Aliya Mustafina features on some recent soft publicity for the Sochi Olympics from a Russian social media site I'm trying to write an abstract for submission to a conference about tourism. Having studied both tourism and gymnastics for quite some years now, and being well practiced in writing short posts for this blog, one might imagine that this would come easily to me. Far from it. I seem to have a mental block about my academic writing at present, and writing to anyone else's prescription and timeframe than my own tends inevitably to send my brain into constipated mode. Never mind that I am tired and out of mental breath after a long term's teaching so far, and need a few free days to go to the gym, unwind and play Candy Crush. In desperation, I have decided to write a blog post about writing an abstract, to try to get my brain cogs working and hopefully gather together some strands for the abstract. Talking to you, reader, is far easier than writin...
Reporting and analysing Russian gymnastics since 2010. Includes original and exclusive interviews with leading coaches and gymnasts, and historical issues dating back to the Soviet Union. The first blog to report extensively on the sport using Russian language sources. I read, I argue, and I have opinions. Be warned.