Russian national team in training at Lake Krugloye - video

Enjoy this video of the Russian national gymnastics team in training in Lake Krugloye. 

Seen here : Denis Ablyazin, Yevgenia Shelgunova, Maria Paseka with tumbling coach Vasily Ivanov (practising a straight double front), Aliya Mustafina, Valentina Rodionenko, Viktoria Komova (with coach Gennady Elfimov), Ekaterina Baturina with choreographer Olga Burova, newly appointed beam choreographer Marina Bulashenko with WAG junior head coach Olga Bulgakova, senior WAG head coach Evgeny Grebenkin, Ekaterina Kramarenko practising bars with Grebenkin.

The gymnasts will take a week's break now and then return again to Lake Krugloye to prepare for Russian Championships, which will qualify the team travelling to European Championships (Moscow, 17th to 21st April).

Not surprisingly, the Russians plan to send full teams to Europeans (6 men, 4 women, do not forget that these are the individual European Championships with no team competition).

For the men, this is an important competition as they face fierce competition from leading world contenders such as Germany, Ukraine and Great Britain, so I expect to see a very strong selection.

The competition is less fierce for WAG, and I wonder what selection strategy the Russians will use there. Komova is out of the picture, and Mustafina has already said that her emphasis this year will be on preparation for the Universiade this summer. Relying on Mustafina once again to provide gold in Moscow will involve her in preparing and competing in three major competitions this year, in addition to the usual round of domestic and other international meets; surely this can't be good for any gymnast in a post-Olympics, post injury recovery year.

I do hope that the Russian selectors take care to protect their best competitors from over exposure this year. There are plenty of young gymnasts who could benefit from the experience of a home-based big competition like Europeans (eg Shelgunova, Rodionova). And I wonder if we will see a newly refreshed and revived Anastasia Grishina make an appearance?