Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Angelina Melnikova will be the first Russian WAG to compete internationally since the IOC ban in 2022 when she appears at the World Challenge Cup in Paris on September 13 and 14 this year. Travelling with her will be coach Konstantin Pluzhnikov and judge Elena Redyanova.   Angelina says she will compete AA with a relatively simple programme. I’m glad Angelina is making this start for Russia.  It’s a real tribute to this young woman that she is trusted with the first effort at coming back after such a long time, and I hope people welcome her back warmly.  Angelina will be competing as a neutral athlete, of course.  She was awarded this status after a fair and rigorous process of evaluation by the FIG.   Here is what Angelina said today to Match TV: Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics Angelina Melnikova told Match TV how she reacted to being admitted to the FIG World Challenge Cup tournament in France. ❓What emotions did you experience from the fact that you w...

You can read the Examiner article below for details if the FIG’s somewhat disappointing financial performance.  Perhaps you have some ideas how it could be improved?  Live streaming of quals could be one new income stream. In the meantime, my opinion.  Never forget that Russian bank VTB was a sponsor of FIG before the sanctions took hold.    Russia’s withdrawal from the sport has directly reduced income - firstly, no VTB sponsorship; secondly the sport has less entertainment value without the artistic, innovative and technically proficient gymnasts of Russia.  This again affects income levels as reduced spectator interest and the resulting decrease in sponsorship and broadcast revenues. I’m not arguing about the need for sanctions, either way.    Just pointing out that if you cut off the limbs, the body will be affected. https://www.thesportsexaminer.com/gymnastics-fig-2024-financial-report-shows-very-modest-19-million-in-2024-revenue-but-good-res...

According to the Russian Gymnastics Federation via sports.ru.  Google translate. ‘The Russian Gymnastics Federation announces the return of the Russian gymnastics community to the world arena. 🤸Participation of athletes: 🔸Participation in the 2025 Trampoline World Cup stages in Portugal (July 5–6), Germany (September 20–21), Bulgaria (September 27–28), and France (October 3–5) has been confirmed. 🔸Participation of Russian athletes is planned in the Trampoline World Championships (Madrid, November 2–10) and the World Championships (November 10–17). 🔸A preliminary application has been submitted for the participation of Russian athletes in the 2025 Candidates' Cup in artistic gymnastics, which will be held in Paris on September 13–14. The final number of participants will be determined by July 16, 2025. ✍Participation of judges in competitions: 🔹Alina Gusarova and Irina Berek will work as neutral judges at the Tbilisi Cup in rhythmic gymnastics from June 11 to 15, 2025. 🔹RGR Vic...

I don’t understand why Russia would bother to try to register for Worlds,  as they had said they didn’t want individual athletes to take up neutral status.  Russia is effectively banned from competing as a team internationally in all Olympic sports. Via Sports Express, Google translate. ❗Russia has applied to participate in the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships The preliminary application for the World Championships, which will be held in late October in Jakarta (Indonesia), includes 14 neutral athletes, eight men and six girls. A maximum of six men and four girls can be registered from a country for this World Championships. Thus, at least two men and two girls have been registered from Russia, provided that Belarus has used its full quota. However, it is possible that each country has registered four men and three girls. On April 5, representatives of all Russian gymnastics disciplines announced that they were refraining from international competitions due to unjustifi...

 I can share with you the letter dated 30 April.  The image quality is poor, but if you take your time you will be able to read it.   The reason for the review is not only Melnikova's registration as a candidate in Voronezh's regional elections, but also some fundraising events she has taken part in; and a picture of her with a 'Z' symbol, from the early part of the war. It seems that since Russia withdrew its gymnasts from competition - just a few weeks ago - opinions have hardened in favour of the War.  Melnikova has retained her silence, but others in the gymnastics community are speaking out in favour of Russia.   I'll not support these ideas.  But it's very easy for governments to influence their people.  Britain left the European Union on the back of some very questionable campaigning by leading politicians only a few years ago.  Donald Trump's government meetings are a quagmire of sycophantic nonsense as he destroys the world econ...

 ‘I was born and raised in Voronezh, my sports career began here and it was Voronezh that I always represented at international competitions. I am not ending my sports career, but I want to try to contribute to the fate of my hometown not only as an athlete, but also as a citizen.’ Source: Sportrian Gymnast Melnikova runs for Voronezh City Duma Angelina has put forward her candidacy for the United Russia primaries, according to registration data on the official portal of the political party's preliminary voting. The Olympic champion in artistic gymnastics is running as a non-partisan candidate. She is running for the post of deputy of the Voronezh City Duma from the 23rd electoral district. Her job title indicates that she is an athlete-instructor of the Russian national artistic gymnastics team.

