European Championhips 2018: IT'S A GOLD MEDAL

Bad qualification might always be a sign of good things to come with Russia and good things came. I watched the team final during my last two hours with the hotel wifi in Cyprus and there couldn't have been a happier ending to my vacation. A gold medal for Russia! And not only a gold medal, but a major team final where Russia hit 12 routines. When was the last time this happened? It's probably better to not check. France didn't exactly falter under the pressure, but their few bigger mistakes together with Russia's incredible hit streak made sure that Russia won by a landfall. The Netherlands was third after a fight with Great Britain. I know the field at Europeans this year is very weak after pretty much every country has had their fill with injuries, but it was an exciting final where everyone genuinely fought for their medals and I really enjoyed watching it.

European Championships 2018: A disappointing start

Yesterday was the first day of competition at the European Championships and Team Russia won the subdivision lottery, but neglected to take advantage of it. I thought that the leo was pretty good, but that's unfortunately it. The rest was not. And I'm not that upset, yet. Because even Queen Aliya herself knew that qualifications are for non-important losers and putting any effort into them is unnecessary and very un-Russian. So yeah, whatever. I wished for something better and will settle for this right now. But if they continue with this shit during the team final, I'll be mad. And France will be very happy.

The European Championships is here, but I'm not!

The teams are now in Glasgow ready to compete at the 2018 European Championships in just a few days. And I'm really excited, trust me. Both teams are actually pretty young, and it seems to be the direction we've been going since the start of this quadrennium. The 2012 quad that has been backing up the team since, well, before 2012 is really struggling to keep up and the young ones are finally given the opportunity for making a name for themselves and being a team. You know, an actual team, instead of a veteran and some young headcases who don't really have to well because the veterans will make sure that a medal is placed around a Russian neck. I'm in no way against the veterans doing gymnastics as long as they want to, but this feels exciting. And scary. It could be a disaster.

I'm still weirded out by Ira in Russian gear

V-Rod Announces the European Championships Team

We all know that Valentina Rodionenko has a habit of announcing a lot of teams in a short amount of time, and she's been surprisingly quiet about the European Championships team. I've been waiting for her daily calls to R-Sport, but it hasn't happened. So this team announcement from her could actually we slightly more reliable than usually, but who knows.

According to V-Rod, the Euros team was selected after recent control training and will be Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Ulyana Perebinosova, Lilia Akhaimova and Irina Alexeeva. I don't know what to say, this is very surprising. The most surprising thing is, that Anastasia Ilyankova was left out. I can't come up with any other explanation except that she's injured. Because I was sure she was a lock. The other person left out from my predicted team is Viktoria Komova. Apparently she failed to prove herself after an unsuccessful Russian Cup by making mistakes on both bars and beam during control training and they just can't trust her on beam. I'm not that surprised about Vika's fate, but which one of these gymnasts can you trust on beam, Valentina, really???

Vika and Ilya's spots were taken by Ira and Ulya. Ira had a minor injury so she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but she's apparently fine now. And I might be just fine with her going, who else could they pick if Vika and Ilya are out of the question. I don't think she's necessarily medal material, but she's fit for the team competition. Ulya however... What kind of dream training did she have? We're not trusting Vika, but I would trust Ulya even less. I actually thought she was injured, because she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but no. She could be used on vault and bars, maybe floor, but she's even more inconsistent than Vika. I guess they're hoping that she hits that wild UB routine of hers for once for a surprise medal.

I'm still a bit weirded out by Ira's sudden return to Russia. I've seen her as basically an American for years now. And now she will be an official part of the Russian team. I just tried to picture Ira wearing a national team leo (like this one), but couldn't.

The Nominative Teams for European Championships

The nominative teams for the 2018 European Championships were published a few days ago and the senior team was named Viktoria Komova, Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Ulyana Perebinosova and Maria Kharenkova. I don't even know what to say. Maybe just laugh? Because it's not like they're even trying to name a team here. They're just throwing random names out there. Which is technically allowed, but I think most countries still make a little bit of effort into naming the nominative team.

