Lovely montage from Maria Kharenkova for World Champions in the uneven bars, Daria Spiridonova and Viktoria Komova. Molodyets! You were the champions of beauty!
Saturday, October 31, 2015
Thursday, October 29, 2015
WAG AA results
Congratulations to all the medalists, including Simone, who wins for the third time winning, Gabrielle, who has completed a comeback after a break since Olympics, and Larissa who overcame a mountain of disappointment after qualifications.
Russia's promise, Seda, had quite a good first AA competition, but fell on beam and lost rather a lot of marks. But she is still one of the world's top gymnasts and will do better next time!
http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000E0001000101FFFFFFFFFFFFFF03
Aliya Mustafina : knee surgery on 3rd November
World and Olympic Champion, Aliya Mustafina, will travel back to Moscow on the 2nd November, ready for surgery on an injured meniscus in her right knee on the 3rd, head coach Valentina Rodionenko said today in an interview with R Sport. Aliya tore the ACL in her left knee in spring 2011 and recovered from surgery to win gold in the London Olympics in 2012.
The injury is not serious and it is expected that recovery will take six to eight weeks, allowing Aliya to begin training for Rio in early January, all being well. 'It's just a strain', said Rodionenko, adding that medical advice suggested it would be better for Aliya to have the surgery than suffer the pain.
Aliya made the decision herself to have the surgery in Russia this time, rather than in Germany. She will make her recovery at Round Lake (the national training centre) and if she is well enough will travel to Israel on the 10th, to participate in the rehabilitation camp with the rest of the national team.
Aliya herself has said that she doesn't consider that missing this World Championships will be detrimental to her Olympic preparation. Valentina added her voice to this, saying, 'Everything will be fine, do not worry'.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
The domino effect - Russia collapses and must rise again
Newcomer Seda Tutkhalyan did well to improve her floor performance for her team.
It was a tough competition today for Russia. Put simply, they fell too much for a better outcome.
The girls were on a swell following a great vault performance and two top class bars exercises. Next, however, returning champion Viktoria Komova went for an extra dimension on one of her pirouettes - and fell. It was a domino effect that ran through to first time World championships gymnast Seda Tutkhalyan on beam, and carried over via Kharenkova, back again to Komova. 4.5 points were lost as the checkers tumbled one after another. In the end, Moscow's Maria Paseka steadied the boat with her fluent floor exercises, and Tutkhalyan held things together with a routine that was much improved since Monday. Afanasyeva topped things off.
At the end of the comp, the girls were all cheers and smiles. But there were glum looks behind the ironic smiles. I think that all the team will be very unhappy after losing the medal in such a way.
What's the learning here? It's not the fact that you fell, that can happen to anyone. More the manner of the reaction to the fall.
There were some good moments. Vault saw a significant improvement since Sofia, and floor was much better than in qualifications. There is clearly much potential on the team. But potential does not win medals. Russia needs to learn how to balance on the crest of a wave and exploit the adrenalin of success to pursue gold or silver in future. This is exactly what the USA does so well and, today, China and Britain did better than Russia.
Valentina says that all the coaches and gymnasts are upset by this performance. And so they should be. Even President of the RGF, Vasily Titov, looked a bit sheepish at the medal ceremony. Perhaps heads will roll, and Romania won't be the only ones seeking coaches after this. After qualifications Russia looked to be respectable silver medalists here. But they weren't even scratch bronze medalists. Home advantage for rivals Britain or not, they should have done better.
In quals, Komova seemed to have mastered her nerves and to be on track in her revival as a team leader. Hmph - it is back to the drawing board there. Something has to change if the Olympian is truly to have profited from her career break. The youngsters have more grace from me for their errors, understandable under the pressure of competition and the strain of seeing their returning hero collapse at the first hurdle.
I don't want to blame any individual for a team failing - and the coaches have to take much of the responsibility - but Russia needs more confidence than that. Phoney smiles and shrugged shoulders are probably a sarcastic or philosophical reaction to adverse media and fan reactions to tears - what do you expect, they seem to say? But I would suggest that the girls need to start building themselves back up during EFs. I hope that everyone will reflect and realise that this was a lost opportunity to pressurise America in the run up to Rio. A close fight without Mustafina here could have been even closer with her next summer. Now, the exclamation mark will remain a question mark, and the pressure is all on Russia to prove themselves once more. The psychology of winning has to be more positive than we saw today.
Congratulations to the medalists, who all fought hard for their booty. To all the finalists, who truly deserved to be at the top table of gymnastics. Good luck for the coming days, and bring home some medals. Keep heart in the coming months as you prepare for the Olympics.
If Komova wins a medal on bars on Saturday, I hope she gives her beam finals place to Maria Kharenkova - who deserves a boost after a disappointing time here. The young girl has been competing with a painful right leg throughout quals and finals. She and Seda both looked very downmouthed about this result. They are Russia's future and both are much better gymnasts than we saw today. Russia cannot survive on past glories forever.
