Nelli Kim comes home to Kazakhstan

 

 

 

 

Lupita translates a Prosport interview with 1976 and 1980 Olympic Champion, President of the WTC, Nelli Kim. 

 

Not long ago, Nelli Kim came to Almaty on the invitation of the Kazakhstan Gymnastics Federation. Nelli Kim is a well-known five-time Soviet Olympic champion, European champion, master of sports of the Soviet Union. This time her visit to the capital was due to an international judges� course.

The talented gymnast�s name competes with the name of excellent gymnasts like Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and Tourisheva. It will always be related to the history of sport at the world level. Nelli Kim was the first gymnast to receive a mark of ten in floor and vault.

In 2004 she was elected president of the Women�s Technical Committee of the FIG and she became one of the major promoters of the introduction of a new judging system in artistic gymnastics. Being an important specialist in this field, she runs specialized courses for judges in many countries. 

For a long time we had been waiting for her presence among us. Nelli Vladimirovna lives in the US, in Minnesota. This gymnastics legend�s agenda is so tight that it has not only assignments by days, but by minutes. Nelli Kim has little free time. Thus the exclusive interview she kindly agreed to give us is a pride for Kazakh Soviet gymnastics.

- Nelli Kim, we are so happy to welcome you here in Almaty! I remember your visit in 2011, when you participated in the opening of a small gymnastics academy, named after you! Did you have time to visit the academy and to assess the work there? 

- Unfortunately, I didn�t. I don�t have time to visit a few places I would like to go to. I have been busy with the judges� seminar. I was invited by the Federation to conduct a judges� seminar at the beginning of a new quad. The FIG has published new judging rules. We are now conducting courses all over. If they complete the courses, the judges obtain new certificates and categories. In this case, the judges can work at the international competitions. 

- Nelli Vladimirovna, what are the most serious problems in the judging work?

- You know, artistic gymnastics is a very subjective sport. In a gymnast�s performance the technical component plays an important part, but it�s not the only one. Still more important is artistry. Currently the judges have to pay more attention in their work to artistry; coaches, at the same time, have to teach and enhance their gymnasts� artistry. The gymnast is very strong technically, but he performs statically from the artistic standpoint.

- You started to write a PhD on the problems concerning judging in artistic gymnastics � 

- I already completed it successfully. Now my PhD thesis is used as support material for different federations. I am convinced that, like gymnasts, judges are not trained. Judging in the highest categories is hard work requiring a lot of experience.

- We often find statements in the media saying that you will help the most talented gymnasts of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Is it so?

- I am always happy to give advice and the show the necessary direction for further work. So far, I don�t really cooperate with academia. The distance between the US and Kazakhstan is huge and it�s a problem to work together. Yet I am always open to exchanges that can take place via the internet, for example. I am glad that the FIG has sent, upon my request, gymnastics equipment to Kazakhstan. The International Gymnastics Federation sends equipment only if a gym gives warranty of good work. Some countries are given equipment that remains in warehouses.

- Nelli Vladimirovna, in Almaty there are very few gyms for the development of artistic gymnastics. Right now we are in specialist Sports school n�9 for children and young people, the main centre for the preparation of Olympic-level gymnasts�

- Yes, it�s not a consolation. It�s even painful. Private clubs should be opened. They are the real future for our sport.

- Nelli Vladimirovna, did you follow our athletes� performance at the London Olympics?

- I was responsible for the whole coordination of the Olympics in artistic gymnastics. We have to be convinced that the medals go to those who deserve them. As you know, the best 24 reach the all around final; the best nine reach the event final. 

Of course, I want to know the number of gymnasts participating in the Olympics coming from Kazakhstan and their performance. The results speak for themselves. We can also think that the 58^th place of the Chimkent gymnast Moldir Azimbai is the best in history in this type of competitions. On the other hand Kazakhstan should be proud of the fact that she had the right to participate in the quad�s most important competition. Many gymnasts from other countries didn�t get the licence to compete at the London Olympics. 