A Look at the 2018 Russian Junior Nationals

Now that the Russian Cup is over, we can take a loot at the Russian Junior Championships that were held together with it. Together with Spartakiada, it gives us a pretty good idea of who's going to the Junior European Championships. I've had my team in mind ever since Jesolo and while this competition didn't have any huge surprises, it made me reconsider some things. The good news is, that the junior team has plenty of depth and they pretty much kicked the seniors' ass during the Russian Cup.

Russian Cup 2018: Event Finals

The event finals of the Russian Cup were pretty underwhelming, it seemed like everyone important was already over this competition and thinking about getting some rest before the European Championships next month. Melka only competed in the uneven bars final which was a good decision in my opinion.

I couldn't catch the live feed because I've spent 60 hours of this week at work, but I'm trying to write this post based on scores and any videos I can find. As of yet, no one has posted the full coverage to YouTube.

Russian Cup 2018: All Around Final

I know I'm bad, trust me, but I wasn't going to miss the Russian Cup. So even though I'm a bit late, I'm here with a recap of the all around.

The Russian Cup took place in Chelyabinsk this year, and the arena actually looked like an ice rink based on its shape.That reminded me of this dream I once had. I'm happy to say that the competition didn't turn out like in my dream. Not that I would have been surprised if it did, this is the Russian Cup.

The Russian team has been riddled with injuries as usual, and the most notable missing gymnast today was Aliya Mustafina. She's had problems with her knee ever since Nationals. Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka have both returned to training after their back injuries, but are not yet fit to compete, and probably won't be for awhile. Irina Alexeeva, who just made her return to Russia and has been licensed to compete internationally by FIG, is out with an ankle injury.

The scores from the qualifying competition and team final carried over and coming into the final, heavily taped Angelina Melnikova was less than a tenth ahead of Anastasia Ilyankova for the gold medal. Angelina Simakova was comfortably third only a point behind and I would have actually been very happy with this podium. Viktoria Komova came to the all around in fourth place and the always surprising Tatiana Nabieva was fifth. The last gymnast in the top group was another veteran, Daria Elizarova, after Lilia Akhaimova pulled out of the final due to some nagging injuries.

Bad News

The Russian Team has suffered another injury, and this time it's to their Queen, Aliya Mustafina. She has withdrawn from Osijek World Cup due to a knee injury. The injury on her meniscus is supposed to be a minor one, so probably not a tear. It's still alarming considering her history with knee injuries. The last time she was out for something other than back pain was in late 2015, when she tore the meniscus on her right knee and had a surgery. And of course we all remember her famous ACL tear in 2011. She's supposed to be back to training by the end of May, but I can't help but think that she's been back for 2 seconds and her body is already showing the wear and tear. It's almost like we're picking up right where we left off.

I wish the Queen a speedy recovery.

And just in case you've forgotten how many other injuries the team has accumulated during the past few months: Elena Eremina, Lilia Akhaimova and Aleksandra Schekoldina. Angelina Melnikova apparently has some minor knee injury too.

Freezing in Mallorca

The team is on their annual training vacation in Mallorca and unfortunately the weather as been very cold for this time of the year. Based on social media it looks like they have gotten a few days on the beach and pool, but the rest of the time has been spent shivering and training. And in case of Vika and Masha, all kinds of dangerous activities. I'll be happy if we get those two back unharmed. Queen Aliya stayed in Penza according to her individual training plan, but Lena made it to Mallorca and is training again, at least lightly.

Have fun, girls!

The Queen Is Single Again

It's not like Aliyastan ever even had room for a king with such a supreme ruler already in place, but now our Queen is without an official consort. Aliya Mustafina just announced in instagram, that she got divorced last month. According to her, her ex-husband Alexei Zaytsev just wasn't right for her, but she's grateful for their daughter Alisa whom she loves very much.