Full results are here. Fetch a handkerchief, a gin and tonic or a bar of chocolate. No, all three. http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000E0001000103FFFFFFFFFFFFFF03
Monday, October 26, 2015
Sunday, October 25, 2015
The changing identity of artistic gymnastics - what do you think?
There is a really good comment on my post 'Maybe it's the end'. It is from Cami, and I didn't want it to remain relatively hidden at the bottom of the post as it is full of ideas for discussion. Thank you, Cami ...
Cami says -
'You make excellent points, about how the identity of artistic gymnastics is changing. that�s the nature of sport though. i feel artistic gymnastics is still unique from any other branch because it is gymnast and apparatus, and nothing else. they are artists with their own bodies (no balls/hoops/or partners). a gymnast must be entirely focused on their physical, emotional, and mental self-awareness.
but if you are to give a gymnast a numerical score, there must be objectivity. in hockey, soccer - all goals are worth the same regardless of how much style they have. in basketball, �easy� shots are 2 points and �hard� shots are 3, regardless of whether they�re jumpshots or layups, half-court or right at the 3point line.
Gymnastics has tried to mimic this with the dichotomous d- and e-scores. but ultimately we cannot be like that because our athletes don�t just complete, they perform. as an american, I argue that Simone Biles is artistic because her gymnastics performance is a reflection of her, like painting reflects its painter or a composition reflects its composer. you see it in the way she quirks her hips or throws her shoulders back or directs her line of vision, not just in her flips and jumps. It�s what makes her difficult gymnastics different than say, Aly Raisman�s difficult gymnastics; it�s a difference not just in toe-point and leap-extension but in the ability to draw people in. I feel Aly�s lack of artistry gave her zero cushion in her scores today (especially on BB�), where as oppositely her unique big tricks gave her cushion room in 2012.
my current favorite american floor routine actually belongs to Bailie Key, one of our non-travelling alternates to worlds. in 2015 she�s struggled some with skills due to a growth spurt, but her floor artistry is loads better. I can tell that she has dedicated a lot of time into how she can best use her body and her strengths to tell the story of her routine. if you haven�t seen it yet, there are several online videos of her on FX this past summer, and I�d love to know your opinion. another american i�d like to know your opinion of is Brenna Dowell (she competed on floor today without her music), who just finished the 2014-2015 year competing on the american university level. it�s a whole different environment for gymnasts, with lower difficulty but many more contests/performances. she�s back on the elite stage now with nothing to lose, and I�d love an outsider�s before/after opinion.
I won't pretend to know as much about gymnasts from countries other than my own, but some of my recent favorites are vika komova (i thought for sure she was going to win AA in 2012, watching rotation by rotation...), jessica lopez of VEN, several JPN gymnasts, and i'm totally in love with this new crop of NED ladies. if russia and romania represent the "old guard" of artistry, i tend to prefer romania - no offense to you - simply because they seem to have more variety, at least among the girls chosen for worlds/olympics/etc. this is just my opinion watching the competitions, the finalized versions of each routine, not knowing their stories or how they individually approach gymnastics.'
I would just like to add my own take to this -
Objectivity is not the same as fairness. Objectivity is a philosophical stance, a way of seeing the world that involves measurement and calculation. Fairness is a state of making judgements that are even-handed and free of bias.
It is important to understand objectivity if we want to adopt it in any methodology. I am simplifying here but want to try to make this clear. Objectivity takes the position of viewing the world from a distance, as if individual phenomena can be observed as a separate entity from other phenomena and from the person doing the observation. It assumes that phenomena can be MEASURED and CALCULATED. Objectivity seeks to identify the phenomenon in detail according to existing knowledge and is dependent on a set of assumptions we call a 'paradigm'. These assumptions are critical because they are the basis of the objective view of the world and if they are off, can lead to continued misconceptions and a skewing of the vision and measurements. So for example if our paradigm (assumptions) is that the world is flat and we want to calculate how to travel from one side of the world to another, we would have to take into account the possibility that at some point we would fall off the edge of the world. If we assume (it is our paradigm) that the world is round, then we can calculate our distance in a straight continuous line.
Since the early 1990s the FIG has repeatedly emphasised their opinion about the importance of objectivity to fair judging, but WITHOUT STATING THE ASSUMPTIONS or making clear its world view/paradigm of gymnastics. A fair description of what was the intended meaning of 'artistry' appeared in the Code of Points as recently as 1989 but at some point was removed without discussion or debate and was never replaced with anything else. There has never, to my knowledge, been a clear statement of what the FIG believe the sport is, nor of the assumptions behind the decision to pursue a stance of objectivity in the marking. I believe that the FIG blithely uses the term 'objectivity' as a synonym for 'fairness' without really considering the implications, or operationalising the Code in a way that is consistent with its world view, assumptions or paradigm of gymnastics. I also think they would find it very hard to articulate their paradigm without conducting some significant research amongst their members or at the very least undertaking a thorough literature review.