In artistic gymnastics, these are Kirill Gashkov and coaches Marina Styazhkina (coach of Zlata Osokina) and Valentin Sukhodolsky (coach of Ilya Zaika). 💬Earlier in an interview with TASS, Valentin Sukhodolsky commented on the situation regarding the denial of admission: "My application for neutral status was considered for more than two months, it was submitted at the beginning of this year," Sukhodolsky said. "The response with the refusal came recently." "This is stupidity," is how the TASS source assessed the reason the FIG found to deny him neutral status. "This is just a photo with the Minister of Sports, who no longer held this post at the time my application was considered. Of course, I did not experience any panic after receiving the refusal. I am glad that my athlete Ilya Zaika has neutral status, which allows him to compete in international competitions." 📝Source www.sport-express.ru/rhythmic-g... tass.ru/sport/2361...

In an interview with Izvestia and SE, Nikita Nagorny shared his expectations for cooperation with the new IOC President Kirsty Coventry, and also commented on Alexander Ovechkin's record in the NHL. ❓How successful is the team tournament format in artistic gymnastics? 💬 Huge spectator interest, all tickets are sold out two or three days in advance. When we held such competitions of the gymnastics premier league last year, the 1,500-seat hall in Moscow was filled to capacity. The fan base, the chants - we have never had such emotions in artistic gymnastics in our country. In 2025, we plan to hold more than 40 competitions within the premier league. By the way, gymnasts who have finished their careers as athletes can also participate in them. For example, I recently saw on social networks that our 1996 Olympic champion Nikolai Kryukov, who ended his career more than 10 years ago, is preparing for such a performance. He was the head coach of the Russian youth team when I got there. A...

 An official announcement, via VK.  Google translate. Official statement of the Russian Gymnastics Federation All Russian athletes representing artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, who received "neutral status", decided to refrain from participating in the upcoming competitions under the auspices of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG). The reason for this decision is the numerous unfounded and biased refusals of the FIG special committee to allow our gymnasts to compete. The Russian Gymnastics Federation respects and shares the position of the athletes. President of the Russian Gymnastics Federation Oleg Belozerov: "I respect the athletes' decision and understand what it is dictated by. At our meeting on March 10, Mr. Watanabe said that "I would like to use all my strength to once again think about the role of sport in this world. Sport should unite and give friendship, it should not be a tool for increasing hatred. The rights of every person must be resp...

From Match TV via VK.com.  Google translate Russian gymnast Daniil Marinov said on Match TV that he felt the willingness of the President of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Morinari Watanabe to return Russian athletes to international competitions. On Monday, Watanabe is in Novogorsk with members of the Russian national artistic and rhythmic gymnastics teams. The head of FIG is also a candidate for the post of President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 📅 We talked about the prospects for 2028, about the Olympics. What are the chances of Russia competing in them as its own country and power without any neutral flags. To which he replied that this will happen when everything calms down. It will happen without any problems. Unfortunately, there are no specifics. ⛔At the meeting with Watanabe, the conversation was about neutral statuses and how to obtain them, about refusals. Why, for example, was our star Vika Listunova refused. She was refused because of a...

Sport is the low hanging fruit of world politics. The IOC ban on Russian athletes has kept Russian soft influence to a minimum over past years. I understand the emotion.    For example, how could Nagorny (a Russian World and Olympic champion) compete alongside Ukrainian rivals when he has openly endorsed the war, and even encouraged his Russian team mates to join up and take part in the military action? In this video  FIG President Watanabe is welcomed to Round Lake, Russia’s national training centre for gymnastics, by Russian head coach Andrei Rodionenko and the aforementioned Nikita Nagorny.    Rodionenko is a long-serving member of the international gymnastics community.    He has been head coach of Soviet, Australian, Canadian and, now, the Russian teams. Watanabe is campaigning for votes in his quest to be voted IOC President.    That’s like the Prime Minister of the UK putting himself forward as Head of NATO - it’s a big step.  ...

First of all, the gymnasts are continuing to work on their applications to compete as neutral individuals in FIG competitions.  I know for sure that the applications will include Viktoria Listunova and Angelina Melnikova. Please bear in mind that Russia still won't be competing as a team.  There will be limits on the numbers of gymnasts they can send to each competition, but I don't know how this will be decided or how the qualifications to Worlds will work.  Or if qualified individual gymnasts will even be allowed to go to the Olympics.  Will the gymnasts take their own personal coaches with them, or will the national coaches accompany them?  It's all a mystery. The national team rosters for 2025 have been published and not much has changed. The list of coaches seems almost identical.  Head coaches are still the Rodionenkos, Alfosov remains as head of the men's team and Bulgakova is still looking after the women.  Mustafina has kept her job as head of...

Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition.  This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists.  The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals.  Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes. This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts.  Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things.  In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good e...

