Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,

Video 1 Video 2 National beam coach Marina Bulashenko leads a master class of young gymnasts with the assistance of Aliya Mustafina.  Anna Rodionova demonstrates a spin.

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             http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24654499 Andrei

We remember Yuri Ryazanov, 2008 Olympian and 2009 World All Around bronze medallist, who so tragically lost his life on 20 October 2009, just a few days after the World Championships which many of us had seen as his 'statement of intent' for the coming years.  Yuri was only 22 years old. Yuri came from the historic city of Vladimir, where he trained at the same School as Nikolai Andrianov, Yuri Korolev, Vladimir Artemov and, today, Nikolai Kuksenkov. RIP, Yuri. See Yuri's parallel bars routine, part of his bronze medal winning performance in the all around at 2009 Worlds, here . 

Some pictures and a short video of Viktoria, Aliya and Katya Kramarenko are available here. The girls are benefitting from a last few rays of sun before returning to chilly Moscow for winter training. The location, Sochi, will of course be the home of next year's Winter Olympics.  Russia's oligarchs and government have invested in significant changes to the infrastructure there, including the building of training facilities.  Andrei Rodionenko has suggested some of these be adapted post-Games to provide the Russian gymnasts with a  mild weather winter training retreat, so no doubt this publicity is part of that lobby, as well as providing motivation to the team.

The Russian men suffered some unlucky performances - and untimely injuries - at this month's World Championships.  Here, Nico writes about their competition, and reflects on the future for Russian men's gymnastics. Team captain Emin Garibov on high bar.  RGF I’ve been a great admirer of the Russian men’s programme since getting my start in gymnastics in 1994.  I got into the sport during the era of Aleksei Nemov, who was and still is a fantastic role model for me. He embodied everything I enjoyed about the sport: power, form, style, poise, humility, and even a bit of sex appeal. Since Nemov, I found it a little difficult to remain inspired by the Russian team because his absence left a great void in the programme. That is, until recently. Around mid-2011, I found a renewed interest in the men’s team when I noticed the talents of David Belyavskiy, Emin Garibov, and Denis Ablyazin. I saw in them some of the qualities Nemov had when he began his senior career

In view of Nelli Kim's recent interview , Lupita and I thought it timely to revisit the performance of some of the WTC President's judges over past competitions ... this article from 27th August 2012 is reposted here, as a reminder. You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  M

There is so much I want to say at present, but it will have to wait a little while as my day job takes priority.  Keep your eyes peeled in the next few days for a guest post by Nico about the state of MAG in Russia.   Courtesy Sports.ru In the meantime, Maria Madyrova sent me a link to this Russian blog where you can find a picture series on some of the differences between the athletically trained gymnasts of the USA, and the classically trained sportswomen of Russia. You can argue that the blogger picked particularly unflattering pictures of the Americans, and flattering ones of the Russians, but I do think there is a valid comparison of approaches here ... that is,between the execution of a skill as a Code requirement, and the performance of a routine that has the aesthetic as its priority.

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

Isa Alexandrova has translated this conversation with Svetlana Boginskaya by Elena Vaitsekhovskaya. Svetlana Boginskaya leaps to a beam gold medal at the 1991 World Championships We hadn’t seen each other since the Olympic Games in Atlanta. After the Olympic Games, the three-time Olympic champion and five-time World champion Svetlana Boginskaya finished her gymnastics career. And pretty much disappeared from the public view, by moving to America … EV           Sveta, I tried to find on the internet at least some interviews with you, even any vague ones - and didn’t find any.   SB            I don’t really give interviews often, especially after the OG in Barcelona in 1992 and after I left for  America in 1993. EV            I remember that almost all of the gymnasts from your “Golden” team left to participate in the commercial exhibition project that was organized by Dmitri Bilozerchev. But you decided not to join? SB            At that time, I had a good opportunity to t