Skip to main content
Image
By
In assessing the state of Russian WAG team prospects for Rio and later, we must look beyond the euphoria and flurry of apparatus medals taken by the girls today and yesterday.  These results might look good, but all of the medals were taken by young women in their twenties, at a reasonably advanced stage of their career.  Russia has promise - young Seda Tutkhalyan clearly relishes competition, and Maria Kharenkova has great potential on beam and floor - but time and again Russia fails to transition its promise to gold, and has to fall back on its 2012 Olympians.

The truth is that Russia is now in the main a team of veterans, relying on recovering heroes.  There is relatively little strength in depth.  After Rio, with the probable retirement of Afanasyeva and Mustafina, who will be left of world-beating class?   With declining participation and uninspired leadership, where are tomorrow's champions?  Who are the up and coming coaches?  

Will a change of leadership help and, if so, who could step in to take things forward?  If so, who could take the reins? Former Soviet and Russian supreme Arkayev, now well into his seventies?  Oleg Ostapenko?  Alexander Alexandrov?

This has been a continuing theme of RRG since Alexandrov's departure from the Russian team in 2013.  The great coach of multiple World and Olympic Champions gave me an interview then that covered many of the key problems and issues at some length.  Now,

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘My daughter likes gymnastics. For us, this is the big success’. Aliya Mustafina talks to Match TV

By
Via VK.com.  Google translate A big interview with Aliya Mustafina was published on MATCH!. We provide a small excerpt below, and the full version is available on the website at the link below  ❓ Aliya, you are now the head coach of the junior artistic gymnastics team. What does your typical day look like? 💜 My current life is similar to what it was when I was competing. In the morning, I have breakfast and go to work by 9:00, we train for four hours, have lunch, rest and train for another three hours. During the training camp, the athletes live at the base. They live and train on the same territory. ❓ Do you manage the gymnasts' personal trainers or do you evenly distribute the responsibilities? 💜 We work in contact with the personal trainers, I listen to their opinions. For example, if the trainer believes that their athlete needs to be given a little rest or do fewer repetitions of a particular exercise, we do so. ❓ Describe the current generation of children. Do they nee...
3 comments
Read more

Alexander Alexandrov in his own words 1 - A Difficult Decision

By
Alexander Alexandrov with his daughter, Isa, at the statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio.  (c) Alexander Alexandrov Russian coach Alexander Alexandrov has been prominent in the sport since 1983, when he came to the public eye as coach of the brilliant Dmitri Bilozerchev.  He has over thirty years’ experience of coaching World and Olympic Champions both in the country of his birth and in his adopted home, Houston, USA.  In his most recent position as Head Coach of the national women's artistic gymnastics (WAG) team for Russia, he quite simply resurrected his country’s gymnastics programme, re-establishing his team at the very top of the sport.  Prior to Alexandrov’s appointment, at the 2008 Olympics, Russian WAG had walked away empty handed, without medals.  At last year’s London Olympics, artistic gymnastics was one of Russia’s most successful sports.  Alexandrov’s Russia won the most gymnastics medals of any country competing, and his athlete Al...
11 comments
Read more

Fact or fiction? The press, gymnastics and pregnancy doping

By
It was a Sunday morning.  I was drinking my coffee and contemplating the day ahead - a workout at the gym, shopping for groceries, an evening reading a book, or catching up on last night's episodes of crime thriller The Bridge .  How nice it was not to have to think about work for a day. Then I saw it - a story about the history of doping in The Observer .  Interesting reading. Of course, cheating is as old as the hills.  It is, unfortunately, human nature for some people to try to gain easy advantage in any kind of competition.  That is why we have laws, rules, ethical guidelines.  People who cheat should face justice and shouldn't complain when they are found out. But the story about pregnancy doping bothered me.  Hadn't that been found to be fictional?  The author began with Olga Kovalenko's allegations made in 1994 - but the rumours had started way back in 1991 with the documentary series More Than A Game .  The practice...
3 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more