So the rumors about their separation were true. This is obviously very sad news, but it's just so... Aliya. I'm going to repeat what I wrote when I first heard of the rumors. She lives the life she wants the way she wants without apologies and that's a skill I sometimes (alright, often) wish I had.

I wish the best for her and her family, Alisa in particular. She seems like a happy baby and may she remain so.

Russian Championships 2018: The Mighty Melka at the Event Finals

The Russian Championships concluded with 3 more gold medals and a silver for Angelina Melnikova. If this is going to be the peak performance of her career, I will be mad. She could have gotten Worlds medals for these performances, but no, she had to hit almost everything at Russian Nationals instead. I'm not mad that she hit, I'm still really happy, I just wish that she could stay in this zone when it really matters. Maybe she will in the future, even if Simone Biles is going to come back and make everyone else nearly irrelevant. Aliya Mustafina finally managed to run out of stamina and finished without medals. Except for her team gold of course. She had to have that one gold so that the competition was worth showing up to.

Russian Championships 2018: All Around Final

Russian Championships continued with the all around final yesterday and I luckily had the time to watch the competition live, but had to go to work straight after, so this post is a day late. And I'm spending the beginning of a the long and boring night shift writing this post. The Russians surprisingly continued to not suck and pretty much everyone in the first group had a decent competition. By decent I mean that not the kind of disaster we usually expect from Nationals and no one had a meltdown. Queen Aliya Mustafina proved that she was truly back by competing her second all around in to days. I need a montage of her gymnastics made to Sia's Greatest, because Aliya is obviously the greatest and I have no idea how she has managed to gain the stamina for this in just a few months. She unfortunately finished fourth by a tenth of a point because Russia suddenly has depth before the injury season really kicks in, but who cares. She's still undeniably the greatest.

Russian Championships 2018: The Queen Is Back

The Russian Championships began with the team competition today and I knew we weren't going to get the repeat disaster of last year, because the class is back. The one and only Aliya Mustafina made her return in her usual way, surprising everyone. No simple layouts, no timers, she had real skills and real routines, less than a year after giving birth. I don't know how, but I never know how when it comes to My Tsaritsa. Because there's no way she would return and not be The Champion again right away, the Moscow team won gold. My Queen is on the top of the podium again. The second team was Central, and third Moscow's second team. Because they aren't lucky enough with their athletes for just one team.

The official livestream doesn't start until tomorrow, so my recap of the day is based on instagram and periscope videos and results.

Ksenia Afanasyeva Has Retired

It's official. Or as official as Valentina Rodionenko's sudden announcements can be, but Ksenia Afanasyeva has retired, and is now a coach at Round Lake. The World Champion and 2-time European Champion on floor exercise is giving the National Team her expertise in choreography. So I guess we found out what the rumor about Afan being at Round Lake was all about.

This is obviously a huge loss for the Russian team and fans, Afan has been the longest serving member of the team for years now and pretty much single-handedly kept the team afloat on floor during the last quadrennium. She has struggled with injuries throughout her entire career and according to V-Rod, her body can't take full training anymore.

Afan had a baby last year and I've been expecting her retirement, but it's still sad. She has made a comeback after comeback and it seemed like she would always be there to surprise us. There would always be a new Afanar, a new floor exercise with her particular brand of choreography and music. I'm going to really miss her.

Source.

Jesolo 2018: Senior Event Finals Medal Fest

Today was the final day of Jesolo and it included all of the event finals, both senior and junior. While the juniors basically dominated the competition, the seniors did good too. Angelina Melnikova is finally starting to look like herself and competed in every event final today, winning 3 medals, silver on vault and bronze on bars and beam. Anastasia Ilyankova took the gold medal on bars as expected. Even Eleonora Afanasyeva was able to shake off yesterday's disappointments and won bronze on vault.