Of course, before. many excellent specialists in artistic gymnastics used to work in Kazakhstan. Currently Valeri Liukin, an excellent Soviet gymnast, twice Olympic champion who competed for  Dynamo in Alma-Ata, is living in the United States and coaches world champions. We cannot but hope that, with time, the changes will be for the best. 

- According to you, what do Kazakh gymnasts lack to achieve the results they achieved in the 70s and the 80s?

Currently, Kazakh athletes lack a good level of execution. We cannot say that there are no good coaches in Kazakhstan, on the contrary. But there is no motivation. A number of good specialists are working in the fitness business, where they have better salaries than in the sport schools. 

I am asked the same thing in Belarus. I hear all the time: 'Nelli Vladimirovna, tell us how to raise the level of gymnastics?'. I used to tell them: 'Pay the coaches a decent salary, motivate them, and all will work'. I know a lot of people who would come back to their country if they knew they would be rewarded for their labour �

- In the Soviet Union�s team you were called Kimanelli�

- Vladislav Rostorotski, Liudmila Tourisheva�s coach, mistook my name and my surname. Since that time, everyone has been called me that.

- The well-known Canadian-Portuguese singer Nelly Furtado was named after you. As far as we know, her parents were impressed by your performances at the 1976 Olympics. Have you ever met her?

- You know, it didn�t happen. Our paths didn�t cross. She was in Minnesota for a concert, but I didn�t have time to go, Nelly Furtado didn�t know that I live there (smiles).

- Nelli Vladimirovna, your daughter�s name is also Nelli. Did she follow your steps?

- She preferred to practice sport as a hobby. She practiced athletics and swimming. She first studies economics. Currently, she turned to medicine. 

- When you come back to Kazakhstan, which places do you visit apart from sports institutions? A year ago you were welcomed at the Association of Korean people in Kazakhstan�

- Yes, we spent a nice time there (smiles). I if receive an invitation to go somewhere, I am always happy to meet people, to socialize. I am always happy to meet friends, to talk to coaches and judges. I come here not as a guest, I come home. It�s so nice!

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Russian regional gymnastics system : an explanation

Map of Russia: courtesy of Infoplease

Go-Tribe has developed this great guide to the Russian regional system of gymnastics at her website, Videos of Russian Gymnasts. That explains the mystery of all those competitions!

An extremely interesting and useful blog that has links to videos of all the national team members as well as transliterations of the available results of the Russian domestic competitions. 

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Alexander Alexandrov: 'They performed like artists with a classical style'

I posted a link to this 2011 article on Facebook in response to a request for more videos of classical gymnastics. A follower called Vince Miller posted a response:

'I was there and it was the most incredible 15 minutes of artistic gymnastics I've ever seen!'

That is exactly how I feel about this 1989 team. I feel privileged to have been there, in the flesh.

They were led by Russian coach Alexander Alexandrov, who won his first Worlds gold with Dmitri Bilozerchev in 1983, capped his Soviet/Unified achievements with gold for the WAG team at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, pulled the Russians back to first at the World Championships in 2010, and brought back from the 2012 Olympics the Russians' best medal haul for many years.


In the autumn of 1989 I travelled to Stuttgart, Germany, for the World Gymnastics Championships. There, I was enthralled by the performance of the best Soviet women's team I ever saw, and the six best floor exercises there have ever been.

The videos you will see below are not the best quality, but they have been selected for atmosphere, presenting the exercises in the order they were performed that evening, accompanied by audience sounds. We were all vocal supporters of the Soviet team, that night.

National team coach Alexander Alexandrov, interviewed after the competition by a local newspaper (I think it was the Suddeutsche Zeitung) explained how the team had worked with choreographers from Moscow's world famous Bolshoi Theatre.

