Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

It was an amazing moment.  Sadly my camera work, never the best, suffered under the strain of emotion.  I was hoping for bronze and never expected silver.  Belyavski was the real captain of this team, his desire to win so evident throughout, Nagorny its beating heart, Stretovich the cool head.  Kuksenkov and Ablyazin the engine and accelerator. The pictures are poor, taken in a hurry on my iPad.  But they capture the true passion of the moment.  Molodyets, boys. Men's gymnastics is the best sport in the world.  And Russia, with a little more work on high bar, and more precision on floor, could soon be the best gymnasts in the world.

See https://live.fig-gymnastics.com/schedule.php?idevent=6405 for the full information The leaders in the main events in Olympic order are USA, Biles, Biles, Kocian, Biles, Biles.  American gymnasts fill the first three spots AA, the first spot on vault, two of the top three on bars, and the top two in beam and floor respectively.  The Soviet Union was never as dominant as this - nor was the scoring as inflated.  Like the USSR, America deserves its success in general, but the bars scoring in particular has raised some eyebrows.  I am reminded of the 1972 Olympics when the Soviet Union took almost all the gold - but then again in one, bars, the winner was East Germany's Karin Janz.  Even in those days a slight sense of reality pervaded the scoring. Still though, USA's dominance is unquestionable.  Biles' vaulting and tumbling took my breath away.  America has found its style of gymnastics victory and made it the style of gymnastics globally.  ...

Moments after qualifying for the team, AA and UB finals, Aliya gave a short interview to Elena Vaitsekhovskaya for Sports Express.  The accompanying pictures tell as much as the words. Asked about her fall from beam, Aliya said, 'I have forgotten about it already.  There is no point in remembering it.' 'It was very hard waiting for the competition to begin; I could only just bear it.  Every morning, I wake up with the same thought, wanting it all to be over as quickly as possible,' said Aliya. Asked about her bars performance, where she scored the highest of all to date, Aliya said, 'Can I tell you a secret?  It was me who did it!'      Team captain, consoling a disappointed Angelina Melnikova     The life of a champion is essentially a solitary one, when it comes to the hard moments of competition.     Seda Tutkhalyan is the top Russian qualifier in the AA Source - Sports Express.ru

Although they have tested my sanity to its limits, team Russia is OK.  Seda and Aliya will have qualified to AA finals, Daria and Aliya to UB, Maria to vault.  I assume they have qualified to team finals.  They'll do better in finals now they have outed their natural, deeply held Russian need to test their emotional limits.  Seda, 'Little Tiger' to her family, showed her value as a fighter, finishing first so far in the AA standings.  The Olympics are her metier, and mistakes or not, she will only grow stronger.  Then again, we are less than halfway through quals. Angelina has had a hard day today, but she will finish these Games a better gymnast than she started, believe me.  Support the girls and remember they are only human.  They are also, quite remarkably, less than a point behind the leading Chinese team - who have been loudly touted as possible contenders for gold.  I don't expect that Russia will fight the USA for gold on Tuesday, but...

For the sake of comprehensiveness, here are the scores from yesterday -  Team http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/komanda.pdf AA - http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mnogobor-e.pdf Congratulations to all the gymnasts. And good luck in the final! More stunning photographs by Oleg Naumov for the RGF can be found at RRG's Facebook page.

The Russian women step forward today to begin the defence of their team silver medal from the last Olympics, and to try to qualify to as many finals as possible. I am not going to try to second guess the BBC's online, red button and other coverage today - it seems we just have to scrabble to find out where the best coverage is.  The BBC is giving us wall to wall coverage of what matters, the action, and we are very lucky to have them even if it does annoy tidy-minded old me that there is no trustworthy definitive guide to what, where and when.  We'll manage.  The root guide is here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live-guide. After that, it is a question of channel hopping.  Everything will be online if not on the TV. Start lists are here -  http://sportgymrus.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Startlist-s1-zhenshhiny-.pdf  or you can visit RRG's Facebook page to view them. Here are the lists of the subdivisions, and starting orders -  Rio start times for ...

The Queen - Aliya Mustafina Age - 21 Trains - CSKA Moscow/National Training Centre (Lake Krugloye) Coach - Sergei Starkin/Raisa Ganina/Evgeny Grebyonkin Titles - Strengths - allure, charm, a mystical ability to pull the rabbit out of the top hat at exactly the right moment Aliya Mustafina's reputation as a lucky gymnast is earned more than gifted.  The daughter of an Olympic bronze medal-winning wrestler is fabled for her intimidating, gimlet, game face.  But Mustafina's success is more about application and dedication than luck.  Since overcoming a career-threatening knee injury in 2011 to win gold in 2012, the gymnast has refined her turns on beam and floor