Here's a recap of the competition:

Jesolo 2018: Junior Event Finals Medal Fest

Today was the final day of Jesolo and it included all of the event finals, both senior and junior. Russia came out pretty victorious, in addition to gold in the all around, their juniors took 3 out of the 4 apparatus gold medals. This was mostly thanks to an incredible performance from Vladislava Urazova. Ksenia Klimenko won tied gold on her best event, bars. Their teammates Elena Gerasimova and Daria Belousova both made finals as well, but didn't medal.

Golden Girl

Here's a recap of the competition:

Jesolo 2018: Senior Team and AA Final

I already wrote post about Jesolo today, but here's another one, because the seniors competed today as well. The Russian senior team consisted of Angelina Melnikova, Ulyana Perebinosova, Anastasia Ilyankova and Eleonora Afanasyeva. Eleonora was a last minute replacement for Lilia Akhaimova. I get that they technically fill the same floor specialist position in the team, but this competition format (4-4-3) really favors all arounders, so I don't understand why they didn't pick Maria Kharenkova instead. Then again, she looked terrible in Stuttgart, maybe she needs some time to reload.

Before the competition even started, I had a bad feeling. I don't think we've ever had a team with a bigger chance of a complete meltdown on bars AND beam. On paper, the uneven bars rotation looks amazing. Ulya, Melka and Ilya all have Worlds event final level routines. It's just that they're all terribly inconsistent. Or Melka and Ulya are, Ilya is just inconsistent, not terribly so. On beam they're all total meltdown material. Ulya can be just plain terrible. And then we have Eleonora, the wild card. How will she handle this competition? She looked really lost during training. All the other girls were doing their normal warm-up in unison and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. I guess she hasn't been spending that much time at Round Lake.

Like with juniors, I wrote this post while I watched the competition to save some time, so mistakes and bad grammar (even more than usually) will follow.

Jesolo 2018: Junior Team and AA Final

Today was day 1 of Jesolo and the day began with the junior all around and team final. Russia sent a  4 member team consisting of Ksenia Klimenko, Daria Belousova, Elena Gerasimova and Vladislava Urazova and placed second behind Italy and ahead of France. They had quite a few unfortunate falls, (including two on bars, shame on you kids), but I'm very proud nevertheless. The youngest member of the team, Vlada won the all round competition beating a favorite, Italy's Asia D'Amato. Vlada then made my day even better making the cutest mistake during the awards ceremony. When her name was called, she though she was third (they didn't go with the normal reversed order of the medalists for some reason) and the announcer had to repeat "first place" a few times before she realized her mistake and took the right podium.

I wrote this post while watching the competition live, so it might be a bit incoherent and there are plenty of mistakes, but bear with me.

Round Lake Update

Spring is here! It's still occasionally snowing where I live, but whatever. I hate spring so I don't know why I'm excited, but for some reason I'm just ready to leave winter behind for awhile at least.

There hasn't been much going on in the world of Russian gymnastics during the past few weeks, but the next ones should be very busy. A team of Ulyana Perebinosova, Eleonora Afanasyeva, Anastasia Ilyankova, Angelina Melnikova, Daria Belousova, Elena Gerasimova, Vladislava Urazova and Ksenia Klimenko is already in Italy for Trofeo Citta' di Jesolo and Nationals will be held right after they return. We also heard that Aliya Mustafina should compete at the Osijek World Cup at the end of May. All hail the Queen. Both Aliya and Valetina Rodionenko have agreed that she's motivated and in a competitive mindset.

The federation released some promotional training footage and interviews for Nationals, nothing terribly interesting.

Birmingham World Cup 2018: My sincere thanks to Melka's spine

Angelina Melnikova competed at a World Cup event in Birmingham and finally managed to get out of the rut she's been in since the Olympics. She actually hit 4-for-4 and won. And gymternet naturally celebrated her gold medal like she just became the Olympic all around champion. She's had such a long rough patch that this feels like the biggest victory ever. Melka herself looked the happiest she's been in awhile and her reaction to her first place really reminded me of Aliya winning floor bronze at the 2014 Worlds. I'm so happy for her, she really needs the confidence boost.