One thing that really strikes me today is how different each floor exercise is, drawing on diverse dance traditions, from the folk-inspired work of Sazonenkova to the modern dance of Boginskaya. Each gymnast's work is a short, consummate performance, embracing dance, gymnastics and powerful, intricate tumbling. Dudnik's moving performance to Gershwin makes incredibly effective use of pauses in the music. Laschenova's spritely yet powerful gymnastics interprets Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King to perfection. Boginskaya's modern, lyrical dance is full of personality, humour and sophistication. Olga Strazheva to Stravinsky's Rites of Spring is unique, drawing on Nijinsky's original choreography first performed by the Ballets Russes in May 1913 in Paris. I love the way that even the tumbling emphasises the drama of the music.

Svetlana Baitova



Link to it on Youtube.

Elena Sazonenkova



Link to it on Youtube.

Olessia Dudnik



Link to it on Youtube.

Natalia Laschenova



Link to it on Youtube.

(I cannot find a video of Laschenova's performance in the team final - but you will find here a record of her floor exercise in the all around final.)

Svetlana Boginskaya



Link to it on Youtube.

(There is an alternative, better quality, video here, but it cuts off the beginning of the floor exercise.)

Olga Strazheva



Link to it on Youtube.

You can view an extract of Nijinsky's choreography, danced by the Kirov Ballet, here.

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Pictures, pictures, pictures ... and an Alexandrov update

2012 Olympian Maria Paseka competes in January 2013

As you may have seen, Gym Blog Brazil has confirmed that Alexander Alexandrov will be remaining in Russia for the time being.  Apparently the Brazilian Federation were unable to strike an appropriate agreement at this moment in time.  There is the possibility of further negotiations later in the year.  But my personal feeling is, given Alexandrov's bond with his personal athlete, Russia's World and Olympic Champion Aliya Mustafina, it seems unlikely that he would leave Russia. 

Let's just hope that Alexandrov is given the appropriate professional freedoms at Lake Krugloye.

I have been building a small gallery of Olga Korbut images drawn from the excellent RIA Novosti archive.   Olga Korbut is where gymnastics began for me at the age of 12.  It's impossible to write enough about this iconic champion, a few pictures say so much more.  You can view the gallery here, at RRG's Facebook page.

Lifje has also provided a link to a wonderful picture archive of Moscow competitions, including pictures from last December's Voronin Cup, and from January's regional championships.  The picture of Maria Paseka at the top of this post comes from that resource.

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Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov interview - Lupita translates

Lupita translates a Sovietski Sport interview with newly adopted Russian MAG team member, former Ukraine Olympian, Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov.

Nikolai Kuksenkov and his sister, journalist Irina.  Courtesy of Sovietski Sport

KUKSENKOV INTERVIEWED BY HIS SISTER JOURNALIST IRINA KUKSENKOVA

A STOLEN MEDAL

� Tell me, Kolya, when did you first ever think about going to live in Russia?
 

� Irina, it was a long time ago, when we were living in Belgium, where Dad was the national team�s coach. You entered the Journalism School in Moscow University and I thought it would be nice to go to Russia. I was still a kid and I went back to Kiev with our parents. Later I was seriously injured before the Beijing Olympics, I had surgery and a long recovery. You remember, I came to see you in Moscow, we went to different specialists. I didn't know if I would come back to elite sport. The doctors didn�t give a very promising prognosis. At the end, I watched the Olympics on TV. ?nd I lived for the following four years thinking of London.

� Before London, a new injury...
 

� I tore my foot joints when I was practising tumbling. The doctors questioned my participation at the Olympics, at least in vault and floor. It�s difficult to express that situation. I decided to recover and compete on pommel horse. I couldn�t miss a second Olympics.

When we arrived to London, Dad didn�t know if I would compete in the All Around or only on four events. We decided to remove difficulty and to try to make the All Around.

I worked for the team on the first day. We put on an excellent performance. Then came a scandal, that had never happened in the history of gymnastics � we were stolen our medal was stolen.

� What did you feel when you heard that the bronze medal was going to the Japanese team?
 

