Skip to main content

Balakovo boys look to the future

Pictures courtesy of Balokovomedia


All over Russia youngsters are learning gymnastics, and Balakovomedia reports the results of a competition between boys from the local Sports School, born 2004-2006. Remember the names of the winners : (2004 born) Andrei Romanov, Vladislav Bardasov, Ivan Filippov; (2005 born) Alexander Ganshin, Artem Davidyuk, Dmitri Emin (2006 born) Kirill Penkov, Alexander Klimov, Linar Shpyapnikov. 

Balokovo is a small town with a population of slightly less than 200,000.  It is located in Saratov Oblast, roughly 500 miles south east of Moscow. 

All of the competitors - a total of just 33 young boys - have many twists and turns ahead in their lives.  Whether they continue with gymnastics at all is up to them, but they are already doing a lot of work and learning valuable lessons.

Their efforts ultimately contribute to Russia's attempts to build a mass base from which they can draw their senior teams of the future.  Good luck to them all!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

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...

Andrei Rodionenko explains Russia's performance at Worlds - Lupitatranslates

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         ...

Tatiana Gutsu interview

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...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more