e lements and sitting down her 5/2  twist dismount. Nevertheless,  Pavlova’s  lines and presence were as strong as ever despite the mistakes. Her  Omelianchik  ...

Anna with her team mate Maria Nekrasova today.   Maria competed in this spring's Russia Cup and will join Anna on the Azerbaijan national gymnastics team.  Picture courtesy of the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation on Facebook. As Anna prepares to compete at this week's Voronin Cup, representing Azerbaijan for the first time, RRG, in collaboration with Anna's authorised website Anna Pavlova Online, would like to invite readers to submit their questions for an interview with Anna.  What have you always wanted to ask one of Russia's best gymnasts of the last decade? Each reader may submit up to three questions.  We will collate and if necessary edit the questions and Anna will answer the ones she finds most interesting.  Please add your questions as comments to this blog, or you may email them to me at rewriterussiagym@btinternet.com.  We hope to publish the final interview on both websites by Christmas. Many of you must dream of having a conversation with Anna...

Anna Pavlova, who last competed for her home country of Russia at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and has maintained a solid presence on the domestic circuit since, today announced that she will prepare to compete for the Azerbaijan national team at the 2015 European championships, which will take place in the Azerbaijan capital city of Baku.  Her mother, who is Anna's personal coach, will take up a position as Azerbaijan's national coach.  Working alongside Anna will be 2011 World Championships team member, 2012 Olympic reserve Yulia Inshina from Voronezh.  On the men's side, rings specialist Konstantin Pluzhnikov will also make the move to the Azerbaijan team.  All the gymnasts will be working at home in Russia, as there is no equipment available in Azerbaijan.  Pluzhnikov is considered a world medal contender on his specialist piece, the rings, and Pavlova has regularly beaten national team members on vault, beam and floor in Russian domestic competitions. ...

Central team veteran Anna Pavlova is still competing well. Central beat Moscow in tight team final ... 166.85 to 166.75. Paseka scored 15.75 on vault for Moscow with her best Amanar! Afanasyeva is still leading floor efforts with a score of 14.45; Mustafina ahead on bars and beam with 15.4 and 15.2 respectively. See full results here. This picture of Anna Pavlova is used courtesy of the RGF

Some of the medallists from this weekend's Russian National Championships The Russian National Championships drew to a close this weekend with gold medals for three of the best Russian gymnasts of the past five years, and one up and coming star, including 2008 Olympian Anna Pavlova (vault), 2010 World Champion Aliya Mustafina (bars), 2008 Olympian and 2011 World Floor Champion Ksenia Afanasyeva (beam) and first year senior Anastasia Grishina (floor).  Full results are available in Russian here .  All members of the 2011 World Championships team competing here (Komova and Nabieva were not) managed to secure a medal in these national championships. Vault results were noticeably flat this week with only one national team member (Grishina) competing (Maria Paseka is in the reserve squad) in the final.  National team coach Alexander Alexandrov has commented on his team's performance on this apparatus as trailing that of their main rivals, the USA (thanks to Gymnastics Co...

Find the results of this competition at the International Gymnast website .  Interestingly, Anna Pavlova took four gold medals and one silver - the silver being on asymmetric bars.  Veteran Yulia Lozhecko also took bronze in the all around - a good competition for the veterans, then. Elsewhere, Aliya Mustafina's younger sister Nailya did well to finish in second in the junior all around.  Nailya also took gold in the beam final and came 5th in the floor final. Hope to update this site later on with some results from the Stella Zakharova Cup where Anastasia Grishina will be competing. 

The Russian Gymnastics Federation website again gives us English language access to a brief summary of some media coverage of the women's all around final, this time from Penza State TV.  Worth a read for the brief comments from Aliya Mustafina, Anna Dementieva and Anna Pavlova!

Full results can be found here . Once again, I have uncovered a mysterious Russian practice, with Viktoria Komova double agenting for both the victorious Central and second placed Moscow team AND Anna Dementieva also doubling up for the winning Central team and the 3rd placed PFO (Volga Federal District??) team. The results are as follows : 1   Central  (Komova, Pavlova, Inishina, Dementieva, Kruglikova, Stepanova)  174.95 2   Moscow  (Mustafina, Komova, Myzdrikova, Novikova, Syrinkova, Chibiskova) 171.132 3   PFO (Volga Federal District?)  (Dementieva, Telitsina, Skorodumova, Polyan, Lavrushina, Smirnova)  164.4 4  St Petersburg  (Sazonova, Nabieva, Sapronova, Terenteva, Krylova, Zemskova (did not compete)) 162.6 Aliya Mustafina apparently won the battle of those competing on all four pieces of apparatus, except for that she didn't perform at all - please see below for an explanation.  In her absence, Deme...

Anna Dementieva has been crowned national all around champion of Russia!  Full results are available here . Anna won by dint of being the most consistent gymnast around, performing strongly on bars, beam and floor, and pretty much predictably on vault, her weakest apparatus.  Anna took the highest score on the floor exercise (15.1) the third highest on bars (14.65) and the second highest on beam (14.35).  The highest bars score - 16.7 - was registered by Viktoria Komova, who had an otherwise difficult competition, finishing in 35th place after disappointing outings on beam and floor, and a final withdrawal from vault.  I hope she isn't injured.  Tanya Nabieva came second on bars with 15.05, and is second on vault with 14.85, behind none other than Anna Pavlova (14.9).  Leading the stakes on beam is Yulia Belokobylskaya (14.55). The top six placings are as follows: Anna Dementieva 58.05 Anna Pavlova       56.2 Alena Poly...

Link  here to the Federation's official pictures of podium training, featuring Tanya Nabieva in typically powerful flight on bars and floor, Anna Dementieva looking longer and even more delicately elegant on beam, and a radiant Ekaterina Kurbatova practicing floor.  You will also be pleased to hear that we see Anna Pavlova working on beam and vault.  I couldn't work out if Viktoria Komova features in any of these shots, but her mother, Vera Kolesnikova, is seen so I guess her daughter was somewhere around ;-)

Visit this link to view a charming short documentary (2002) on 1956 and 1960 Olympic All Around Champion, Larissa Latynina.  Latynina retired from competition in 1966 and took up post of Soviet National Coach for the women's team, a title she held until 1977. The documentary includes footage of Ukraine-born Latynina in competition in the 1950s, and more recently relaxing in her rural home in Russia, and attending the Russian Championships.  Towards the end of the documentary she is seen congratulating Elena Zamolodchikova, Anna Pavlova, and their coaches.