As you mention, gymnastics' identity has always been fraught with creative tension and it changes all the time - that is why we have so many different forms and sub-forms of the sport. At present though, women's artistic gymnastics is being torn apart in various ways by the many forces to which it is subjected (too much to write now but there are whole fields of thought involved and while this era isn't yet provoking a rich vein of literature, hopefully it will soon and not just me).
At the end of the day, are people happy with the way the sport looks? Is the competitive field deep and rich and diverse? (I know it is internationally, but I mean in terms of the gymnastics - look at the floor final for a start.) I understand why fans are delighted to see the artistic presentation of the NED and BEL teams - they are making strides forward - but get real - they finished in 8th and 11th respectively as teams - this is hardly likely to transform the sport.
Finally, you make a fair point about the relative measurability of hockey and football compared to gymnastics and the idea that the aesthetic doesn't really count there. The big question is - do we think the aesthetic counts in gymnastics at all? Your point therefore is really about deciding our chosen paradigm of gymnastics. If we don't want it to be artistic, it doesn't have to be ... But then isn't that another sport? Do we want acrobatic gymnastics to replace artistic gymnastics at the Olympics? We really have to think about this!
Saturday, October 24, 2015
A hypothetical stance amid nerdy calculations. China come 8th, Holland third. Russia wins!
USA. 46.966 44.649 43.198 44.198. 179.011
Russia. 45.433 45.566 43.432 41.599. 176.03
GBR. 44.865. 42.066 41.699. 43.2. 171.83
CHN. 44.698 43.298 42.033 42.133 172.162
ITA 44.024 40.699 41.699 42.465 168.887
JPN 43.933 41.699 41.599 42.766 169.997
CAN 43.8 41.999 41.516 41.266 168.581
NED 42.116 42.133 43.232 41.766. 169.247
I also worked out that without Biles, USA would stand marginally behind Russia. A hypothetical stance I know.
USA B. 46.099 43.049 42.232 43.633 175.013
I thought it would be interesting to work out the execution scores standings. These show an even bigger change, with NED leaping into third place from eighth, ITA moving up from fifth to fourth, GBR finishing fifth, and China dropping all the way to eighth. Maybe somebody else wants to work out the scores from ninth downwards to see what the true standings are ...
Of course China did have a very bad day. I worked out Romania's E score and it was less than 3 points below China whose D scores saved the day for them. I didn't see Romania's routines, but their e scores on uneven bars in particular seem brutal. They competed in the first subdivision; surely scores crept upwards especially towards the later part of the second day. But that can't account for it all. Mistakes are mistakes but this looks like a hatchet job to me.
USA. 28.566. 25.749. 25.532 26.066. 105.913
RUS 27.433. 26.266 25.532. 24.699. 103.93
GBR. 27.465. 24.066 25.166. 24.9. 101.597
CHN. 27.232. 23.332. 24.033 24.033. 98.63
ITA 27.624. 23.899 25.299 25.432 102.254
JPN. 27.333. 24.333 24.599. 25.266 101.531
CAN. 27.233. 24.266. 24.233. 24.766. 100.498
NED 26.816. 25.233. 26.032. 25.274 103.355
A calculator in my hands is a dangerous thing. E&OE.
With thanks to Gymcastic for the picture of the scoreboard.
Maybe it's the end ...
This is what I was thinking as I watched the slow, sad drift downwards of the Romanian team in the rankings. I hadn't envisaged it happening, and it gave me a feeling of foreboding. Perhaps Russia would succumb to the same forces as Romania and (relatively) quietly drift out of sight of international gymnastics. I thought - perhaps this was the end for the old guard of gymnastics? There has been a power shift and America has emerged the winner, while Romania and Russia, the vestigial remains of European dominance of the sport, have finally lost.
So I was very much relieved to see the team put on their game face yesterday and produce a far better showing than I had expected. Team captain Afanasyeva more than pulled her weight and the other Olympians, Komova and Paseka, made their commitment and experience count. The youngsters, Spiridonova, Tutkhalyan and Kharenkova, also put on a good show. In particular Seda Tutkhalyan, whose first World Championships this is, fought hard, with determination for her team.
Would Mustafina have justified her place on the team under the circumstances, even if she had been healthy? I doubt it. Until the great champion is able to pull herself back to her best form, able to train fully, improve her routines and her competitive consistency, she has been outstripped by the current team. Physical injury has hampered her significantly in preparing for these Games - and she deserves a break - but it works two ways. It is true to say that Mustafina has - through no fault of her own - fallen short of her usual standards. It is also true to say that the current team has outstripped their leader - at least in the short term. I hope that they realise this. With junior Angelina Melnikova due to step up to senior level from January, Mustafina will have to fight hard to regain her position on this team. One thing that the Russians have been able to achieve over the past four years is a relative improvement in their strength in depth and time always takes a toll in gymnastics.
