Skip to main content

Photos - awards ceremony, Lake Krugloye, 11 February

A selection of lovely pictures appears on the Russian Federation's website, recording an awards ceremony during which head coaches of the women's and men's teams, Alexander Alexandrov and Valeryi Alfosov, handed out medals to their gymnasts and coaches, including juniors.  A commentary notes that coaches are often better at evaluating the success of their gymnasts than judges.  The medals were given out in recognition of the success of the Russian teams in the last year.  Apparently missing from the gymnasts honoured were Ekaterina Kurbatova and Anna Myzdrikova - although this may just be an unintended slip of the camera.

Or perhaps the girls were staying warm, tucked up in bed somewhere.  This must be a welcome distraction for the teams during what is a very cold snap indeed, even by Moscow standards - it must be hard to keep your spirits up when it's below -20 outside.  Tanya Nabieva looks taller than ever in these pictures, and Mustafina, bundled up in a bright red tracksuit with scarf, with her fine, curlicue features and scraped back hair, resembles a Tatar princess more each time I see her.  Judging by the smiles, it seemed to be an event that everyone enjoyed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Tatyana Nabiyeva on work and love in China

Some highlights from a long interview with 2010 World champion Tatyana Nabiyeva.  Source: Russian team page on VK.com.  Translation - Google translate A big interview with Tatyana Nabieva about the peculiarities of work and life in China, the bright years of her sports career, a little about modern gymnastics and about love. On the Nabiyeva flight — At the same championship, you presented a new element on the bars, which was later added to the rules with your last name (flying over the top bar with a straight body, difficulty group F. — Sport24). How did you come up with the idea to try something new? — Actually, it happened spontaneously, I think. We worked with Vera Iosifovna [Kiryashova] on the purity of the elements on the bars, sometimes I didn’t fly all the way to the Shaposhnikova element. Once I didn’t fly all the way to the bars either and stood on my feet between the bars, bending my legs in flight for safety. Then Vera Iosifovna said that this was a different eleme...

Men's team results : Russian national championships

Full results are available here . In summary, 1    Moscow    (Olennikov, Garibov, Gogotov, Bondar, Stolyarov, Ablyazin)    261.55 2    Siberia       (Devyatovski, Pakhomenko, Ignatiev, Cherkasov, Golutsotskov  259.85 3   Central       (Barkalov, Nyudakin, Markelov, Perevoznikov, Bondar, Ignatenkov   255.00 Interesting - Mikhail Bondar appears to have competed for two teams simultaneously here - Moscow and Central - not sure how this works but quite pleased with myself for noticing it ;-)  Only his high bar score counted for the Central team.  One of the wonderful mysteries of Russian gymnastics.  Hopefully we'll have the women's team results later.  And perhaps I'll discover something even more wondrously mysterious there.  Who knows. 

The State of Gymnastics - 'Soviet' or 'American' style?

Lioudmilla Tourischeva, 1972 Olympic All Around champion in artistic gymnastics, was held up as an example of the ideal Soviet citizen.  Here she coaches one of the Soviet Union's leading gymnasts from the 1980 Olympics, Natalia Shaposhnikova The Soviet Union had a genius for lifting sport beyond the textbook, injecting the aesthetic where previously only goals had been in plain view.   This was not only manifest in gymnastics.  Do you remember the ‘Russian Five’, the players who elevated ice hockey to a creative sporting display, mesmerising their opponents and spectators with intricate patterns of play, so rhythmic and entertaining that they could have been set to music?   In gymnastics, a sport where the aesthetic counted as much as the outcome, it was this ability to create spectacle out of competition that resulted in the most extraordinary athletic performances.  The ‘Golden Era’, most commonly understood to cover the years from 1952-1...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more