Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Russia's regions are of great importance to their sports development, as they represent a vast potential source of talent, both coaching and athletic.  Sadly, having been a vital contributor to the success of Russia in the Soviet era, the gymnastics regions went into decline around the 1990s and early noughties, following the political restructuring of the Eastern bloc countries. Coach salaries were not paid, so coaches left to earn a living overseas. Facilities were neglected. The sport became unfashionable and young people no longer sought to follow gymnastics seriously, as a career. Gymnastics has never recovered fully, and the problems have extended root and branch into the Russian system.  In 2011 head coach Andrei Rodionenko said that there was only one specialist gymnastics coach training programme in the whole of the Russian Federation, meaning that there are fewer and fewer highly qualified young coaches up and coming.  This is reflected in the compositi...

Senior team members Daria Spirodonova, Tatiana Nabiyeva, Ekaterina Kramarenko, Viktoria Komova and Maria Paseka enjoy some Sunday fun in Moscow.  Picture courtesy of Viktoria Komova on Instagram The women are at training camp at present, preparing for the upcoming, late August, Russia Cup.  The outcome of this competition will determine who is selected for October's World Championships.  There will be six team members competing in qualifications (6-5-4 format) and the usual 6-3-3 in team finals. The faces that I can spot missing from these photographs (see below for a fuller group shot)  are Aliya Mustafina (the only lock to this autumn's team, assuming she recovers well from her surgery, and remains in good health) and Anastasia Grishina, about whom there has been an ominous silence since this spring.  As a reminder, Nastia has had an operation to her knee, as a consequence of an injury sustained on the floor in the Russian Championships.  The Munich clini...

Thanks to Vera Nikitina who posted this picture on Ksenia Afanasyeva's VK.com group Just a brief list of all the ups and downs of the past few days.  My main wish now is that all the Russian gymnasts take time to recover fully and come back to competition only when they are ready, at full physical and psychological strength.   Ksenia Afanasyeva has just (Friday) had an operation on her leg (nothing more specific, not sure if it is a re-injury) that she injured on vault in team final at Russian nationals.  She will stay in Munich for a further two weeks, and have to remain on crutches for six weeks.  'It's not easy', she says.  Thanks to Olya Terentyeva for the information. I thank Radio Moscow Echo journalist and gymnastics specialist Natalia Kalugina for the following updates from Round Lake : Ekaterina Kramarenko is very ill and in hospital; on a drip :-(  She will be replaced by Anna Rodionova in Sofia.  Anna is looking beautiful on beam, but st...

2012 Olympian Viktoria Komova will compete on bars and beam at May's Europeans, says Russian Head Coach Valentina Rodionenko.  'Viktoria still isn't ready to vault', said Valentina, adding that they were protecting the 18 year old, but expected her to be fully ready for the World Championships in October.  She added that Anna Rodionova and Ksenia Afanasyeva were in reserve, but that Afanasyeva still hadn't recovered fully from her operation of last autumn. After participating in this competition she had decided not to try for Europeans, and was targeting the World Championships. 'Mustafina is almost fully recovered, but it wasn't quite enough in the fourth day', Rodionenko said, adding that the 2010 World Champion had performed well in the all around. In other news, an unofficial but trustworthy source has said that Anastasia Grishina, who suffered a partial ACL tear, broken knee bone and cartilage damage in Saturday's team final, will be travelling ...

Young gymnasts line up prior to the first major Championships of the year In an interview with Itar-Tass national head coach Evgeny Grebyonkin has given us some clues as to the competitors in Penza this week. 'All of the strongest gymnasts will take part in Penza, with the exception of Afanasyeva, who has only just begun full training again after a foot operation', he says.  'Komova, Grishina and Mustafina will compete for the top places.  Tatiana Nabiyeva has been unable to decide about the future continuation of her career, and this competition will help her draw a conclusion.' The Antwerp World Championships, back in October, was the women's last major competition.  Since then, Viktoria Komova has recovered from a foot injury she suffered at New Year.  Earlier this year, Aliya Mustafina took a two month break, and she is now working towards achieving optimum form at the European Championships.  She has recovered from her break, but won't be doing anything new...