The competition is not over for these girls - they will all contribute to the team final on Tuesday and then all but the unlucky Kharenkova will have all around and event finals to contribute to. But the team has done its job - the main mission of the current competition was to qualify direct to Rio without having to go to the test event, and that has been comfortably achieved. A real test of their competition readiness will be the punishing 3-3 format of the team final, and this is where Mustafina might have had an edge, for she always had the grit to pull out bravura performances precisely when needed and exactly when you didn't expect it.
We still do not know the final outcome of the qualifying competition, which continues today. The USA will compete from 4.30 pm. They are expected to take first place easily and certainly if Biles delivers and the rest don't falter, they will have the upper hand.
There has been a strong Americanisation of the women's sport over the past twenty years and it is now considered almost inevitable that the USA will win team and AA competitions in most if not all major WAG competitions. Other countries do have a say, and we do see some distinct styles - the sharp technical lines of the Chinese, the pyrotechnical acrobatics and stability of the Americans and the classical presentation of some of the Russians - but broadly gymnastics has become a fight to perform the most difficult 'tricks' regardless of the aesthetic, and to avoid a list of movements that are prescribed as errors. I hope it's not considered insulting to suggest that this is largely a North American construct of the sport.
Gymnastics is known as 'artistic gymnastics' in the English language and there is an assumption of the aesthetic contained within the rules and heritage of the sport. We, as athletes, coaches, judges, fans and observers, have spent a lot of time and energy trying to understand this. We have also tried to fathom why the sport is so much less appealing these days as an art form, than it was twenty or thirty years ago.
I do not think we can use this fact as a whip to punish our gymnasts and coaches with, but there is no artistry left any more in women's gymnastics. I hear discussions of artistry today and the vocabulary that is used - 'toe point', 'great line', 'entertaining choreography' - is really only a superficial description of what artistry used to be like. In practice it describes an attempt to provide an appearance of artistry that, for the most part, is merely surface. Continuing to call the sport 'artistic' is a denial of the true status of the sport today. I would argue that that is a travesty and is very much something that we should all be thinking about and talking about, regardless of who is winning. Or it very well may be the end for artistic gymnastics, especially when you think that there is already a sport out there called acrobatic gymnastics, and how the Olympics so frequently look to cull and edit their lists of sports.
Is artistry a mere frippery, an adjunct to the main thing; even - given the emphasis on women's gymnastics - a degradation of sport designed particularly to hobble strong, athletic women in obtaining the correct esteem and credit for their participation in an incredibly demanding sport? A way of insisting that women comply with their defined societal role as ornamental, fragile and pretty chattels of a masculine society? I think that to try to come up with the answer, we have to look more broadly than just gymnastics.
Maybe readers will have more examples to contribute, but I can draw on a film I saw quite recently, Red Army, a documentary about the Soviet ice hockey team of the 1980s. They won almost everything, and were wonderful to watch. Listening to the stars speak about their training and competition strategy - coach Tarasov drew ideas for the team's game play from ballet and chess - you came to realise that the artistry you saw on the ice came from an utter, intimate grasp of the most complex shots and manoeuvres. It involved complete commitment - physical, mental, emotional - from the players and the coaches. There was no room for mercy and only sacrifice led to these great, unforgettable performances. I'm no expert on ice hockey, but watching them compete on the big screen was mesmerising, entertaining, captivating. Artistry here was not about a deliberate, contrived aesthetic, but about a consummate grasp of the sport that elevated its performance to a point of perfection that was capable of appreciation on many different levels, beyond the sporting.
In gymnastics, you don't have the same game play and unpredictability as in hockey, but you do have a combination of the breathtaking and inconceivable - I will call it the technical dimension (difficulty) - with the intangible elegance of movement - I will call that the aesthetic dimension. Neither dimension, taken on its own, is artistry. Toe point and line contributes to the aesthetic dimension but is not artistry. You cannot contrive to be artistic, you simply have to be brilliant beyond all belief.
But there aren't any female gymnasts who can achieve both technical and aesthetic artistry these days. The sport has simply reached a point that it is out of balance and the demands of difficulty are so great that only one or the other can prevail. What's the point of gymnastics, unless it looks great? Biles, the great trickster, is amazing and captivating in her reliable performance of ultra difficult tumbling, but her work lacks a certain aesthetic dimension. Afanasyeva has great posture, line and expression but her work is less strong on a technical level. Combine Biles and Afanasyeva and you have artistry. Anything less than that is merely satisfying different levels of artistry.
Is there something wrong when the sport's Code is demanding more than can be delivered on a technical level, whilst maintaining the aesthetic? In men's gymnastics, there is - somehow - a better balance, and so gymnasts like Kohei Uchimura - well, Kohei Uchimura - can present the more consummate grasp of both technique and the aesthetic that amounts to artistry. That's my way of saying that, fundamentally, men's gymnastics is now, by and large, more artistic than women's.