� You never forget this kind of thing. Injustice! I think I was in a kind of fog. We finished the competition in third position and the bronze medal. TV showed a table, where the Ukraine was third. Once the competition finished, the Japanese, decided, without respecting the rules, that the Ukrainian team had to fall off the podium.

The Japanese submitted their protest when the delay was over. Had the protest been submitted by any other country, it wouldn�t have been filed. A Japanese gymnast fell, hit his head on the pommel horse, yet that dismount counted for him. It�s ridiculous. Everyone who understands gymnastics was sincerely sorry for us. Who needs a sport where a good performance is not necessary, where you have to ask properly?

�Whom?
 

� In London I understood that sport is also politics and business. I thought that I would never compete again. Yet I overcame those feelings. And I decided to compete again.

� Did you compete in the all around throwing in the towel?
 

� I was in physical pain. I concentrated and did what I could. I came fourth, again off podium. In London I realized I had to change something. I thought again of moving to Russia.

A NEW PASSPORT

� You always expressed your uneasiness when your father was the national team�s head coach...
 

� Sometimes you don�t have the feeling he�s simply your father. By the way, Dad said he respected my decision. It�s true that he has now problems in the Ukraine�

� Who�s now your coach?
 

�Igor Kalabushkin, in Vladimir. He is an excellent specialist and a good person. Psychologically we fit one another. I like his sense of humour. I enjoy going to the gym to train with him. Kalabushkin was a coach to the late Yuri Riazanov. We were very good friends...

� ?nd why precisely Vladimir?
 

� Vitali Ivanchuk, director of the Vladimir School, had made this proposal to me some time ago. He invited both my father and me. I accepted, but Dad decided to stay.

� When will you show me the Russian passport?
 

�The Minister of Sport Vitali Mutko has already sent a letter to Putin about my documents. I�ve been told that I�ll get my passport in February.

� You probably know that in the Ukraine some people say you are a traitor?
 

� These people say so because they don�t know the situation of Ukrainian gymnastics. I had to pay for my surgery. They didn�t allocate funds for the national team. When you give everything, including your health, this is unbearable!

� Is it different in Russia?
 

� It�s like night and day! I spent three weeks at Ozero Krugloye [Round Lake, the Russian National Training Centre] and felt the difference. Everything is done for the athletes; you only have to train. A beautiful gym, numerous specialists, a special coach for pommel horse or high bar.

� How did your new teammates welcome you?
 

� Very well, I have known them for a long time. We spend three weeks at Krugloye. Then everyone goes home for a week. I go to Vladimir.

 
-      Which are your next competitions? 

-      The Russian championship is going to take place in Penza in March. Then in April in Moscow the European Championships. I wish I stay healthy and I can fight for a medal.

� You are being compared to G�rard Depardieu, who gave back French citizenship and took Russian...
 

� Of course, it�s pleasant, but it�s not a correct comparison. I�m Russian! You know that, contrary to Depardieu, we have roots in Russia. Dad is from the Moscow region; Mum is from Bashkiria. In the Soviet period people worked in different places in a huge country. After the dismantlement of the Soviet Union, not everyone came back home. I felt Russian all my life.

� I remember that you wrote Putin a letter, when you were a kid and we were living in Belgium. ?um has kept it. Now we laugh when we read it.
 

� At my Belgian school, the teacher told us about Moscow: misery, deprivation, abandoned children. I stood up and said that it was not true. Unlike the teacher, I had been in Russia, and had never seen this. Belgian kids humiliated us Russians constantly. I hit a boy and I had to go to the headmaster�s office. I came back home humiliated. I wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, who had just become the Russian president. In my letter I explained how the Russians were perceived in Belgium.

� Don�t you have the impression that this letter from your childhood reached the President?
 

� And as an answer I�ll soon receive my Russian passport? Yes, probably. On my passport they won�t write Mikola, but Nikolai as my parents called me. Here you have a subject you can dwell upon!

Nikolai Kuksenkov was born in June 1989 in Kiev.

