Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

Viktoria Komova, Maria Paseka, Tatiana Solovyova and Maria Stepanova participated in this weekend's World Cup event in Ghent, a well attended competition with the exception of the USA and Romania.   The Russian men were represented by Andrei Cherkasov, Anton Golutsotskov and Dimitri Stolyarov. China really showed great promise here, winning four of the gold medals. Viktoria Komova performed excellently to win bars but suffered a fall on beam, ending in 5th place.  This was a useful warm up for Tokyo and, surprisingly, Viktoria's first international senior competition.  Elsewhere, Maria Paseka did not look quite repaired from her injury, struggling with her landings on floor and looking rather flat on vault.  Albert at the All Around Gymnastics news was present and did some fantastic quick hits (how does he manage to watch the routines, write down the skills and keep track of scores all at once?  Does he have an executive assistant?).  Elsewhere,...

We're all wondering ... who will make the Russian team this autumn? With Mustafina out of the mix, and Komova looking doubtful, it will surely be down to Dementyeva and Nabieva to provide the fireworks, Afanasyeva the backbone ... but who will back them up? Will the Russians look to well-tested veterans like Kurbatova and Semenova to baseline the team, or will relative newcomers provide some zest and depth to round out the picture? Can the Russians surprise us by progressing some of their juniors to senior level? The names of Maria Paseka and Tatiana Sovolyova come to mind ... Paseka vault and floor, Sovolyova bars and beam. It's quite some time since either have been seen competitively, but I dare bet they will be encouraged to train as hard they can to take their opportunity ... Tatiana Sovolyova, beam, Moscow championships February 2010 Or watch it on Youtube . Maria Paseka, floor, Russian championships December 2009 Or watch it on Youtube .