Female gymnasts who can combine the aesthetic with the technical - such as, for example, Elena Produnova - exist in the past. No gymnasts can compete with the advancing levels of difficulty whilst also maintaining the aesthetic appearance of the work. The technical dimension has outgrown the aesthetic. There is too much difficulty and the aesthetic is relatively too unimportant. This is a problem with the conceptualisation and operation of the Code, not the fault of the judges, coaches and gymnasts. Can we find a way of improving matters?
So I have drifted and meandered through a wide ranging discussion of the current state of the competitive field in gymnastics, the likely winners and losers of the competition, and the state of gymnastics today. What I would really like to say, from my heart, is 'take heart' to the gymnasts of Romania. You are too good to remain the shadows for long and I am sure you will do better very soon. I would like to say 'well done' to the Russian team, and to encourage them to keep working in the same way. We will be supporting you every inch of the way. I would also like to say 'good luck' to the rest of the teams competing, because it is always so nice to see everyone do their best.
To my readers, if anyone has got this far, I would like to say, 'keep thinking and chatting' as you all have valid opinions about the artistry debate. Also, 'enjoy the world championships' - because they happen all too rarely, and because once they are over, we won't be able to wait for the next big competition and we will be chatting and opining all about what will happen in a few months' time in Rio. Every cloud has a silver lining, and in a very selfish sense at least Romania's problems will mean that we will be able to see a good competition in six months' time, at the Olympic test event. I would also like to think that whatever the final outcome of this competition Russia will go home, train hard and, in their inimitable way, find a way of combining difficulty and artistry so that they can take gold in Rio.
Friday, October 23, 2015
Russia leads qualifying (for now)
The Russian girls have achieved their aim of qualifying for Rio, the main objective of the World Championships this year. I think it is true to say that they performed somewhat better than expected. At present the team leads vault, bars and beam but is in sixth place on floor ... Russia has to begin to address its problems there, but that is a longer term issue and the girls should be pleased with how they performed overall.
Paseka and Tutkhalyan are in first and third places respectively on vault; Spiridonova, Komova and Paseka occupy the first three places on bars; Komova, Tutkhalyan and Kharenkova are in 2nd, 3rd and 4th on beam and on floor Afanasyeva is in 2nd. But to illustrate Russia's lack of depth there, their next gymnast is Paseka, 22nd.
Young Seda Tutkhalyan avoided major errors in her first senior competition and has clearly qualified to the AA final in 2nd. But for Spiridonova a place in the competition is in doubt - 11th place so far with many other teams still to compete both today and tomorrow.
Russia has done well considering their own self doubts and has shown that they can hold a competition together. I do not know what will happen in the highly pressured all-or-nothing finals. It all matters so much less now the team knows they will be in Rio, everything else they can achieve will be a bonus. I think they may well come home with a better overall performance than last year - they have to do their best, for Aliya.
Sadly, it is almost certain that Romania will need to go to the test event to qualify for Rio as a team. If they don't make it, it would be the first time in my memory that an Olympics took place without the birthplace of Nadia Comaneci being represented. Romania really missed the moral boost of Ponor, who is injured, and a late injury to Ocolisan tore the heart out of them. Surely we will see a comeback from these spirited girls soon.
We will have to wait and see now what the final positions are.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Start lists for WAG quals
Available here. http://www.longinestiming.com/File/Download?id=00000E0001000100FFFFFFFFFFFFFF00
As Valentina said, only Spiridonova and Tutkhalyan do AA in this model. Although things can always change ...
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Russian team predictions from Valentina
Ksenia Afanasyeva in podium training yesterday
Reserves are confirmed at this stage as Dmitri Lankin and Evgeniya Shelgunova.
Competing AA will be - WAG - Daria Spiridonova and Seda Tutkhalyan; MAG - Nikita Ignatyev, David Belyavski and Nikolai Kuksenkov
It will be tough for the men's team as the top six are extremely competitive. To be realistic, the men are not likely to finish in the top three. The American men are very strong, also the Chinese and Japanese, other teams - she mentions Brazil.
The women can compete for one of the top places. Of course the Americans are out of reach but they are on the same level as the Chinese and Romanians so there is a chance. But they will have to be clean.
On the AA, it's another picture; the gymnasts can compete for a medal. For the men, David Belyavski and Nikita Ignatyev. It will be harder for the women as both Daria and Seda do not yet have extensive international senior experience.
It is expected that Viktoria Komova will compete in three apparatus (vault, bars, beam). Ksenia Afanasyeva has the ability to perform at the level of a medal in floor, and Maria Paseka on vault. The odds on Seda Tutkhalyan AA are longer, but she does have one apparatus - beam - where if she performs without error, she has a difficult routine and may be in the battle for a medal.
David Belyavski has a good routine on p bars, and Denis Ablyazin on floor, rings and vault. They expect a good competition and a medal from Nikita Ignatyev - perhaps on high bar or on p bars.
