Plans for the Olympics, the family cat, how Aliya managed her nerves in 2012 and much more - translation on Liubov's blog
The Russian MAG and WAG teams take their preparation for World Championships in Nanning one step further this week, as key players compete in the annual Russia Cup in Penza. There will be team, all around and event finals. The WAG team Last year the gymnasts were rather depleted and suffering the effects of injury; this year the national squad is still short of some of its top members, but has greater diversity and experience up and coming into the ranks, so it will be an interesting time. Last year saw St Petersburg gymnast and fan favourite Tatiana Nabiyeva lead the all around, ahead of Alla Sosnitskaya, Anna Pavlova, Anna Rodionova, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Polina Fyodorova. With the individual-only World Championships up coming in Antwerp, I remember writing that Russia might well decide to send a team of only three gymnasts, such was the paucity of available talent. The final reckoning saw Russia fare a little better than this, although performance lacked depth and re
Aliya handles it graciously, but I wish Russian sport journalists would stop going on about Simone and the ADHD medication all the time. It's mean-spirited and unsportsmanlike, like when American sport journalists used to constantly prod about Chinese gymnasts possibly being underage.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the the mental state that helps Aliya compete so well comes across in interviews. She talks about gymnastics in a similar way to Kohei Uchimura, interestingly.