Rewriting Russian Gymnastics

At the next Olympics, the teams will include four all arounders.  This rule change is one of the more positive things that the FIG has done for the sport recently.  Specialists like Denis Ablyazin will still get a chance to qualify for a limited number of specialist spots, but the emphasis on all around achievement is just what gymnastics needs.  The all arounder has always been the most intriguing gymnast, and it is is the all around competition that brings with it the greatest sense of show, endurance and self challenge.  This change will eventually, hopefully, encourage the pursuit of excellent and consistent execution as a route to self actualisation, if not competition medals.  Apparatus specialists can be very exciting, but they are also rather hit and miss.  If the sport's raging epidemic of injuries can also be quelled, and gymnasts can enjoy competing longer, it will be a step forward. I always love the RGF's photo galleries, especially the way the...

Knysh and Korbut in training, 1973 Olga Korbut has repeated her allegations of mistreatment and rape by her coach, Reynald Knysh, in a Russian Jerry Springer style panel show.  She first made these allegations public in the early 1990s. Supported by her sisters, and her first husband Leonid Bortkevich, Korbut confronted Knysh, who has repeatedly protested his innocence, revealing that he had been suspended from the national team after an investigation into complaints made in the 1970s.  Korbut says her abuse went on for over one year. An occasionally hostile audience, and a sceptical panel who included 1968 Olympian Olga Karaseva, could not drown out Korbut's strong and assertive performance.  After Olga was accused of lying, former husband Bortkevich spoke out:  'I was married to Olga for 25 years and she never lies'.   It is now too late for any legal redress against Knysh.   . A Sports Express report  of  the documentary includes a video of the...

No good news to report at present from beautiful, brave St Petersburg, as the gymnastics club where national team members Elena Eremina, Valeria Saifulina and Lilia Akhaimova all train faces ruin.  Club Pushkin, built up from scratch by coaches Alexander Kiryashov and Vera Kiryashova, is one of Russia's leading gymnastics clubs for women.  St Petersburg gymnasts are technically clean, well disciplined and happy competitors who generally stay in their sport and work with their club for years.  Tatiana Nabiyeva, Ekaterina Kramarenko and Evgeniya Kuznetsova have all trained at Pushkin and earned medals for their country at world level, including gold.  Current senior national Elena Eremina is vice world champion in the all around and uneven bars events. St Petersburg is a historic city where Imperial Russia left its mark.  The beautiful palaces and waterways mark it out as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the wonders of the world.  Its spirit is fierce and...

I saw the poster on the wall of the gym and it surprised my teacher when I asked if I could go.  She had noticed that I didn't exactly love PE ... But I loved gymnastics and I wanted to see my favourite, Olga Korbut.  My friends Elaine Richardson, Janet Brooks and Mary Andronowski wanted to come too. We set out in the school coach, all of us excited.  I wore my best purple dress and purple eye shadow and had my little Kodak camera in my bag.  I remember the excitement when we arrived and parked up at Wembley, only a few steps away from the Trident studio where rock band Queen had recorded some of their first album!  I half expected to see them there :-). We found our seats, up in the higher echelons of the Grand Tier.  There was a strong smell of popcorn.  Scampering school children made the boards beneath our feet echo, seats around us snapped up and down, lending the impression of an ever moving sea rather than an attentive audience.  But ...

I just watched the most discouraging competition of my life in WAG, the AA.  Maybe the team competition yesterday was better - I didn't watch - but the AA left me dead cold.  The highlight was an energetic floor routine from Jordan Chiles.  The rest was complete and utter baloney.  The standard of vault has improved, but elsewhere there were falls aplenty (in fact the only gymnast to go four for four was Ellie Seitz, who finished second).  Beam routines lacked any fluidity and were almost all staccato, stuttering shambles.  The standard of tumbling on floor was fairly good, but choreographically the routines were empty.  Where did split leaps go?  When did bouncing on the spot take their place?  When did shuffling while pathetically waving wrists about or wiggling hips and shoulders semi-suggestively qualify as connections?  When did it become OK to fudge half hearted leaps into the corner of the floor mat, as if no one would notice? In ...

There is so much talk of sport in the media recently, in a negative way, that I wanted to express my thoughts. The three themes that regularly emerge are corruption, cheating and cruelty, or a combination of all three.  Sports politics, at various levels local, regional, national and international, are an overarching consideration, as are gender and racial issues.  Most sports are funded by national and local governments on one level or another.  Corporate organisations sponsor sports.  Sporting federations wrangle for power.  Coaches fight for prominence.  Sports relationship to medicine, injury and recovery is currently emphasised as never before.  The battle has become as much one of the doctors as of the athletes.  Perhaps the purest part of sport is the action that goes on in the competitive arena. The sociological context of sport differs from person to person, country to country and sport to sport.  The framework o...

World and European champion gymnast Elena Eremina, 16. Elena, and her team mates Lilia Akhaimova, Valeria Saifuluna and Tatiana Nabiyeva, all hail from St Petersburg where they train together under the same roof with world class coaches such as Alexander and Vera Kiryashov. Their predecessors include Olympic champions such as Elena Shushunova, Elena Davydova and Alexander Detyatin Now, it seems, the club is experiencing some problems - their facilities at a 'new' gym are very poor - no pit, they are landing on concrete floors, the apparatus are old, and there isn't enough space for a busy gym with lots of children.   The big problem is that the local St Petersburg admin refuses to help with the refurbishment of the gym.  So Elena, via her Instagram account, is asking us to post and repost her message explaining the situation.   This is a recurring theme in Russia at the moment as we take on board the surprising decision to close the gym in Leninsk-Kuznetsk.  I hope t...