This is really only a preliminary assessment of the team's readiness - there are still a few days left to polish the routines.
source : http://www.allsportinfo.ru/index.php?id=98577
I think Valentina's ideas are pretty much what I would say - nothing unexpected. Good luck to all the gymnasts! We are looking forward to supporting you!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
The teams are more important than individuals, says Rodionenko
Viktoria Komova receives her team medal at a ceremony last week.
- A key theme of the interview was the refreshment of the teams who both have a young contingent.
- Three very young girls come to the podium, and all that is expected of them is that they avoid mistakes. Their routines are complex and ready for the Rio Olympics - they do not have to do any more.
- The girls will fight, but 'it will be difficult without Mustafina'
- Glasgow should really be considered as Komova's first serious start since her comeback. Yes, she competed in Baku - but she was very nervous there ('trembling'); she has become more confident since, and they hope that she will compete for a medal on the uneven bars where she has a very strong routine. She may compete on three pieces of apparatus. She has grown significantly since London 2012 and had to start from scratch on bars because of the parameters and dimensions of the apparatus but they hope she will do well.
- The experience of Komova can't be compared with the youth of Kharenkova and Tutkhalyan. Komova was trained in the classical school of gymnastics. Seda Tutkhalyan is different again, has more power and different potential. 'If Tutkhalyan does not falter, she could compete for a prize in the all around.'
- Maria Kharenkova has to develop a stronger psychology, but they hope for good work from her. She was second in Europe all around.
- Next year's team will be strengthened. They mention Angelina Melnikova as having potential for the Rio team.
- Ablyazin, Belyavski, Ignatyev, Kuksenkov are leaders; perhaps they have worries about Kuksenkov but he has lots of experience and is strong; they have adjusted his training programme.
- Ivan Stretovich has good p bars, pommels and high bar. Nikita Nagorny is strong on the vault.
- The women should finish in the top three. The men will compete for a place from three to five.
- All of the athletes are now working for the team. Gymnastics is changing very rapidly and the team needs to be prepared to compete strongly on all apparatus.
http://www.olympic.ru/news/news-russia/news-federations/valentina-rodionenko-nadeemsia-chto-rossiyskaia-molodej-ne/
In other news, the FIG has announced that Oksana Chusovituna will compete a Produnova vault! Davai Oksana!
Friday, October 16, 2015
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Valentina Rodionenko - 'Mustafina will have knee surgery after Glasgow'
In a report in Stadium.ru, Russia's head coach Valentina Rodionenko has revealed that Aliya Mustafina will travel to Germany post-Glasgow for surgery on her knee ligaments. The extent of the injury is unclear but Rodionenko says that it was during a period of rest that the problem became evident. Aliya is in good spirits and it is expected that she will be ready to compete in Rio if not at the Europeans.
Of perhaps more immediate concern is the health of Russian team captain Ksenia Afanasyeva who has been suffering from a kidney infection recently. Her participation at Worlds will be dependent on how she feels.
Good luck to all the girls, and our best wishes to Aliya and Ksenia for a full recovery!
Source - http://www.stadium.ru/reportsandcomments/interview/person/1653/15-10-2015-glavnie-konkurenti-na-chempionate-mira-kitai-ssha-yaponiya
UPDATE - Andrei Rodionenko 16/10 has confirmed Aliya has a torn meniscus, will have surgery immediately after Glasgow needing two months to recover.
Aliya has said 'missing the 2011 Worlds did not prevent me from winning gold at the 2012 Olympics'.
Fighting talk from our wonderful Queen again!
Ksenia Afanasyeva has kidney stones, in hospital for a week. Back in training for two days. Will compete vault, beam, floor to help team if the pain has eased. She says she had hoped for medals at EF but doesn't know if she is capable after this illness.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Worlds 2015 - Nominative registrations
 |
| 1997 born Dmitri Lankin, a rising star on the men's team |
One alteration - which has almost gone unnoticed so far - is the substitution of Vladimir-based gymnast Alexei Rostov with the up and coming youngster, Dmitri Lankin. Rostov finished fifth in the Russia Cup all around, but his selection for the Worlds team was a small surprise as his name does not even appear on the national team listings on the RGF website.
1997 born Lankin, on the other hand, has been tipped by Valentina Rodionenko as a shining light amongst the promising ranks of the Russian team. His strongest pieces are floor and parallel bars, where the Russians are already relatively strong. Often when a youngster is substituted in at this stage, it indicates that the gymnast has earned it in training, and is considered to have 'a temperament for a big occasion'. At present, with such big names as Belyavski, Ignatyev, Kuksenkov, Nagorny and Ablyazin making up the main contingent, his competition for the last spot is the elegant Ivan Stretovich. Ivan finished second on pommels in Penza. These two gymnasts each make a different contribution to the team's configuration - so it is difficult to see which way the selection will go.
 |
| Lankin with his extrovert coach, Anatoly Zabelin |
In common with the women, this is a transitional team. In the last year, we have seen the rise and rise of Nikita Ignatyev, who has been on the fringes for a few years, but this year has emerged as a leader all around. I'm delighted about this - Ignatyev is a beautiful gymnast. You can really see it in the delayed photography shot for this promotional video of an extreme sports centre close to his home in Siberia - working alongside former national team members Pakhomenko and Russinyak. Like Nemov, he plays the fool a bit during photography; he is entitled to when he can compete for medals. And in the air his crisp lines, effortless flight and great technical flair will offer far more of the artistic than anything you will see in the women's competition. If I do travel to Glasgow this year - which is unlikely, because of my schedule of work - it will be to watch the men compete.