Translated from R Sport.  What the President says about relations with the FIG and IOC is echoed by Nagorny in another short interview.  Nagorny wants there to be international competitions with Russian gymnasts - but this doesn’t account for the sanctions.  Given his work as a TV/online producer he may be looking for a form of cultural exchange that sidesteps the usual structures.  But I wouldn’t bet on it happening … Now read on, via Rsport: Oleg Belozerov, head of Russian Railways, who was elected president of the Russian Gymnastics Federation, said that the unification of gymnastics federations of countries was the most important element for direct interaction with the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). 🙏"I would like to thank all the participants of today's conference for electing me president of the Russian Gymnastics Federation: the Ministry of Sports, the Russian Olympic Committee, and delegates. The most...

I’m supposed to be taking some time for my mental health, not writing blog posts about gymnastics.   It’s not only my mental health, but that of the whole gymnastics and sporting community.  You, my readers, know that the Court for the Arbitration of Sport has reassigned the bronze medal in the FX event at the Olympics.  We finally have the right finishing order, but the FIG is at huge fault here.  The appeals system went wrong in both its substance and its process, and before that the judges had failed, giving us inaccurate marks and unfair finishing orders.   The gymnasts, Jordan Chiles and Ana Barbosu, are suffering and instead of unbounded joy and pride they feel humiliation and confusion and embarrassment.  That the judges couldn’t get the medals in the right order first time (and that there’s still one out there, Sabrina Voinea, whose question is left unresolved) is the biggest pair of oversized pants since the last time the FIG messed up.   That...

The FIG managed to do it again and set us all off talking about the scoring and how dreadful it was, rather than the performances and how brilliant they were. I personally loved that Alice d’Amato won beam with the best executed routine.    I think that the sport undervalues good execution in general, and this was a moment when the judges got it right. It’s a pity that there weren’t fewer falls overall in this final, but it’s the nature of the beam that people fall from it, and the major good thing today was that the champion was the one who stayed on the beam.   I’m an oldie.    I used to love the hushed silence in the audience that fell as the best gymnasts were performing.    The first time I experienced this in person was in the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam, at the 1987 Worlds, when Silivas stepped up to the uneven bars.    It reminded me of Korbut in Munich, and Comaneci in Montreal.    It didn’t happen all that often, but it...

Liubov Andrianova in 2016 Liubov Andrianova and Dmitri Andreev, members of the FIG Technical Committees for men’s and women’s gymnastics, travel today to Paris to participate in the Olympic Games. Liubov Andrianova competed under her maiden name of Burda in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics and has been one of the leading FIG judges for decades.  Her son with 1976 Olympic Champion, Nikolai Andrianov (RIP), Sergei, is a senior coach on the Russian senior team, specialising in bars. 1980 Olympic champion for the USSR, Elena Davydova, will also be judging for Canada at these Olympics.   Russians still sit on various committees of the FIG across the various sports that make up gymnastics.  President of the RGF, Vasily Titov, sits on the Executive Board as a senior member of the FIG.  Andrianova and Andreev will contribute their huge technical knowledge to the  gymnastics at these Games, and will scrutinise the progress of the sport. Lists of the full membership of the vari...

 

The Russian team for BRICS - a young team for the women, in particular.  There are full teams of six, then four gymnasts who will compete ‘out of competition’, as display gymnasts.   Men's team: Belyavskiy David Dalaloyan Artur Marinov Daniel Nagorny Nikita Naydin Sergey Polyashov Vladislav 📌 Out of competition: Zaika Ilya Prokopyev Kirill Sedin Saveliy Usachev Alexey 🤸🏻‍♀️ Women's team: Agafonova Maria Melnikova Angelina Vasilieva Leila Gerasimova Elena Kalmykova Anna Roshchina Lyudmila 📌 Out of competition: Andreeva Ekaterina Glotova Alena Listunova Victoria Shapovalova Kristina Gymnasts from Malaysia, Belarus, Mongolia, Serbia, Syria, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Türkiye, Tunisia, South Ossetia, Armenia, Ethiopia, India and Kazakhstan will also be on the roster. If you read Russian, this is a list of the coaches travelling to Kazan.  The competition will begin on the 13th (Thursday next week) with AA and EF.  I wonder who will win the medals?  

Google translate, unedited but full of interest! Daniel Marinov: "Not to participate in the Olympics under a neutral flag is the federation's decision" Two-time Russian champion in artistic gymnastics Daniil Marinov is one of the most talented gymnasts in the country. The 19-year-old athlete will take part in the BRICS Games in Kazan. In an interview with TI-Sport, Daniel shared his opinion on international competitions, talked about plans to participate in the Olympics, his attitude to doping and much more.  "The BRICS Games are a landmark event not only for Tatarstan, but for all of Russia" Daniel, you are participating in the BRICS Games, and this will be your first experience of competing at the international level. Tell us about your feelings... I am looking forward to these competitions. This is a very landmark event not only for Tatarstan, but for all of Russia. However, the composition and the final number of participants are still unknown. I really hope...