Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Ivan Stretovich competes at last year's Junior European Championships Siberian-born, 16 year old Ivan Stretovich featured on this blog last year after his appearance at the Junior European Championships, and was one of the rising stars at this month's European Youth Olympic Festival, taking bronze medals all around and on rings, in addition to gold on parallel bars.  There is something about this gymnast that I like; his competitive bearing is confident and strong, his work presented with an economy of line that reminds me of a young Dmitri Bilozerchev .  Between last year's Junior European Championships and this year's EYOF, Ivan improved his D value on parallel bars from 5.1 to 5.6, including a brand new double front with half twist out dismount. The local Siberian sports committee has produced this video of Ivan in training.  Lupita provides a brief summary of what is said below. Ivan Stretovich is one of the candidates to be nominated "April Russian A...

Feisty Russian junior Maria Kharenkova worked with purpose and conviction to win today's girls' all around in Utrecht in fine form, avoiding major errors to win a tightly fought competition.   She finished on beam, her best piece, where minor errors tallied up to deprive her of a repeat of yesterday's high scoring.  But the final total matched that of Germany's Kim Janas and the judges had to use the tie-breaker to decide the final positions, giving Maria the gold! There is an archived copy of the entire live stream of the final here . A great week so far for the Russians.  The live streaming did not show any of team mate Maria Bondareva's routines. 1  Maria Kharenkova  54.95 2   Kim Janas, Germany 54.95  3   Tyesha Mattis, GBR  54.85 4   Ellie Downie GBR  54.7;  5   Maria Bondareva 54.2 Maladyets, Maria!!

You will be able to watch Maria Kharenkova and Maria Bondareva compete for the all around title at the European Youth Olympic Festival in slightly less than an hour's time (3.30 pm London time) here . It has been a great competition for the Russians so far, with the boys taking silver in the team competition against a very strong British team on Tuesday, and a bronze for the graceful Ivan Stretovich in today's all around, again against two British gymnasts. Britain's MAG programme is certainly highly competitive at all levels these days and with Russia as their closest rivals, there looks likely to be a fascinating battle between these two teams over the coming years. Russia's girls yesterday took gold in the team competition, ahead of Britain, with Maria Kharenkova sitting in second place in all around qualifications behind Britain's Tyesha Mattis.  The team of Kharenkova, Bondareva and Kuzmina were OK on vault with FTYs, took two falls on bars, but then excel...