Skip to main content

Tanya Nabieva - World Champion, and so much more

By
Click to play this Smilebox slideshow
Create your own slideshow - Powered by Smilebox
Photo slideshow created with Smilebox

17 year old Tanya Nabieva has been a gymnastics champion for many, many years, always enthusing her friends and audience with that special brand of cheeky determination and flighty innovation that could only be hers.

Tanya is a fearsome competitor and an excellent gymnast - her gold medal from the 2010 World Championships in Rotterdam, and her silver medal on bars at last year's Tokyo World Championships, were her highest honours, but she also contributed to the team's success at the Europeans in Birmingham in 2010 and won many, many medals at national and junior international level. She has always been so much more than a gymnast - full of joy and sadness, all of it always expressed so clearly. And such a good, generous friend to her team mates, especially Aliya, with whom she shares a special bond.

A painful back has troubled Tanya since her earliest days as a senior. Her Olympic preparations were disturbed by this and, most recently, by a leg injury incurred in the very last few days before team selection. Unable to train at her usual intensity, Tanya could not regain the level of difficulty for which she had become so renowned. She has been selected as a reserve but most likely will not compete in London. The most recent pictures of her show her in a reserved but contemplative mood. Tanya must have known her chances were limited, but it can't be easy to train for an event all your life, only to miss out by the tiniest margin.

The Smilebox is my way of wishing Tanya best of luck for whatever she chooses in the future - whether to continue training and support her team next year, or to concentrate on her studies at the Lesgaft Institute, or do something completely different. It is pure sentiment.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous15 July 2012 at 16:14

    Aww that was such a touching slideshow :-) Love that photo with Aliya and they're both doing peace signs. So cheeky! Wishing Nabsy all the best for her future!

    ReplyDelete
  2. M15 July 2012 at 21:28

    Really nice montage. Nabs gymnastics might be messy at times, but she had an interesting personality. I didn't know she was studying at University now. That's great for her.How am I the last to know these things? lol

    Wishing her the best in whatever she does.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nelli Kim - 'Russian gymnastics has closed in on itself' - Lupita translates

By
Lupita has translated this ITAR-TASS interview with Nelli Kim.  It's controversial, to say the least. Ed's note : much of the initial response to this interview - both here and in the wider gymternet -  has focussed on the detail of Kim's words and especially her comments about Viktoria Komova, and smiling.  But I think these have to be taken in context, and not too literally. Don't forget that just a day ago Andrei Rodionenko complained bitterly about the judging in Antwerp, calling Kim's behaviour 'aggressive'. Kim is responding to this here, and to the wider current context of Russian gymnastics.  What she is essentially saying to the Russian coach is 'get your own house in order, produce confident, disciplined, well trained gymnasts - stop complaining, do your job, and I will do mine.'   She goes about saying this in a somewhat long winded way and says some things along the way that seem contradictory, unfair, inappropriate even for th...
30 comments
Read more

Aliya Mustafina - 'I'm just trying to stay healthy'

By
A brief interview with the World and Olympic Champion from All Sport is summarised below. Russian national gymnastics continues to prepare for the World Championships, which will be held October 3-12 in Nanning (China). Olympic champion Aliya Mustafina told Mary Staroverova about her health and about preparations for the competition. - In June, I went to Germany to solve the problem with my ankle.  I had a small operation to clean the joints of a build-up of bone particles.  Nothing serious was evident, and the operation went well.  Now I have to tumble.  But there is still some discomfort, a slight pain at full load, and I can not tumble at full force.  For the time being, I try to go easy on my legs.  After the Russia Cup I will have to fully prepare for Worlds. That is just one month.   Even if I'm not tumbling, I will keep myself in good shape, and that should suffice (smiles). - I can't say if it is a different pain to before Europeans, because at...
48 comments
Read more

‘My daughter likes gymnastics. For us, this is the big success’. Aliya Mustafina talks to Match TV

By
Via VK.com.  Google translate A big interview with Aliya Mustafina was published on MATCH!. We provide a small excerpt below, and the full version is available on the website at the link below  ❓ Aliya, you are now the head coach of the junior artistic gymnastics team. What does your typical day look like? 💜 My current life is similar to what it was when I was competing. In the morning, I have breakfast and go to work by 9:00, we train for four hours, have lunch, rest and train for another three hours. During the training camp, the athletes live at the base. They live and train on the same territory. ❓ Do you manage the gymnasts' personal trainers or do you evenly distribute the responsibilities? 💜 We work in contact with the personal trainers, I listen to their opinions. For example, if the trainer believes that their athlete needs to be given a little rest or do fewer repetitions of a particular exercise, we do so. ❓ Describe the current generation of children. Do they nee...
2 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more