Skip to main content

'It's difficult to be a God' - documentary on Yuri Ryazanov (c. 2004)

Image
By

The RGF has just published this half hour documentary on its YouTube channel - http://youtu.be/x9euD-9hLdk

Shot in about 2004, it charts the struggles of a young boy - Yuri Ryazanov - as he progresses in his gymnastics career, aspiring to sporting achievements of the highest level, as exemplified in this film by the gymnastics 'God' Alexei Nemov.

Black and white film enhances the intense atmosphere of the training and competition hall and there are some stunning close up shots of the haunting face of young Ryazanov.  Set in a background of  social and economic trauma as Russia finds its feet in the post-Soviet years, we understand that Yuri's life is one of order and discipline compared to the somewhat distressed community he sees around him in the centre of his home town, the city of Vladimir.  Pictures of a confident Nemov in training, and on the cover of 'Men's Fitness' magazine, lead us to suppose that sport provides the possibility of a better life.

If only young Yuri and his fellow athletes, including Dmitri Gogotov, can stay on the straight and narrow and endure the training necessary to make it to the top and be a 'God' like Nemov before him.

The film ends as we see Yuri compete in a national competition, wearing a T shirt for Russia, alongside his coach, Igor Kalabushkin.  

Yuri with his coach, Igor Kalabushkin

We remember Yuri for his great technical gymnastics, a style reminiscent of his hometown predecessor, 1988 Olympic Champion Vladimir Artemov.  Yuri too had 'Olympics' written all over him and would no doubt have impressed in 2012 had he had the chance.  He was a credit to the Vladimir School of Gymnastics, who nurtured him all the way to a bronze medal in the All Around at the 2009 World Championships in London.  

Sadly, only a few days after his greatest victory, Yuri lost his life in a car accident, on his way home.  This documentary helps us to remember the gymnast and the man.  Yuri Ryazanov, ambitious, hard-working, prodigiously talented and forever young.  

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering last summer - Nelli Kim, her judges and Viktoria Komova

By
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...
42 comments
Read more

Pongo’s predictions for Russia MAG in Rotterdam

By
Pongo is my AI assistant.  Read here his calculations of who might make the best Russian MAG team at the World Championships in October.  Please do feel free to disagree audibly, in the comments and note that Pongo admits, even he makes mistakes.  I don’t generally write such statistical material, so this may be a one off. With apologies for any errors, mine entirely and I wrote the brief.   Yes. I’ve treated this as a genuine team-construction problem , rather than simply taking the six gymnasts with the highest AA scores. For the calculation I used the most recent strong competitive score available for each gymnast: the Spartakiad scores for Yakubov, Novikov and Kisel , and mainly European Championship team-final/final scores for Dukhno, Marinov, Zaika and Sieedin , supplemented by Russian Championship scores where a recent European score was not available. That matters because Dukhno and Marinov, for example, were substantially stronger in Zagreb than some earlier...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more