Flashback to London 2012: Viktoria Komova The Russian Championships for women gymnasts - junior and senior - begin on the first of April (yes) in Penza, finishing on the 6th.  You can see the schedule here : http://www.sportgymrus.ru/Admin/GetFile.ashx?get=1&id=43065 It is a full competition where the regional teams participate and individuals get a chance to test themselves and their early preparation for the coming competitive season.  This year the top women will be competing for places on the European Championships teams (junior and senior) for Sofia, Bulgaria, later in the spring.  It is expected that we will see Viktoria Komova for the first time in many months - which must be the most anticipated comeback for years.  Aliya Mustafina is also hoped to make a show, as well as Anastasia Grishina and Maria Paseka.  There has been an announcement that Ksenia Afanasyeva will compete vault, and I would also be surprised if we didn't see Maria Kharenkova ...

Russian gymnasts in Cottbus last weekend - from left to right - back row - Polina Fedorova, Maria Kharenkova, Daria Spiridinova; front row - Yulia Inshina (Azerbaijan), Anna Rodionova, Marina Nekrasova (Azerbaijan) In her first senior international, Maria Kharenkova secured two medals last Sunday, taking a silver on beam, and a bronze on floor.  Not a bad result considering the jitters she suffered in the early part of the competition, and one that underlines the worth of a strategy that favours the selection of young gymnasts for these smaller competitions.  Russia now enters the pre-Europeans preparation with two more tried and tested medalists on its roster (Rodionova, remember, gained a silver on bars on Saturday), and this can only add to an impression of strength in depth, greatly needed in the run up to the major competitions this year and beyond.   Kharenkova's performance was not as confident as she had presented during her medal winning routines at the 2012 Juni...

Denis Ablyazin on rings at the 2012 Olympics Ablyazin today staked his claim as Russia's leading event specialist with a strong showing on both floor and rings.  His explosive abilities on floor saw him tumble almost non-stop from start to finish, including some top level difficulty (7.1 D score) that with better execution must make him a contender for a medal at World Championships.   He has now also overtaken his compatriot Alexander Balandin on rings (3rd here today behind Ablyazin and Greece's Eleftherios Petrounias) who despite his high D score (6.9 to Ablyazin's 6.8) had small errors.   On pommel horse, won by favourite Kristian Berki, Nikolai Kuksenkov finished in 7th place after difficulties with the dismount marred his performance. A video of Ablyazin's floor is available here  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cTOn2WdyHQs&feature=youtu.be Denis on rings  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MHCG8kZO8e8&feature=youtu.be No doubt you will find further videos ...

Photo of Anna Rodionova and Maria Kharenkova, from Anna's official group on VK.com Valentina Rodionenko has given further details of the MAG and WAG participants at Cottbus:  Denis Ablyazin - rings, vault and floor Alexander Balandin - rings and parallel bars Dmitry Stolyarov - floor and vault Matvey Petrov - pommels Nikolai Kuksenkov - pommels and high bar Nikita Ignatyev - high bar and parallel bars Anna Rodionova - bars and beam, though she may miss beam as she has ankle pain Maria Kharenkova - beam and floor Polina Fyodorova - floor and vault Daria Spridinova - beam http://itar-tass.com/sport/1032766

Video 1 Video 2 National beam coach Marina Bulashenko leads a master class of young gymnasts with the assistance of Aliya Mustafina.  Anna Rodionova demonstrates a spin.

