Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Presidium of the Russian Gymnastics Federation 🇷🇺 Artistic gymnastics: Vasily Titov (First Vice President), Nikita Nagorny (Vice President), Andrey Rodionenko, Dmitry Andreev, Alexander Klochkov, Anton Krapivin. Rhythmic gymnastics: Anastasia Tatareva (Vice President), Olga Kapranova (Vice President), Yana Lukonina, Victoria Anikina, Raisa Terekhova and Dmitry Golovin. Trampoline jumping: Nikolay Makarov (Vice President), Vladislav Skakun, Irina Karavaeva, Anatoly Kovarsky, Alexey Ryzhkov and Elena Fedorenchik. Sports aerobics: Vladislav Oskner (Vice President), Svetlana Perevalova and Svetlana Lukina. Sports acrobatics: Irina Nikitina (vice-president), Teimuraz Gurgenidze and Dmitry Vinnikov. ❗Oleg Belozerov, the president of the Russian Gymnastics Federation elected on October 1, is also a member of the presidium.

Some major shifts in the way gymnastics is being managed in Russia, and in the personnel.  Irina Viner has resigned as President of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. A decision has been made to merge the RGF, the Russian Trampoline Federation, the Russian Sports Acrobatics Federation, the All-Russian Federation of Sports Aerobics, and the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation into a single RGF. The new President of the RGF will be Oleg Belozyorev, CEO and Chairman of the Board of JSC Russian Railways.  He was the only candidate standing at the election.   Nikita Nagorny has been made Vice President.  He says: ‘I have the honor of becoming the vice-president of the Federation and being responsible for the direction of artistic gymnastics in our country!’ Nagorny says he won’t retire from competition for the time being, despite announcements from Valentina Rodionenko to the contrary.   I’m unsure what the implications are, but both Nagorny and Belozyorev have been sanction

I’ve reached a time in my life when it’s more important to watch the birds and listen to my nephews and nieces laughing than it is to write about Russian gymnastics.  I  have a couple of ‘wrap ups’ in the pipeline but that’s all, folks. The Olympics just aren’t the Olympics without the Russians, at least for me.  I wish Russia would put their energy into great sport instead of military endeavours.  I’m no fan of the IOC and the Russian gymnasts did a lot of good for peace and friendship over about 70 years.  But Russia’s leaders are letting their people down.   I’ll continue to walk alongside Angelina Melnikova and will post occasional updates of her work and life on my RRG Facebook page.  She is remarkable.   I hope that Russia’s young gymnasts can find a way to continue what is essentially their livelihood, if necessary by moving overseas.  It would be great if some of them could study abroad. I’m unfollowing Nagorny.  He walked with a swagger round the competition hall at Russia Cup

I’m supposed to be taking some time for my mental health, not writing blog posts about gymnastics.   It’s not only my mental health, but that of the whole gymnastics and sporting community.  You, my readers, know that the Court for the Arbitration of Sport has reassigned the bronze medal in the FX event at the Olympics.  We finally have the right finishing order, but the FIG is at huge fault here.  The appeals system went wrong in both its substance and its process, and before that the judges had failed, giving us inaccurate marks and unfair finishing orders.   The gymnasts, Jordan Chiles and Ana Barbosu, are suffering and instead of unbounded joy and pride they feel humiliation and confusion and embarrassment.  That the judges couldn’t get the medals in the right order first time (and that there’s still one out there, Sabrina Voinea, whose question is left unresolved) is the biggest pair of oversized pants since the last time the FIG messed up.   That coaches only have a minute to lod

  Almost ten years ago RRG covered a story about a story of doping of Soviet gymnasts in 1968.     For some reason, that story is receiving a lot of hits on my site at present, and I don’t know why.  So a word of caution. The RRG story is a story within a story - a story of how stories can become distorted in the telling.  It centres on an article that had appeared in The Observer in November 2015.  The article had been talking about sports doping in general, and used pregnancy doping as an example, presenting allegations as truth. Pregnancy doping would be a vile abuse of a woman’s trust, more abuse than doping, and subject to the same rules of reporting as apply to abuse everywhere.    You don’t name victims of abuse unless they have spoken out themselves, and you shouldn’t pursue or doorstep an alleged victim of abuse for journalistic purposes.   The whole social context is difficult - contraception was poor quality in 1960s Soviet Union, and attitudes to women’s health were less th

The FIG managed to do it again and set us all off talking about the scoring and how dreadful it was, rather than the performances and how brilliant they were. I personally loved that Alice d’Amato won beam with the best executed routine.    I think that the sport undervalues good execution in general, and this was a moment when the judges got it right. It’s a pity that there weren’t fewer falls overall in this final, but it’s the nature of the beam that people fall from it, and the major good thing today was that the champion was the one who stayed on the beam.   I’m an oldie.    I used to love the hushed silence in the audience that fell as the best gymnasts were performing.    The first time I experienced this in person was in the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam, at the 1987 Worlds, when Silivas stepped up to the uneven bars.    It reminded me of Korbut in Munich, and Comaneci in Montreal.    It didn’t happen all that often, but it was a sign of respect. We certainly weren’t used to rival