Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

The Russian Cup finished on Sunday with the final day of apparatus finals.  In the women's competition, Komova, Dementieva, Afanasyeva and Belokobylskaya proved to be the most successful of those in contention for places on the national team for the World Championships in Tokyo this October.   In the men's competition, we saw a changing of the guard as Ablyazin, Ignatiev and Garibov began to prove their worth against the falling star of such gymnasts as Devyatovski.  The Russian Federation website carries full results of the men's competition , and the women's competition . The top three in each event, and some more detailed notes, are as follows. Women's Competition Vault  1.  Anna Pavlova          14.225 2.  Anna Dementieva    13.813 3.  Maria Paseka          13.713 4.  Tanya Nabieva       ...

Tatiana Nabieva gave a good account of herself today, recording 4th place in the vault final and a creditable silver on bars.  But in an interview with Sports Express, Tanya suggests that her silver could have been gold had she connected two of her special skills - I'm guessing she means her own version of the Tkachev and the Pak somersault. Read a rather stilted Google translation of the article here .

Full results can be found here . Once again, I have uncovered a mysterious Russian practice, with Viktoria Komova double agenting for both the victorious Central and second placed Moscow team AND Anna Dementieva also doubling up for the winning Central team and the 3rd placed PFO (Volga Federal District??) team. The results are as follows : 1   Central  (Komova, Pavlova, Inishina, Dementieva, Kruglikova, Stepanova)  174.95 2   Moscow  (Mustafina, Komova, Myzdrikova, Novikova, Syrinkova, Chibiskova) 171.132 3   PFO (Volga Federal District?)  (Dementieva, Telitsina, Skorodumova, Polyan, Lavrushina, Smirnova)  164.4 4  St Petersburg  (Sazonova, Nabieva, Sapronova, Terenteva, Krylova, Zemskova (did not compete)) 162.6 Aliya Mustafina apparently won the battle of those competing on all four pieces of apparatus, except for that she didn't perform at all - please see below for an explanation.  In her absence, Deme...

International Gymnast alerts me to this interview with Ludmilla Korolenko, former coach of Ukrainian 1996 Olympian Liubov Sheremeta.  Korolenko now works for the Russian federation as a coach, primarily for the junior team, specialising in beam preparation, and also judges at major international competitions. There is a lot of meat in this interview if you can get past the Google translate.  Korolenko discusses recent changes to the Code, and refutes the idea that judging is subject to deliberate corruption and cheating, preferring to think of controversies such as those surrounding Mustafina's vault valuations as simple errors or misinterpretations, something she says is quite a common occurrence.  She also highlights inconsistencies between rule applications in men's and women's gymnastics.  Errors in women's gymnastics, she suggests, are penalised twice as deductions are made for poor execution and the move is downgraded.  If I read the translation correct...

The Gymnastics Examiner provides some context and background to this interesting competition. Full results have been provided by International Gymnastics magazine. Vintage Tanya video here of Nabieva's competition at the Tournoi in 2007.

Tanya Nabieva won two more golds today at the international tournament in Arques, taking the top step of the podium in both the asymmetric bars and floor finals.  She also won bronze in the beam final, behind China's Zhang Zelinzi and Zhang Qing.

Tanya also led the Russian team to victory in this competition which featured gymnasts from 13 countries.  There was a live stream yesterday which was rather difficult to follow as no scores were given out and full routines were not always covered - the apparatus finals will also be free to view this afternoon from 2.30 pm Central European Time (ie in Britain this means 1.30pm).  Tanya was accompanied by her personal coach, Alexander Kiryashov of St Petersburg. I do not have the full statistics to hand as yet, but WenShuli at the All Around Forum confirms the rankings, via the French gymnastics board : Team competition : 1. Russia (Nabieva /Cheong) 2. Belgium 3. Great Britain 4. Switzerland 5. Russia Juniors : 1. Terri Grand'ry BEL 2. Chiara Gandolfi ITA 3. Johanna Dejardin BEL 4. GBR (I think this was Billy McKenzie) 5. GBR Seniors: 1. Tatiana Nabieva RUS 2. Zhang Yelinzi CHN 3. Ekaterina Krilova RUS 4. Olga Zemskova RUS 5. AUT

And finally, the anthem of gymnastics has been played in honour of the Russian team at a World Championships. Aliya Mustafina, Ksenia Afanasyeva, Anna Dementieva, Tatiana Nabieva, Ksenia Semenova and Ekaterina Kurbatova fought like titans to win Russia's first ever world team gold medals, at the 2010 World Gymnastics Championships in Rotterdam today. Detailed results are available at http://www.longinestiming.com/sports/gym/ag_wc2k10w/C73D_ResultsTeam_GA%20Women%20Senior_Concours%20IV.pdf And there is the most gorgeous short video highlights on Youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7ZfaGLIcJQ Have the soundtrack turned up, and handkerchief at the ready. I wanted this significant victory to be recorded on my blog as quickly as possible. The least I can say is that I am very, very pleased. And Happy 18th Birthday to Ksenia Semenova!!! More to follow.