When Rodionenko picks a team, he doesn't just have to submit a list of gymnasts to the FIG - he also has to think of the coaches. Some of them will be the main specialists and support staff from Lake Krugloye - others will be personal coaches to the gymnasts.
The mass migration of coaches away from the countries of the former Soviet Union has produced some of the conditions necessary for the current globalisation of the sport (for example, imagine Canada without Saadi and Davydova, the UK without Popov and Sizhanov, Germany without Belenkyi etc). In the meantime Russia (and Ukraine, Belarus and the rest) has had to manage with depleted resources. High profile investments made by bank VTB in large scale, state-of-the-art training facilities are necessary and good, but training and motivating the trainers has been difficult when salaried work as a coach is difficult to find, and degree courses are thin on the ground.
If the gymnasts lack depth - then the coaches are in a worse position. A few years ago, I remarked that the main coaches on the national team were almost all in their sixties, seventies and, in one case, eighties. It is, therefore, an urgent priority for Russia to rebuild its talent and opportunity, and Andrei Rodionenko has had to work hard to amend this situation. To his credit there are now a majority of younger faces working at Lake Krugloye. This is a starting point, but needs to continue to grass roots level.
 |
| Tumbling specialist Vasily Ivanov with reserve Anastasia Dmitrieva |
In the past, the selection of a personal coach to the national team has indicated that their gymnast is expected to be a leading medal winner, but I am not sure that we can follow that rule this year. For a start, the team is of primary importance here rather than individual medals (Glasgow is the main qualifying for Rio). Then, there is enough doubt about who will shine in the all around (both MAG and WAG) to select the coaches on the basis of their competition experience. Unless Viktoria is going to surprise us and do all around, (I don't think she is) that might explain Elfimov's appearance on the list this time. It might possibly, however, reveal a conviction amongst the Russian coaches that Kharenkova and Belyavski hold their strongest case in the all around competitions. We will have to wait and see!
Finally, I noticed that the WAG team manager this time will be tumbling coach, Vasily Ivanov. This presumably frees up head coach Evgeny Grebyonkin to concentrate on his team coaching activities. I had to question whether there had been a change in the job roles back at Lake Krugloye, but the team manager does not have to be the national coach, and there is no change currently listed on the RGF website (although it is often out of date ...). Ivanov is a fatherly figure who has quietly supported the girls through thick and thin and the team seems to be working well together whatever the job roles so it is probably not significant.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Dmitrieva to replace Mustafina in Glasgow
Dmitrieva in training this summer
The Russian Worlds team line up changed today as Valentina Rodionenko announced via Tass that Aliya Mustafina would be replaced in Glasgow by Anastasia Dmitrieva. Aliya withdrew her place in the team as she was not ready to compete, but will travel to Scotland as a guest of the Russian team. 'Her support is crucial to our girls in such an important competition', said Rodionenko (source - http://tass.ru/sport/2325851).
Dmitrieva's strengths are on floor and beam. At best, her flighty double layout on floor, together with elegant presentation, make her a natural for a spot on the senior national team. If she were to compete at Worlds it would be an opportunity to develop her competitive maturity. Second place on both beam and floor at the Rusudan Sikharulidze International tournament are her best senior international results so far, and domestically she appears regularly in finals. At the Russia Cup last month - not her best competition - she finished sixth AA, 5th on vault and 6th on the balance beam.
Dmitrieva's potential strength - floor - is a weakness for the Russian team as a whole and her elevation from the reserve spot onto the final competing team may make strategic sense if she is felt to be reliable. The only question would be, who would she replace? At the end of the day, relying on first year seniors may be unpalatable to the ultra-conservative team coaches - but there always has to be a first time. Steeling young blood in such a fiery cauldron as Worlds could be exactly the kind of experience those youngsters need to prepare them for battle in Rio.
This may not be the final change to the team roster - nominative registrations can change right up to the 24th October. The Russian team travel to Scotland on the 17th, and their final selection will take place at Lake Krugloye on the 14th. A lot can happen in a day in gymnastics, and we have eleven left before the team board the aeroplane.
This certainly makes the Russian team a heady mix of youth and experience, and emphasises the importance of the first and second year seniors who will have an opportunity to learn and to prove themselves at the most important team competition outside of the Olympics. If the team performs well, it will cement the position of these youngsters and invigorate motivation and competition for the Rio team.
Mustafina's almost talismanic status is also reinforced here as she is freed to take up a mentoring role to the gymnasts. Her presence could make all the difference.
