Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Maria Filatova has a residence permit for Russia.  Hope is she will be granted her full Russian nationality soon :-) It is the best news for the New Year so far - sending all our love to Maria. http://sibdepo.ru/news/132768-kuzbasskaya-gimnastka-mariya-filatova-poluchila-vid-na-zhitelstvo.html

Photo source : http://www.tomtheobald.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=330 I came across this journal article by joint World Champion 1985, Oksana Omelianchik.  Oksana is a senior judge at major FIG competitions under her married name of Oksana Omelianchik-Ziurkalova. She analyses eight floor routines of the Ukrainian women gymnasts, and draws conclusions regarding the composition of floor routines, and the importance of choreography in floor exercise. I like her review of the importance of choreography to the sport: 'In choreographic training of female gymnasts aesthetic, physical and educational tasks are solved. Aesthetic tasks mean cultivation of musical sense and horizon, training of movement under music; physical – mean development of coordination, flexibility, plasticity, expressiveness and accuracy of movements; educational tasks mean psychological relaxation, cultivation of ability to feel, think, remember and estimate culture of movements [3, 4, 10]. Cho...

Aliya says she is mending her back, for now. http://youtu.be/6VeYU0ewMqY Via The All Around on Facebook.

An interview with the most decorated Olympic Champion of all time,  Larissa Latynina, by Dmitry Efanov and Alexander Lyubimov for 'Kultura'. Nine time Olympic champion gymnast Larissa Latynina will be 80 years old on the 27th December.  A few days before her birthday, the legend of world sport answered some questions. Kultura: Birthday, New Year's Eve - don't you get fed up of cooking? Latynina: I love the holidays - it's a joy to communicate with loved ones. My priority is to see my daughter. Kultura: Which New Year has been the most memorable? Latynina: Probably 1957.  Returning from the Olympic Games in Melbourne.  I arrived into Vladivostock on New Year's Eve, then travelled by train to Moscow. Everywhere we went people were happy and congratulated us on our successful performance at the Olympics. They gave us gifts, and decorated Christmas trees.  Everyone was young, cheerful. With great pleasure I remember this trip. Kultura: Yo...

Trenenr: Mustafina was treated in Germany and returned to Moscow 12/20/2014 © RIA Novosti. Grigory Sysoev MOSCOW, December 20 - R-Sport, Maria Vorobyov. Olympic gymnastics champion in artistic gymnastics Aliya Mustafina returned to Moscow from Germany, where sportswoman went in early December for a course of treatment for a back injury, the agency "F-Sport" senior coach of Russia Valentina Rodionenko. After the World Cup in 2014, where Mustafina won three bronze medals, gymnasts will perform at the World Cup and the prestigious all-around discipline became only the fifth. Rodionenko explained this decline aggravation of back injury. "Alia tonight returned to Moscow from Germany. Finally, doctors at the clinic in Munich managed to find the cause of her pain tormented. Dread nothing, but there is a problem superimposed on one another - and kidneys, and other ailments were. In other words - a chronic inflammatory process constantly giving pain "- said Rodionenko by pho...

http://itar-tass.com/sport/1655757

Sergei Starkin, then coach to Denis Ablyazin and now coach to both Denis and Aliya Mustafina, at the 2012 Olympics.  Courtesy of the RGF The latest news, that Aliya Mustafina now has a personal coach - not just a personal coach, one of Russia's best coaches, Sergei Starkin - was only released yesterday.  Since then we have heard from Vladimir Zaglada on the implications of this change - and now Sergei Starkin himself has spoken to Natalia Kalugina.  The following English language summary of the article is as close as I can get to the original, though please be aware that I will have to paraphrase where the translation isn't clear; this is not a word for word translation. Back in early December, when Aliya Mustafina turned to Sergei Starkin and asked him to work with her, there was talk about why a men's coach should work in the women's sport.   This is despite the fact that Starkin began his professional life as a women's coach.  His best known...