The loneliness of the long distance blogger

I’m the one individual who has run this blog since 2009.  

Since 1972 I have followed the Soviet and Russian gymnasts through thick and thin. This has included times when virtually no information reached our ears to times when there has been so much information that my brain has felt like it’s exploding.  There have been times when I have had to step back and slow down, others when I have felt I am arguing a vicarious debate for the gymnasts, for example in 2016 when they were threatened with an unfair Olympic ban for doping.  

Sometimes I feel as though I don’t have the right to stop.

These days I’m constantly questioning the rights and wrongs and trying to find a fair way forward that gives readers what they want, me and others a chance to speak our truths, reflects the reality of the sport in Russia, and is respectful towards Ukraine and its suffering.  My blog is about gymnastics, not war, but in order to be critical I need to heed the context.  At present that context includes war.

Often I can’t be critical because it’s too difficult to navigate the grey area between different truths and outright lies (not from the gymnasts who I think almost always speak from their hearts, but bigger lies from supermassive states).  I monitor social media and the internet, and I use Google translate to try to get to the bottom of things that are happening - whether it’s Melnikova’s birthday party on a yacht, Marinov’s struggles with injury or the Russian Government’s decisions to favour digital sport over action on the apparatus.  

Often, I’m just recording what the coaches and gymnasts say - I feel this is important as a historical record, even though I do have to be selective.  And my selectivity will inevitably be flawed.  I’m not paid for doing this, nor do I speak fluent Russian.  It’s hard work even if I do love the gymnasts.  It often feels as though I can’t do enough.  

There are other very good blogs and internet sites who follow the history of the sport, but this is the one that focusses on Russia in all its good, bad, glory and failure.  This is the one that attempts to monitor the narrative of contemporary events in Russian gymnastics, to provide some snapshots that can eventually tell a story of the sport in Russia. 

I don’t talk about ‘facts’.  I can say that it’s recorded that Svetlana Khorkina won the World AA in 1997; that’s a fact in the FIG’s records.  But facts tend to be a bit flat and uninteresting.  It’s far more realistic and interesting to make contentions based on what’s accepted as fact.  That involves criticality, and makes the telling of history something that is compelling.

I’m fairly sure that after 72 years of being a world leader in the sport of artistic gymnastics, Russia is now leaving the stage, and it’s because of its state’s involvement in war.  We are at a turning point in the sport.  And the rights and wrongs are more difficult than ever to fathom.  Should I even be writing this blog at all?  Where does gymnastics end, and propaganda begin?  

The gymnasts are trapped in a destiny that most likely isn’t of their own choosing.  They didn’t ask to be born in Russia. Russia has always emphasised the military in its history as though it’s something to be proud of.  We think we don’t have that perspective, but the truth is that we see things through our own spectacles and no one else’s.  We don’t see the parades at the Cenotaph as military propaganda; we read them as remembrance.   We are lucky that we live in a state that gives us the freedom to talk about this, or even think about it.  Nikita Nagorny is a big show off who has turned to his country as a way of making his voice heard, but in our countries he would be a talk show host and a scout leader, not a propagandist for an authoritarian state.  As David Belyavski said, if he were asked to fight for Russia in the war against Ukraine, he would do so: what other choice would he have? 

We sit in our comfortable offices in the west and judge other people for what we call ‘their choices’.  But it’s easy for us to be big and brave.

I’m still the only one writing this blog, maintaining my Facebook page and updating my Twitter.  I have about 8000 followers on Facebook, and pictures and videos are still the most popular thing.  

Since 2009 I have collected 6 million reads on my Blogger blog, most of them before about 2016.  The internet has changed and blogs are less popular.  I write less than I used to, but probably write longer than most people are comfortable with.  

I still haven’t finished writing about gymnasts and gymnastics in Russia, and I don’t know if I ever will.  For as long as my brain is functioning I can’t stop thinking about it.  I hope you stay with me as my reader, and I hope you can comment from time to time.  I’m going to try to stick with this.