Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Anastasia Grishina in typical flowing movement at last week's Europeans.  Courtesy : RGF I am convinced that we have yet to see the best of Anastasia Grishina.  The 17 year old native of Moscow gave us a glimpse last week of the consistency, purity of technique and sheer amplitude that makes her one of the brightest upcoming lights in world gymnastics.   Anastasia ('Nastia') has had an action-packed first year in senior gymnastics, with all the ups and downs one might expect of a young adult starting out in a fiercely competitive sport.  It certainly has not been plain sailing.  A painful leg injury hampered her preparation for the Olympics, and meant that routines presented last week at the European Championships were still work in progress.  She and her new coach, Viktor Razumovsky, attracted criticism from Russian head coach Valentina Rodionenko for their failure to deliver upgrades and to increase start values.   But Rodionenko missed the point.  Grishina is a

Lupita has been hard at work again, and here provides a full translation of the interview which featured in Wednesday's blog post. 'If Mustafina's health is good, I have no reason to doubt her'   -   Alexander Sergueievich, did you attend the EC? -   Of course! I didn’t accompany Mustafina to the podium. I watched everything from outside. -    Mustafina said she wanted to talk to you, because you might be offended, because she was accompanied by other coaches. -    We have already talked, but not as long as we wanted, we had no time. I am old enough not to be offended. There are always misunderstandings between coach and athlete from time to time. I am no longer 30 years old, I do not need to be on the podium to prove myself. -  How do you assess Mustafina’s performance? -  It’s always difficult to start a new season. When the athletes start a new quad, it’s much more difficult to work with them. Aliya’s gold in the AA de

European Champion Aliya Mustafina with national team coach Evgeny Grebyonkin in Friday's all around final Alexander Alexandrov yesterday spoke out in defence of his gymnast Aliya Mustafina, sweeping aside speculation that there may be a rift in the charismatic pairing that has delivered gold for Russia at European, World and Olympic level, and confirming that he continues as her personal coach. 'I am too old to be offended', he said, adding that after thirty years on the gymnastics podium he did not take the exclusion to heart.  Mustafina's appearance at last week's European Championships was good enough to secure two gold medals, but her somewhat erratic performance, particularly in qualifications, leaves a few question marks over her readiness for such a high level competition.  She herself acknowledges that she came to this competition not prepared to her best, pointing out that on bars, for example, she was not competing her full repertoire of skills.  B

Courtesy RGF Wearing her Olympics leotard yesterday afternoon, Ksenia Afanasyeva faced off all doubts about her ability to manage pressure with a breathtaking performance on the floor.  Afanasyeva's artistry is now matched by her confidence and aggression in the all-important tumbling.  Her start value of 6.3 was the highest of the competition, her score of 15.166 superior to that earned in Tokyo two years ago when she took the world title on this apparatus. Short term, she has sacrificed some of the choreography from her Olympic floor routine to favour work on consistency, but a new routine is promised for this autumn's World Championships. The pressure Afanasyeva faced came from many directions, most tangibly in the audience she faced who included many of the most influential people in sport in Russia.  Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and senior representatives of sponsors VTB were there to check on and celebrate the results of their considerable investment.  History face

David Belyavski, 22 years old, has long promised a gold medal in a major all around competition.  The 2012 and 2013 Russian national champion is set in the classical mould of Alexei Nemov and Vladimir Artemov.  Now chief coach of the Russian team, Valery Alfosov, is comparing him to the highly respected Olympic Champion, Kohei Uchimura.   Belyavski performed with consistency and elegance to take the gold medal in this Friday's all around final, and promises much more.  The emotional intensity of his performance was impressive as he went head to head with the richest competitive field men's European all around gymnastics has seen in a long time.    David trains at the Dynamo Club in Yekaterinburg with coach Viktor Lomaev, and at Russian national championships competes for the Siberian men's team that contributes so much to the national scene.  An interview with Valery Alfosov appeared in yesterday's edition of Sovietski Sport. The senior men's nati

http://sport.rbc.ru/other/newsline/20/04/2013/388534.shtml   Mutko pleased with medals and expects more.  Acknowledging it as difficult post Olympic year.  Victories of Mustafina and Belyavski show changing face of Russian gymnastics - an improvement in that Muscovite Mustafina reflects the old funding structures while Belyavski's reflects the new face of the Siberian team.

