Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

    Dmitrieva in training this summer  The Russian Worlds team line up changed today as Valentina Rodionenko announced via Tass that Aliya Mustafina would be replaced in Glasgow by Anastasia Dmitrieva.  Aliya withdrew her place in the team as she was not ready to compete, but will travel to Scotland as a guest of the Russian team.  'Her support is crucial to our girls in such an important competition', said Rodionenko (source - http://tass.ru/sport/2325851). Dmitrieva's strengths are on floor and beam.  At best, her flighty double layout on floor, together with elegant presentation, make her a natural for a spot on the senior national team.  If she were to compete at Worlds it would be an opportunity to develop her competitive maturity.  Second place on both beam and floor at the Rusudan Sikharulidze International tournament are her best senior international results so far, and domestically she appears regularly in finals.  At the Russia...

A young Russian team led by Seda Tutkhalyan and Evgeniya Shelgunova did themselves proud today by performing their way to a team gold medal and a clean sweep of the individual AA medals at the 4 Nations Trophy in Turin against rivals Italy, Romania and Colombia. Without too many major errors the team looked well prepared and confident.  Their overall score of 224.85 would have placed them fourth in qualifying at the 2014 World Championships, ahead of Britain but just behind their own senior team.  Sokova's superb beam routine, which earned a 14.8 thanks to strong execution, would have been Russia's highest beam score at that stage of the competition.  Tutkhalyan's 57.4 AA score would have placed her 7th in qualifying, or more significantly Russia's second all arounder.   Melnikova and Tutkhalyan both performed steadily to make a case for themselves as up and coming all arounders, with Tutkhalyan surely sealing her place on the team for the upcoming European Games. ...

Head WAG coach Evgeny Grebyonkin has confirmed further details of the Russian team for April's European Championships, reports Allsport. On the basis of their performance at the Russian Championships, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Maria Kharenkova and Daria Spiridinova have been confirmed for the team.  Fighting for the final place will be Alla Sosnitskaya, Viktoria Komova, Maria Paseka and first year senior Seda Tutkhalyan. The Russian coaches face some tough selection decisions as they attempt to balance a relative paucity of all around talent this year with the diverse specialisms of such gymnasts as Spiridinova, Afanasyeva and Komova.  Both Sosnitskaya and Tutkhalyan (whose D score AA of 23.7 ranks third in the international ranks so far this year, behind Simone Biles and Evgeniya Shelgunova) offer potential at both specialist (respectively vault (Sosnitskaya) and beam (Tutkhakyan)) and AA level.  Much will depend on the nerve of the coaches and the way these gymnasts respond in...

Young Russia.  Back row from left to right - national junior coach Bulgakova, ?, national junior coach Voinov, Andrei Rodionenko, ?.  Front row - Maria Bondareva, Angelina Melnikova, Seda Tutkhalyan, Daria Skrypnik, Anastasis Dmitrieva Congratulations to the ambitious young Russians who today won the Junior European team championships in a tight competition, but eventually by a fairly substantial margin.  Britain is the up and coming nation in European WAG, dominating on vault and floor with powerful work, but stalwarts Romania put up a strong fight for bronze, only a very small margin behind.  Their top gymnast, Jurca, will be looking to prove herself in the remaining individual competitions. You can find the full results at  http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000D000001000000FFFFFFFFFFFF02 Melnikova and Tutkhalyan lead Friday's all around qualifying On  vault , Tutkhalyan is an impressively powerful gymnast who could compete with Downie, Ju...

Daria Skrypnik could compete only bars and beam this week, but won a gold medal on the bars Full results are available at http://www.sportgymrus.ru/Admin/GetFile.ashx?get=1&id=44108 Or, for those with a magnifying glass - Tutkhalyan and senior Sosnitskaya with their coach, Maria Ulyankina Gold and silver medalists on bars share a grin :-) Angelina Melnikova has taken up a leadership position this week.  Here she is with Anastasia Dmitrieva, who took medals on three pieces.

Central Federal District gymnasts Ekaterina Sokova and Angelina Melnikova were Russian team mates in Canada earlier this year, are now shining in their country's national championships Central Federal District (drawing on three gymnasts from Viktoria Komova's home town, Voronezh) beat last year's winners Moscow to today's girls team competition.     Volga General District, whose most famous team member is the graceful Anastasia Dmitrieva, took the third team position for a bronze medal, ahead of St Petersburg. There was an outstanding performance  from Voronezh's Angelina Melnikova, who will turn 16 in July 2016 and was a medallist at the recent Gymnix International Junior Cup.  Melnikova scored a competition high 15.2 on beam, and also leads uneven bars and floor with scores of 14.8 and 14.537 respectively.  Muscovite Seda Tutkhalyan delivered the highest vault score of 14.733. Working under the Russian Junior code, Melnikova totted up an impressive all around ...

Maria Bondareva, courtesy of RGF Russia's charming young gymnasts, Maria Bondareva, Anastasia Dmitrieva, Polina Spirina and Ekaterina Sokova, knocked out the rest of the competition with their artistry in Montreal this weekend.  Bondareva and Dmitrieva shared the all around title.  The team beat Canada and Japan by a narrow margin.  These girls are not yet performing work of outstanding difficulty, but it is a pleasure to watch their gymnastics, particularly Bondareva on beam who has such confidence and authority.  You can find top five AA results below, full results are available at Gymnix International - team results link is not working properly at the moment but you may find them later.  There is a start list for today's event finals - Bondareva and Dmitrieva are qualified to vault, bars and beam, with Bondareva appearing on floor with Sokolova.  Good luck girls, and well done so far! There is a Youtube channel (thanks Lisa!) with good...

Maria Bondareva at last December's Voronin Cup Junior national team member Maria Bondareva confirmed her class yesterday with a convincing win all around at Canada's Gymnix Junior Cup. Bondareva, 12 years old, won bars and beam in the junior competition at last December's Voronin Cup, and took the all around junior title at Hungary's Eva Kanyo Cup. With 14 year old Evgeniya Shelgunova , Bondareva is leading the current charge of Russian juniors. She has been selected for the Jesolo Cup later this month, and (assuming she is age eligible) looks likely to be on the roster for the upcoming Junior Europeans in Brussels. Bondareva competed alongside Russian junior national team mates Anastasia Dmitrieva, Evgenia Korolkova and Daria Mikhailova.   Full results are available here .  Event finals take place today Maria Anatolyevna Bondareva , born 28th November 1999 (12 years old). Trains under U V Pursheva and Y N Bachurin at Fryazino (Moscow Oblast).   ...