Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Daria Spiridinova - impossible to forget.  Picture courtesy of RGF As Russia's young gymnasts prove their mettle at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Tbilisi this week - see RRG's Facebook page and Twitter account for results and updates - Valentina Rodionenko reports on an upcoming international competition that will be a testing ground for the Russian team in preparation for the World Championships. I would suggest we might expect more news over the coming days - the usual pattern of Valentina's press activity is for news to be released piecemeal to several different sources, often providing conflicting information - so don't expect anything conclusive here. So now, read on as Valentina has her say : All the leaders of the Russian national team in gymnastics will perform at a tournament in Georgia MOSCOW, July 31 - R-Sport, Maria Vorobyov.  All the leaders of the Russian national team in gymnastics will take part in the Rusudan Sikharulidze...

Lifje has been hard at work, producing these picture collages comparing Olympians Alexandra Raisman and Gabrielle Douglas with their Russian counterparts, Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova. I'll let both pictures speak mostly for themselves, but the differences are absolutely glaringly obvious in the first shots of Raisman and Mustafina.  .  The Douglas-Komova comparison is more, as Lifje says, a question of the details such as toepoint, extension and hands.  I would add to that, back and shoulders.

Aliya competed this weekend in Ukraine - probably our last chance to see her before Euros in just over two weeks' time.  I haven't seen full results yet but even with a fall on floor, Aliya won the all around, with Russia taking gold in the team competition ahead of Ukraine and Japan.  Competing with her on the Russian team were Anna Dementyeva and Polina Fedyorova.  Ukraine's Oleg Vernaev won the men's competition, leading the winning team ahead of Russia and the Netherlands. Thanks to Alexandra Kuznetsova for videos, and for the pictures in this press report .  Aliya Mustafina floor Aliya Mustafina uneven bars Aliya Mustafina beam Aliya looks to be concentrating on developing new combinations for her beam routine and I guess that her competition goals this year are somewhat longer term than Moscow Europeans which are coming earlier in the year than usual. I'm feeling a replay of 1987 Europeans may be on the cards, with the feisty veteran lookin...

A nice interview with Aliya from just before the Russian Championships. Key points from the Google translate : She won second place in an R Sport vote for the best Russian sports woman, behind Evgeniya Kanaeva but ahead of Maria Sharapova.  She says Evgeniya came first because she is a beautiful gymnast; but knows little about Sharapova. She has no time for life outside of gymnastics, as she trains three times a day - can only meet with her friends on rare occasions, and declines to comment about whether she has a boyfriend in gymnastics. Her father is her main supporter, but the person whose opinion she values most in gymnastics is her coach, Alexander Alexandrov :-) She does not have any gymnastics idols. Good luck to all the Russian gymnasts as they prepare for the European Championships!