Vault bronze medallist Maria Paseka is congratulated by 1956 and 1960 Olympic Champion, Larissa Latynina  Courtesy RGF Today's event finals saw mixed fortunes for the Russians as Aliya Mustafina won the gold medal expected on bars, while Paseka erred twice on vault but delivered beyond promise on bars with a surprise bronze.   It was an emotion filled afternoon as Russia celebrated its emerging legend, Mustafina, and coped with the relative disappointment of somewhat below-par presentations in the men's competition.  We will have to wait till tomorrow to see whether Denis Ablyazin can finally win a long expected gold medal on vault at this championships  - and whether the brilliant but unpredictable Ksenia Afanasyeva can assert herself on the floor at European level, to match the Worlds gold medal she won two years ago in Japan.  Anastasia Grishina may be in with a chance of a medal on beam if she can perform her routine without error, and Emin Garibov will defend his hig

Courtesy of the RGF Aliya Mustafina well and truly bridged the gap of time and space between Berlin and Moscow today, grabbing the gold all around at European level that is her second major title, and which she would in all likelihood have won had she not suffered the injury that stopped her competition two years ago at the last individual European Championships.  Hers was a convincing, joyful and somewhat relieved win in the Moscow Olympiski stadium this afternoon, and sets the scene for more gold in Kazan this summer at the Universiade, and at the World Championships in Antwerp, where she will doubtless be much better prepared. Standing alongside her on the podium was silver medallist, Romania's Larissa Iordache, who had a near perfect competition but could not quite match the verve of a determined Mustafina competing on home turf.  Third place was taken by Anastasia Grishina, who competed without error in an all around competition for the first time in living memory.  Gris

After yesterday's qualification hiccups, Russia's great and good have been putting in their oars and saying what they think.  Read Valentina Rodionenko's comments on The Couch Gymnast .  There is also a press statement by Leonid Arkayev, long time head coach of the Soviet Union and Russia, which I will reproduce word for word below : Leonid Arkayev, merited coach of Russia: The Romanians were strong, both of them.  They did make some mistake, Iordache on uneven bars, for example, however, overall they left quite a pleasant impression.  Frankly, I hoped that one of the members of the Russian trio would be able to 'upset' them, by either beating them or finishing between them, but it was not to be.  Grishina's mistakes in subdivision 1 on beam and bars were followed by Afanasyeva's mistake on bars, and then by Afanasyeva and Mustafina's ones on beam (this apparatus was a cursed one for our girls that day), and the Russians finished third, fourth and

Today's podium ... Max Whitlock (silver), David Belyavski, Oleg Verniaeiv It was a beautiful moment ... Belyavski's first major international title has been awarded.  The best classical gymnast of many years presented his best face and took gold.  Here are the results for now, courtesy of Gymnastics Results .

Courtesy of the RGF/Elena Mihailova Aliya Mustafina, David Belyavski, Anastasia Grishina and Nikita Ignatyev today represent the Russian Federation in the all around finals of the first major competition in the gymnastics calendar since last year's Olympics, the European Championships.  It is time to suspend all speculation: only what the gymnasts do in the Olympiski stadium, Moscow, in the next hours will have any bearing on the outcome of the competition.  All four of them have demons to overcome, unleashed during the qualification rounds earlier this week.  Mustafina in particular must overcome a psychologically bruising encounter with the balance beam (two falls), the piece on which she may begin today's competition (start lists still to be confirmed at time of writing).  As reported by International Gymnast , however, she dismisses all thoughts that her performance today might be compromised by negative thoughts of her hesitant beginning : "I feel good, a

