Not a fake profile ... Aliya's unofficial fanpage has over 50,000 followers Have you seen the film Spartacus, the bit where the Romans try to get Spartacus to give himself up , but fail because there are so many people who claim to be him? The gymnastics online community is getting a little bit like that ... I did some counting this morning on Facebook, having come across yet another online profile of a gymnast that claimed to be 'real' yet obviously wasn't :-) 22 online profiles of Aliya Mustafina 29 of Viktoria Komova Some of these are athlete pages that present news of the gymnast's progress, but many are simply fake identities that make use of personal photographs found elsewhere on the internet to develop whole new narratives of the gymnast's life. I love my regular Gin O'Clock updates of HRH the Queen's daily life as much as the next person, but these profiles try to pretend to be the real Aliya or Vika, without the embellishment of h...
Reporting and analysing Russian gymnastics since 2010. Includes original and exclusive interviews with leading coaches and gymnasts, and historical issues dating back to the Soviet Union. The first blog to report extensively on the sport using Russian language sources. I read, I argue, and I have opinions. Be warned.