From April 9th to 12th, the final stage of the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup was held in Croatia. Over the five stages, neutral athletes won 22 medals, nine of which were gold. Dmitry Andreev, head coach of the national artistic gymnastics team, summarized the first half of the international season. With thanks to the RGF — How would you rate the gymnasts' performance at the World Cup? — We didn't aim to qualify for the World Championships through these tournaments—the main selection will take place at the European Championships. However, each athlete had their own goals. First and foremost, this is about regaining competitive experience on the international stage. The team lacked it: some athletes haven't competed abroad for a long time, and a new generation has emerged that needs to be introduced to international competitions now. It was important to review the competition programs, identify weaknesses in routines, and make adjustments before the European and World Cha...
This is the first of a piece about Russia in general, that I'll be trying to improve and complete over the coming year. Please bear with me and leave me comments! I want to try to put Gymnastics into context with its past, and with everything that has happened in the past ten years. It seems to me that things are changing fast. Russia has the largest single landmass of any country in the world, spanning Europe to the Far East, from way up north towards the Arctic and the Barents Sea, down to the border with Georgia in the south. The country shares land borders with seventeen other nations from Norway to Japan, China and Korea; it shares maritime borders with countries including the USA and Alaska. Russia's population is very diverse - see the table below. Over 80% of the population have Russian as their first language, but it's likely that many will have a second language that they speak at home. It's a declining population, and desp...