Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Viktoria Komova, watched by podium coach Maria Nazarova yesterday Artistic gymnastics is all about amplitude, flight, grace and elegance, expression.  The way the gymnast leaps and somersaults and twists in the air, performing acts of incredible strength and skill but making them look like effortless works of art. The way the gymnast pauses mid-air and makes complex movements with, apparently, all the time in the world.  Let's call it virtuosity.  In the North Greenwich arena, yesterday afternoon, spectators were treated to a brilliant exposition on the sport of gymnastics by a team of feisty young Russians who have come to London determined to make their mark in the history of the sport.  It is twenty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, whose gymnastics legacy they embrace. The sport has since moved on, and is now principally the domain of bouncy, synthetically smiling teenagers who bow down only to the sport's Code of Points and their coaches' inst...