Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

You've been competing internationally for over 30 years. How has gymnastics changed over that time? Is there anything about your sport that has remained the same for decades? First of all, the age has changed. More mature athletes are competing now, which makes me happy. Secondly, the apparatuses. They've become more comfortable and sophisticated. Gymnastics in general has become more challenging, but in my youth, people performed mostly the same elements as they do now. Back then, this was par for the course, but now it surprises many. It's a bit amusing. Has the nature of the training itself changed? For me personally, absolutely. Now, my life isn't just about my athletic career. I'm involved with the Oksana Chusovitina Academy, which was personally opened by the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. It has 155 students, both girls and boys. I used to train three times a day, but now I train once. The entire afternoon is taken up with the academy and organi...

I certainly wasn't the only one who observed events in Rio yesterday.  And what a sad day, to see Romania fall out of contention for a team place in the Rio Olympics, so suddenly and so brutally after months of anticipation.  Although the team's performance was consistent with their result at the Glasgow World Championships, it was especially hard to hear how they fell at the very first hurdle, to read of the failures on bars, for so long a bugbear of the Romanian system.  After that, the team spirit was set and it was always going to be hard to lift them to more winning ways.   Romania's fate really echoes so much that has happened to Russia in recent years: an over reliance on a handful of star performers, many of them now injured and veteran; juniors difficult to transition to senior level responsibility; distinct technical weaknesses on one or two apparatus; and, for the Romanians especially, a volatile internal political situation resulting in frequent staffing ...

I hadn't seen this fascinating documentary before last week.  It provides some great history on the heritage of the sport.  In German, with English subtitles. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

The videos you have been able to see in the previous posts come from a Youtube channel entitled Fizicultura . In addition to the videos embedded on the pages of this blog, you can find the following; they are a fascinating document of the Soviet Union's training regime and show familiar gymnasts in a relatively unfamiliar role. Basic women's gymnastics, 1990 Featuring Svetlana Baitova, Svetlana Kozlova, Irina Viatinina, Elena Abrashitova, Tatiana Gutsu, Oksana Chusovitina, Tatiana Lyssenko, Tatiana Ignatova and Tatiana Toropova. Men's all around, compulsory programme, 1989 Video features Valeri Belenkyi, Dmitri Vorobaev, Valentin Mogilnyi Consultant video editors, Nikolai Andrianov and Alexander Alexandrov Compulsory programme (men) for the 1980 Olympic Games  Compulsory programme for Candidate Master of Sport, (women and men) 1981 Features Tatiana Frolova, Elena Polevaya, Tatiana Arzhannikova, Pavel Sut, Vladimir Artemov, Stanislav Sitnik, Artur Ako...

Albert at the All Around Forum posted a link to these two videos, produced by Soviet sports committee Goskomsport in 1990. This was at the very cusp of the breakdown of the Soviet Union and represents perhaps a final record of their sporting educational legacy. Top gymnasts demonstrate basic skills, and we are reminded why the Soviet Union is considered to be a leader in technical excellence twenty years after its last appearance at major competition. The videos are punctuated by character shots of major national championships, and some performances of the then current (1989) USSR All Around Champion Natalia Laschenova, whose complex skills such as the full twisting double somersault dismount from beam appear both powerful and faultless (the take up and twist in the first somersault is almost in the straight position - I think this is the best I have seen the skill performed). The Youtube videos are annotated with the names of the gymnasts appearing, but for the sake of keeping the...