As a member of the Ukrainian team: European Junior Champion. Third in the European Championships (2011). Winner of the Universiade (2011). Winner of stages of the World Cup. Fourth in the AA at the London Olympics (2012).

At the end of 2012, got the Russian citizenship and will perform for the Russian team.

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Evgeny Grebenkin: we cannot replace the current members of our team

Lupita translates here the first interview of any significance with Evgeny Grebionkin, newly appointed senior coach of the Russian WAG team.  The article appears on the press website of the Russian Ministry of Sport.
 

The gymnastics national team�s head coach, Evgeny Grebionkin, has talked in an interview to FTP-Press about the changes in the staff, the specificities of the new season and the new Code of Points.

- Evgeny Anatolevich, what has changed in your work as the national team�s head coach?

- I�ve been working with this team for four years. The thing is that I have more duties now. I used to focus on bars, essentially. Now I follow the athletes on all apparatus. I have to organize the training process right now.

- How do you feel about the young gymnasts who have joined the team?

- So far it�s difficult to say something specific. Four years ago Mustafina, Komova, Nabieva joined the team the same way. It was tough for them at the beginning. Nevertheless, this year the young gymnasts don�t have competitions.

- There are new coaches working for the team �

- Exactly. We have two new coaches: an experienced coach Marina Bulashenko (beam) and a young coach Anton Stolyar (bars).

- Do you share your experience between yourselves?

- Our group is very friendly. We help each other because when you are following the gymnast, you can miss something. From the outside errors are easier to see.

- At the beginning of a new quad there�s always a new Code of Points.

- Yes, there are new combinations that add value to the score for execution. Beam will be scored more severely. The elements have not changed, but they will not be given bonus for the combination.  If Mustafina had a 7.1 start value, according to the new CoP, her routine will be worth 6.5.  This is why we have to look for elements that will add value to her routine.

-  What can the fans expect from our gymnasts this season?

- This season will be very difficult for the Russian national team. Everywhere the majority of Olympic medalists will rest. For instance, a lot of American gymnasts will not compete this year. Some of them have injuries. In our situation we cannot replace the team.  Our gymnasts will have to compete.  It�s difficult for them after the physical and psychological loads of the Olympics to resume training. Yet the girls are trying hard, and this is nice to see.

- Do you train for this year�s competitions or do you focus on Rio 2016?

- This year we are preparing for the European Championships and the Universiade in Kazan. Contrary to other years, we plan to have our first team competing there. We have four good junior gymnasts (born in 1998-1999). We�ll prepare them for Rio. Some of them are too young to compete in competitions for gymnast born after 1997. We plan for Shelgunova to participate at some stages of the World Cup for her to gain experience.

- Which control competitions are foreseen before the European Championships?

- First, the Russian Championships [editor : 1st to 7th March, Penza]. We will choose the team for the European Championships [17th to 21st April]. Then the World Cup stage in France [16th March] invites gymnasts who performed in the Olympic finals. Four more girls will compete in Cottbus [22nd to 24th March].

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'I hope we will prove that gymnastics can be both difficult and beautiful' - Valentina Rodionenko

Lupita has kindly translated the key points of this Ministry of Sport video which has been doing the rounds on the internet.




The national teams are currently training at Ozero Krugloye. They train 2-3 times a day. They have begun a new Olympic quad. Still, important competitions are ahead. Junior gymnasts are training with them.
 

Every gymnast has an aim: Rio, the Universiade �   For Mustafina the Universiade competition is the most important this year.

Their participation at this year�s competitions will depend on their condition.

Valentina Rodionenko: I hope everything will turn out well. We�ll fight for the medals. We have to. 

The team changed its working system and the staff.

Rodionenko: There�s a struggle. We are for more classical gymnastics, with an excellent level of execution.  The Americans show more athletic gymnastics. After 2000 our team lost its position and the Americans imposed their style. Yet, I hope we�ll prove that gymnastics can be both difficult and beautiful. 

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