WAG team -
Daria Spiridonova^
Seda Tutkhalyan*
Viktoria Komova
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Maria Kharenkova^
Maria Paseka
Anastasia Dmitrieva*
*First year senior
^Second year senior
Saturday, October 3, 2015
World Gymnastics Championships 2015 - Russian team news
 |
| Denis Ablyazin - coach Sergei Starkin confirms that his preparations are going well |
Keep your eyes peeled over the coming days and weeks for news of the Russian team. Offical nominative registrations were published by the FIG over a week ago, but it is almost inevitable that there will be some changes to the team line-ups. Sources close to the Russian team hint that this year it may be their men's team, and in particular specialist Denis Ablyazin, who has the best chance of shining on the podium in Glasgow. And personal coach, Sergei Starkin, has indirectly confirmed that Aliya Mustafina may well not participate in this month's World Championships, the latest turn in a long round of statement-and-counter-statements made by the Russian team about their Olympic star.
As usual there remain significant question marks over the readiness of the women's team. Journalist Natalia Kalugina visited Lake Krugloye yesterday and her reports indicate that there is still room - and time - for improvements to be made. The gymnastics expert picked out Daria Spiridonova as Russia's leading all arounder at this moment in time, and praised Ksenia Afanasyeva for her floor work, although she was not training yesterday because of a high fever. Maria Paseka is 'as reliable as a tank'. But there are no miracle improvements - Komova's beam work is still hesitant, the team as a whole remains weak on floor, and is prone to falls. Under the circumstances the Worlds draw, which has the Russians finishing on beam in qualifications, is considered rather unfavourable.
Olympic Champion Aliya Mustafina's status for these Worlds still remains uncertain. In an interview published today, coach Sergei Starkin explained that Aliya will resume full training AFTER the World Championships. This strongly suggests that Aliya isn't ready for Worlds, therefore, but Starkin goes on to explain that Rio remains the gymnast's main goal, albeit with some changes. 'Slight adjustments will be made to Aliya's plans and objectives, perhaps with the emphasis on the team', he said, adding that she would train all around. But really, Russia's depth issues mean that much of the strain still rests on the heads of the veterans from London. 'After the Games, Aliya was really unbearably tired', he added.
 |
| Evgeniya Shelgunova at the recent Sidharulidze tournament |
Certainly the main protagonists are not speaking with one voice. And it continues - to bring things right up to date, Starkin's polite and slightly obtuse discussion of Aliya's future plans adds authority to the idea of a gymnast who isn't really ready to compete despite what the team management have been saying. The idea that she is choosing not to be in Glasgow isn't tragic, worrying or upsetting - after Aliya's long career she should be able to choose her competitions. Uncertainty is the nature of competitive gymnastics. But Russia's rushed attempts to satisfy media demand for information may have painted an unfavourable picture, and this is an unnecessary distraction when the team is preparing for Worlds.
It's all the same in practice though - we still don't know anything but, probably, Mustafina won't be at Worlds. Evgeniya Shelgunova's name did not appear on the official nominative registrations published last month - but she is training with the team in Lake Krugloye and, according to Natalia Kalugina, doing quite well. Perhaps she will travel to Glasgow instead of Mustafina.
Starkin's picture of Ablyazin's training for Glasgow is somewhat more optimistic than Kalugina's reports of the Russian women. He confirms that he is satisfied that Denis has now stabilised his performance of the Yang vault and has overcome the adverse effects of a long-term shoulder injury for which he was treated in Germany shortly after the European Championships. Ablyazin will therefore compete rings in Glasgow.
In Lake Krugloye, and at Starkin's home gym, the Burtasy School of Gymnastics in Penza, a new floor has been installed that is the same make as the one that will be used in Glasgow and Rio. Starkin seems less than happy with this new floor, which he says doesn't give the same flight and rebound as others - he says he 'doesn't know of any gymnast who wouldn't complain about that'. Apparently the floor mat is of a different make to the other apparatus chosen for Rio. Practice on this mat will be vital preparation for the Olympics.
Denis's psychological preparations are going well, and Starkin suggests that he has overcome some of the nerves that gave him problems earlier in his career. Apparently he was unwell during the Russia Cup and his coach even suggesting withdrawing from the second day of event finals. Denis, however, would hear nothing of this (and went on to win vault!).
The team will travel to Glasgow on the 17th October, and the final test to determine who will travel will take place on the 14th October. Watch out over at the Russian Gymnastics Federation's website - they often have a press day at around this time of year, and there may be a photo gallery upcoming.
Russia's nominative registrations for the Glagow World Championships (23rd October - 1st November) are currently
MAG
Denis Ablyazin
David Belyavski
Nikita Ignatyev
Nikolai Kuksenkov
Nikita Nagorny
Ivan Stretovich
Alexei Rostov
WAG
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Viktoria Komova
Maria Paseka
Seda Tutkhalyan
Maria Kharenkova
Daria Spiridonova
Aliya Mustafina
