Skip to main content

Russian MAG win first team medal in sixteen years

It was an amazing moment.  Sadly my camera work, never the best, suffered under the strain of emotion.  I was hoping for bronze and never expected silver.  Belyavski was the real captain of this team, his desire to win so evident throughout, Nagorny its beating heart, Stretovich the cool head.  Kuksenkov and Ablyazin the engine and accelerator.

The pictures are poor, taken in a hurry on my iPad.  But they capture the true passion of the moment.  Molodyets, boys.

Men's gymnastics is the best sport in the world.  And Russia, with a little more work on high bar, and more precision on floor, could soon be the best gymnasts in the world.
























Comments

  1. Congratulations to Russia!!! I am thrilled for them. Now I am going to cry over the American performance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why can't the girls be like them? At least if the girls can pull out a silver tomorrow we can say Russia is still the best across both genders.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't give up on the girls. Remember Russian men also had falls in TQ.

      Delete
  3. Congrats Russia, it's a Silver but it tests like Gold for me!!!
    John

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. well silver is the new gold in some cases, when you have Japan and US as teams and Kohei and Simone as all-arounders everyone else is fighting for silver

      Delete
    2. It's not the same, no one can beat the American women, the Japanese men are in fact beatable.

      Delete
  4. One of the best things in Olympics is to see athletes shed tears of joy for a silver medal as they had won gold. Congratulations boys !!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats to the men, they have been a disappointment in big competitions the last few years, where they qualify well but falter in the final. This time, they held their nerves and did well for the silver.

    Congrats to them, also Stretovich did well. Many weren't happy when he came into the team (at least the way he came in) but he proved his mettle.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Congratulations on an outstanding achievement. It was a pleasure to watch them perform everything they were capable of and come away so satisfied with the result.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Congrats boys. I screamed, laughed, cried and put my cat on the verge of heart attack. I grabbed and hugged her hysterically on every hit routine. After the final result she was taking refuge on the top of the fridge. I am still in denial and want to watch the competition again. It is nerve wrecking. Love you all yeeeehaw. !!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Happy Russian men's in interview after winning the silver in team comp. yesterday! David is more happiest from the others) start at 2:47 http://news.sportbox.ru/olympics/spbvideo_NI648532_Vse_na_Match_Rio_2016?ci=289121

    ReplyDelete
  9. Glorious day! They are back where they belong!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Congrats to the Japanese and Russian teams! A terrific final for both. Once again, Japan's difficulty on high bar pays off. It's always great to see the risk earn the reward.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in 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,...

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...

Artistry versus acrobatics???

Watching videos of this weekend's competitions - the qualification and all around rounds of the Russian championships, medal winners from the American Cup - I am struck, more and more, by the huge difference between the American and Russian schools of gymnastics. It led me to ask the question : do artistry and acrobatics have to be mutually exclusive? (I am afraid that I think naming 'American' gymnastics a 'school' is perhaps lending an undeserved dignity to work which has become excessively obsessed with the difficult and the consistent, but I am using the word here so as not to label unfairly those individual gymnasts who are blameless in the direction of their training.) The FIG's vision for gymnastics is said to embrace more artistry; at least the publicity it has put about on the subject of its new Code makes that fairly plain.  So perhaps the Russians, with their inconsistent brilliance and superior body carriage (Mustafina, Komova, Grishina, Afanasy...

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more