Maria Paseka in flight  Courtesy of the RGF It has been a curious European Championships so far, for the Russian women.  A team somewhat depleted of new talent is looking to its veterans to carry Russia into the future.  It is a tricky year : with the Universiade coming up in the summer, and Worlds in the autumn, last summer's Olympians face a hectic and pressured time.  You get the feeling that the girls are almost reluctant participants in this, the earliest major competition of the year.  There has just been so much extra curricular activity going on; instead of focussing on the gymnastics, the girls have been at the centre of what at times has resembled the plot of a soap opera. Regardless of the reality of their everyday training, the picture presented of their lives in sport is far from ordered.  For Mustafina, there has been an unsettling circumstance surrounding the status of her personal coach, Alexander Alexandrov, a man she last year called her 'second fathe

To keep you going till my report later on this evening.

Anastasia Grishina this morning.  Courtesy of the RGF Beginning in just over half an hour (5.15 Moscow time) we'll have the final subdivision of WAG qualifications, and ultimately find out who will qualify to individual and event finals.  I'll be putting brief updates of the Russian girls' progress on my Facebook page . Current individual standings are as follows:   Grishina's performance in the first subdivision of the day wasn't that bad; she had falls on beam and bars, but went on to perform reasonably on floor (a landing error and long wait before her final tumble) and excellently in her one vault (double twisting Yurchenko).  With so many gymnasts yet to perform, we will have to wait and see if she will make a final.   Maria Paseka did an outstanding DTY and a good second vault, and delivered to promise on bars.  She was one of only fifteen gymnasts presenting two vaults at this Championships, so I expect she is reasonably well assured of a pla

Aliya Mustafina projects that mystical charisma, while Europeans team mate Ksenia Afanasyeva looks on at last year's Russian Championships.  Courtesy RGF The Couch Gymnast has put up some extensive reports on women's podium training from yesterday as a preparation for tomorrow's competition - read them.  It is the age old story of Russia looking tired and off form with Romania soldiering on.   No, better than that, shining at the first major competition of the year.  Russia normally shake themselves down in time for the actual competition, but can they pull off another revival again this time?  It must take so much energy overcoming all the emotion of a poor warm up performance ... the pre-competition publicity, spun by Valentina Rodionenko, does not make them sound a happy ship.  Has Russia lost its passion for artistic gymnastics?  I hope not.  Let's see how qualis go first, then finals. Here is the start list for tomorrow's competition, and a link to t

David Belyavski's hard working and rather elegant hand.  Courtesy of the RGF It has been a fascinating day at the Olympiski stadium, watching the new order of world gymnastics battle it out for places in this weekend's all around and event finals.  I am not sure that things went quite the way the Russians would have wanted today.  As ever, large errors found them missing out on final places to which their gymnasts, on capability, should easily qualify.  They lead in three out of the six finals, but surely with fewer errors could have topped the qualification stakes, and seen a greater proportion of their team represented in finals. In Europe, at this present time, it seems to be a fight between three countries - the ambitious and competitive Ukraine, determined to vindicate the disappointment of a fourth place finish in London; relative newcomers Great Britain, whose steadiness and strength in depth point to a bright future; and Russia, the team who will perhaps always se

Greetings from sunny Moscow - it really is a beautiful day here.  I arrived last night in one piece, slept well, had a hearty breakfast, and made my way to the stadium this morning with only one slight hiatus that involved a conversation with a Russian road sweeper, who pointed out to me that I had got off the Metro at the wrong stop.  This isn't covered in the phrase books and since I do not speak Russian, it took some understanding.  He was a very nice road sweeper and I am grateful for his kindness. Hey ho I finally overcame the odds and arrived just in time to see both Belyavski and Ignatyev land their vaults on their tight little bottoms.  I'm now wondering if David Belyavski will hang onto his first place all around in the face of an outstanding showing from Britain's Max Whitlock (but which would be less threatening to Belyavski had the Russian actually managed to go six for six). It's sunny outside, the birdies are tweeting ... and, of course, I am sitting