Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

2012 Olympic silver medallist, and multiple European medal winner in her native city of Moscow in 2013, Nastia Grishina, has retired, confirms head coach Valentina Rodionenko in an interview with Albert Starodubtsev of Tass. 20 year old Grishina, a beautiful beam and floor worker who was once considered to have significant all around potential at world level, married recently.  She has been studying journalism at a Moscow University. Rodionenko wasted no time in ascribing Grishina's waning as an international star to her changing coaching arrangements since the Olympics.  Regular readers of this blog will know that Sergei Zelikson, whose tenure as Grishina's personal coach was terminated suddenly in 2012, was recently re-appointed to the national WAG team as tumbling coach.  'The leaders of the Moscow Gymnastics Federation made a fatal mistake a few years ago, when they decided to transfer Grishina to a different coach', said Rodionenko.  'You couldn't take Gris...

The Russian women won the gold medal today in the team competition at the Universiade in Gwangju, ahead of the Japanese and Korean teams.   The picture is Alla Sotnikova's gold medal ... from her Instagram account - thank you, Alla!  Congratulations! It was a fantastic team effort, highlighted by Polina Fyodorova's stable performances on bars, beam and floor, Maria Paseka's powerful vaulting (strong Amanar) and bars work, and Kramarenko's bars.  I loved the way that Fyodorova's technique on bars looked so effortless (wonderful 1.5 turn on the top of the high bar), the expressiveness of Sidorenko's floor work, and the power and emphatic charm of Elizarova.  This is not to ignore the great efforts of Kramarenko and Paseka, but we see these two often on the international scene and their gymnastics is familiar, and on a different level.   Alla Sidorenko, for example, has not featured on a national team before, and the native of St Petersburg showed her class her...

Well, they seem to be all over the place ... First of all, at Lake Krugloye, in the deep winter snow Sosnitskaya, Spiridinova, Shelgunova, Fyodorova, Kharenkova, Bondareva, Tutkhalyan and Kramarenko get some much needed daylight in this picture shared by Ekaterina Kramarenko.  Incidentally, you will be pleased to hear that Aliya Mustafina is also there.  Aliya will travel to Munich later this month for a check up on her back, after which coach Sergei Starkin will take some decisions about when she can resume full training. But where is Tatiana Nabiyeva? In this Instagram from her Pushkin (St Petersburg) home, Tatiana says that, 'better late than never', she is beginning her personalised 'Nabyiki' training programme for the upcoming (February) Russian Championships. She will compete there for her home team alongside such gymnasts as Nastia Cheong. Finally, Pottsville Gymnastics have posted a lovely, short video of a happy Nastia Grishina to their Facebook page.  Let us k...

The event finals will take place on Saturday and Sunday.  Thank you to the Gymnastics group on VK.com, where I obtained these screen captures. Vault : Paseka, Sosnitskaya, Akhaimova, Nabiyeva, Cheong, Kruglikova, Bikmurzina, Vanyushkina, Scherbakova, Elizarova Uneven bars : Mustafina, Spiridonova, Komova, Kramarenko, Nabieva, Rodionova, Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya, Elizarova, Sidorenko Beam : Kharenkova, Mustafina, Fyodorova, Spiridonova, Sosnitskaya, Bikmurzina, Cheong, Elizarova, Kramarenko, Rodionova   Floor : Elizarova, Mustafina, Paseka, Fydorova, Sosnitskaya, Akhaimova, Spiridonova, Bikmurzina, Kharenkova, Cheong  

I am still waiting for the publication of full results (for some reason the RGF files are missing names, at least when viewed on my IPad) but some of us were awake very early this morning to see Aliya Mustafina confound predictions of her future specialist status, overcome her recent recovery, and win the all around at Russia Cup.  Highlights were her uneven bars routine and a beam where she presented her best combinations with vigour, recording a good mark despite a fall, but she also leads the vault, floor and bars scoring amongst the all arounders eligible for inclusion on the team for Nanning.  (Elizarova scored higher on floor, but is unlikely to be selected as she does not train with the team at Lake Krugloye and has only one strong piece.) Second placed Kharenkova was absolutely outstanding on beam. 1 Aliya Mustafina 14.833/15.4/14.6/14.3 = 59.133 2. Maria Kharenkova  14.1/13.867/16.2/13.667 = 57.834 3  Daria Spiridonova 13.833/15.033/14.233/13.7 = 56.799 4. A...

Veteran Katya Kramarenko is working on an individual programme of training following her hospitalisation with pancreatitis earlier this year . Russian journalist Natalia Kalugina has visited Lake Krugloye in the last few days and has updated her Facebook page with some information on how training is going for the Russia Cup, which takes place later this month.  Unfortunately, it doesn't sound incredibly promising. Ekaterina Kramarenko is still recovering from the serious illness she suffered earlier this year.  There is still a long way to go, judging by Natalia's reaction, but she says that if every gymnast showed as much commitment as Katya, nobody would be able to beat the Russians! Tanya Nabiyeva is at camp, and Natalia had a short chat with her.  Tanya is preparing for the Russia Cup, and was invited to train at Krugloye as the team needed her.  She doesn't know if it was necessarily the right thing, but time will tell.  Tanya is very much enjoying working ...

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...

Veteran Ekaterina Kramarenko will replace Viktoria Komova in Sofia next month Youth Olympic Champion, World and Olympic medallist Viktoria Komova has today personally confirmed that she will miss her much anticipated return to international competition.  Speaking on the Russian gymnastics site at VK.com, Komova says that she sprained her foot in training right after Russian Championships and will travel to Munich at the end of April for an operation.  No other information is available at this time. This is rather troubling news for the Russian team who are already digging deep into their reserves to field a team at this spring's European Championships, following injuries to their stars Ksenia Afanasyeva and Anastasia Grishina, and the retirement of Olympic reserve Tatiana Nabiyeva.  Russia, like Romania, is currently reliant on a team of veteran gymnasts from the London 2012 Olympics and before, and the consequences of the current injury rate is that it increasingly canno...