Anna Rodionova will compete in her first Worlds this autumn. News of Russia's embattled WAG team is now being confirmed in the Russian press, and we are all grateful to Lupita for translating the key points from this article , an interview with team coach Evgeny Grebyonkin. 1)       Dementyeva is not going to retire. She went home and has now decided to continue. 2)       Komova is recovering in hospital (note: I have read elsewhere that she will leave hospital on the 27th September, but won't be able to train for anything up to two or three months).  In a mock competition prior to her illness, she had scored more than 60 points all around. 3)       Afanasyeva will compete in Mexico in November. Surgery went well. 4)       Mustafina has a cold. She has upgraded bars, beam and floor and has added a vault (note: elsewhere , Mustafina's bars D value is said to be 6....

High summer has hit and with it an uncharacteristically high load of features to write ... to keep things up to date I will provide some brief links here to all the latest news. The historic Moscow Dynamo club , home to champions past and present including Emin Garibov, Sergei Kharkov, Natalia Ilienko, Olga Mostepanova, Tatiana Groshkova, Maria Goryunova and Nadezhda Ivanova, is being forced to transfer its operations for a minimum of three years to temporary facilities at the Olympiski stadium.  Dynamo's old building is being replaced by a brand new sporting facility funded by Russian sports sponsor, bank VTB, but the status of gymnastics within the new building is unconfirmed to date.  This temporary arrangement is far from ideal.  At present it seems likely that the Club will not be able to stage the annual Voronin Cup which has become such an important part of the international gymnastics calendar.   Removal arrangements seem highly informal, with the club ...

A single picture is worth thousands of words , so take your time to look at these images.  Consider the variety of feeling, shape and flow.  There is a quality of gymnastic eloquence that is about more than 'form'.  A quality that is trained, but innate and deeply embedded in Russia's gymnastics culture.  A quality that has been uniquely the possession, and responsibility, of the Russians in recent years. I believe it used to be called virtuosity.  Consummate artistry.   The beauty, the power and the glory. These Russian women gymnasts are the rarest of the rare, the final, finest remaining strand of a chain of heritage.  You are experiencing here the last masters of a fading art form.  In London, America may well take the medals with their power and consistency.  But Russia already owns the soul of artistic gymnastics.  Only they understand the sport in all its colours.  What we call choreography is for them an alchemy of t...

EF at the Russian Nationals this morning - beam and floor, rather than the advertised vault and a-bars. Mustafina did not compete on floor - rather wisely, I think. I will post results as soon as they become available. Update : Medallists have been confirmed from sight of the ceremony on streaming video as : Beam - 1 Afanasyeva; 2 Grishina; 3 Goryunova Floor - 1 Grishina; 2 Afanasyeva; 3 Belokobylskaya But the wonderful DanyZ2012 is already posting video grabs of the live coverage this morning. I thoroughly recommend Grishina's floor to you - I think it must be her best routine since the Junior Euros two years ago. I think she is getting her confidence back ... Afanasyeva floor Belokobylskaya floor Inshina floor Pavlova floor Mustafina beam In my book, Mustafina is allowed a fall. Rodionova beam Inshina beam Afanasyeva beam Oh glory be to the Goddess Afanasyeva who is even beginning to land vault like Boginskaya. Belokobylskaya beam We ar...

Russian gymnastics fans the world over have been feverishly hitting their refresh buttons and praying that the live link will work.  It didn't always, largely because the weight of our collective enthusiasm overwhelmed the world wide web.  But I'm pleased to say, at the end of the day, our Queen Mustafina is back.  Clearly, the gymnastics presented today is work in progress.  We might never make true conclusions thanks to the grainy nature of the videos.  I'm risking putting the cart before the horse when I say that the USA and Russia are complete opposites when it comes to PR, the one (USA) all bluster and hype, the other (Russia) all mystery and understatement.  I'm sure that my friend, Mr Zaglada, will tell me that it's the results and the results alone that matter.    The only thing that will really count this year are those few days at the end of July. The absence of two of the leading contenders for this title, Viktoria Komova and Anna D...