Admittedly, this video of Russia’s junior gymnasts - the boys - has been edited to show the very best of the best. Two things especially moved me. 1. When the gymnast on high bar speaks of performing the Tkachev. Alexander Tkachev is an Olympic Champion (1980) ànd was the first gymnast to perform the Tkachev somersault on high bar, at the World Championships in 1978. Alexander still coaches gymnastics ànd he lives and works in the USA. He has a Facebook account. He’s a legend ànd his name is still spoken in Russian gymnasia and around the world. The skill he initiated still takes your breath away every time you see it performed. 2. The boy performing on pommel horse who lifts his right arm during his circling. It’s the ultimate show of style on this difficult apparatus, as far as I am concerned. He is copying it from David Belyavski, ànd Belyavski copied it from Valentin Mogilnyi (RIP). There’s a third thing I want to add. Mogilnyi was ...
I began Rewriting Russian Gymnastics in 2010, 16 years ago. I wanted to write for publication. After about a decade of writing in my professional capacity as a University lecturer about museums management, I needed a break and the subject of gymnastics had always fascinated me, without fail. Gymnastics in Russia had been a lifelong interest for me and I had been writing on various forums for years - Gymworld and IG forums were my favourites. The discussion and debate was quite fierce. So I decided to try my hand at blogging, and to see if I could create something meaningful that went beyond the usual arguments about Khorkina's scores and Ferrari's leotards. The development of our collective understanding of the world of gymnastics since that time has gone hand in hand with the development of the internet and in particular social media. In respect of social media, we seem to have come full circle since the 1960s, but more about that later in another po...