Skip to main content

Elena Shevchenko and Viktor Razumovsky

Image
By
Elena Shevchenko with 1985 World Champion all around, Oksana Omelianchik.  Picture courtesy Tom Theobald

I read somewhere recently that Moscow's Viktor Razumovsky is now coaching 2012 Olympian Anastasia Grishina ... interesting.  Razumovsky was a leading Soviet personal coach during the 1980s, bringing through such talent as 1988 Olympian Elena Shevchenko, 1987 World Championships team member Elena Gurova, and Soviet international Olga Chudina.  He also had a hand in coaching 1981 World Champion Olga Bicherova.  All renowned for the elegance and spontaneity of their floor work in particular.

It reminded me of the 1988 Olympics, when the Soviet team performed in red, won by a significant margin, and were led off by the placid yet dynamic Shevchenko. I like what Larissa Petrik has to say about her in this interview from GymnForum:

"Elena Shevchenko is my favorite gymnast ... We are similar in spirit, in style and ... in the colour of our hair.  When she goes out onto the floor, Elena very quickly gets the feel of the situation and in her performance she just slightly plays and flirts with the audience.  One senses a femininity in her that is as yet unaware of itself.
"My favorite elements of Shevchenko's program are the floor exercises and the vault.  As we say, Elena uses contrast.  She begins a combination softly, flexibly and then suddenly explodes, unexpectedly transforming the rhythmic pattern.  Elena's feel for rhythm, which very rarely lets her down, helps her achieve tremendous emotional expressiveness."
 Enjoy the video from Olegushko.



And I thought it would be worth linking to this video of Larissa Petrik, on beam at the 1968 Olympics - she is a wonderfully fluid gymnast. I so miss the rhythm and line of a truly balanced and harmonious beam routine.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

Andrei Rodionenko explains Russia's performance at Worlds - Lupitatranslates

By
Rodionenko with European Champion David Belyavski  Courtesy RGF/Elena Mikhailova This is the interview that many people on the internet have already commented on, regarding Andrei Rodionenko's alleged racism.  The original, Russian language version, appears on VTB Bank's website (VTB are sponsors of Russian gymnastics).  It takes cleverer people than me to decide what is racism, what is deliberately perjorative, and what is inferred in an interviewer's question.  For now, I will not comment on this, therefore, but I would ask you to read Lupita's translation carefully before you form your own opinion.   I am providing some links below which might help you to decide where you stand. Definition of racism Definition of sexism BBC Sport article by Matthew Syed : Is it wrong to note that 100m winners are always black?            Updated 24/10 CSKA Moscow: UEFA opens racist chants case         ...
48 comments
Read more

Tatiana Gutsu interview

By
1992 Olympic Champion, Tatiana Gutsu, is a Ukrainian gymnast (from the city of Odessa) who competed for both the USSR and Ukraine during her senior competitive career from 1990 to 1992.  She was the first in a new generation of gymnasts who brought an ultra high level of difficulty to their work; in fact some of Gutsu's innovations have yet to be repeated, in particular the split leg double layout tumble on floor which remains exclusively hers.  Vault was her least spectacular apparatus, but on bars, beam and floor, Gutsu led the field with fast, powerful and original work.  She flew recklessly through her bars routine, showed not an ounce of fear in a non stop beam routine.  Her 1991 floor work, full of intricate choreography and ultra powerful tumbling, was under-rated and is largely, and rather unfairly, overlooked in the history books of the sport.  She was the epitome of the Soviet ground-breaking gymnast, performing single skills of very great difficulty...
22 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more