1. Angelina Melnikova 2. Margzetta Frazier 3. Alice Kinsella

The Russian Bitchface Is Strong with This One

I'll have a post about our most victorious Melka when I get off from work, but meanwhile, the Russian bitchface was having a great day at Doha. Ulyana Perebinosova is competing at the Doha World Cup and won silver on bars. It wasn't her best routine, it was messy and missing a connection, but it was still a hit routine and her coach Marina Ulyankina knew it. Look at her.

She's dancing in the judges' faces. Is that allowed? She's a judge herself, so she should know. This was hilarious in itself, but what I really loved, was Ulya's reaction. Look at her ending her routine with her usual indifferent salute and then hurrying off the podium ignoring her coach's antics. When Ulyankina caught up with her and slapped her playfully, she actually lashed out at her coach. Probably playfully as well, but still. She refused to smile and kept her bitchface. Imagine the diva commentary if this was a bigger competition.

This is honestly one of the most Russian things from this generation of Russian gymnasts since Angelina Simakova refused to partake a Mexican wave and I love it. Thank you Ulya, you made my day.

Stuttgart World Cup 2018: Melka's major upgrades

After the disastrous team qualifications I was pretty optimistic about Angelina Melnikova's individual all around competition, because it's not like she could do worse. And I'm happy to say that she didn't challenge me on that, she didn't do worse. Her lowest score was actually "only" 11.776. And that is to say, while she didn't screw up like the rest of her team, her performance wasn't that great either.

She placed 4th with 52.699, less than a point behind the winner Zhang Jin. The silver medalist was Elisabeth Seitz and Jordan Chiles won bronze. Melka's competition was riddled with her usual issues, but she technically only fell once.

Stuttgart World Cup 2018: doing team final the Romanian way

So... Russia competed at Stuttgart and promptly disqualified themselves out of the team final. They're testing my patience. Because they have no excuse. It was not a bad team. Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Ilyankova, Lilia Akhaimova, Maria Kharenkova and Viktoria Gorbatova. Almost all of them belong to the better half of athletes they have right now. How can you go to a meet with a team of this caliber and screw up so badly. How? HOW? I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little bit mad right now. Yeah, the other teams had some Worlds level gymnasts, yeah, it's really early in the season, yeah, the Russians downgraded and are saving their strength for Nationals in order to hit the perfect combination of utter disaster and great potential they so value there. And to be honest, this competition had really strict scoring. But even with these things considered, it was pretty bad.

Throwback Thursday: Gymnix 10 Years Ago

L'International Gymnix has been held every year for more than 20 years, so it's natural that the meet has had some very reputable gymnasts as contestants. For Russian gymnasts in particular, the meet has often given us international debuts of their most promising juniors. The 2008 Gymnix 10 years ago was no exception, we saw 12-year-old Anastasia Grishina and 11-year-old Nailya Mustafina, the Queen's little sister, at the top of the podium. Nastia obviously went on to have a semi-successful (but considering her talent, still disappointing) senior career, but Nailya broke her leg while still a junior and never recovered to compete at her old level.

I might be the only one who finds watching old videos of absolutely dreadful quality even slightly entertaining, but here you go anyway. It's a bit comforting to see that even Grishy had a rough time, so clearly there's hope for the rest of them too. Although, no matter how many mistakes Grishy made, she still looked nothing short of exceptional with the way she carried herself. And Nailya... Such a talent at only 11. I remember many people thought she was more promising than Aliya. I think she was younger and had more difficulty and skills, but lacked Aliya's finesse. Time would have shown, but it wasn't to be.

Round Lake Update: Rumor has it

This is all from my wild and speculative tumblr dash, the sources range from the gymnasts' instagrams to pure fan speculation, so don't take anything too seriously. But let's go over some recent rumors. The topics include injuries, returns and the Queen's marriage.

The one and only Ksenia Afanasyeva is back at Round Lake. The source is Angelina Melnikova, so I'm pretty sure this is true, but to what extent? Is she BACK back, or just visiting for fun? I have a hard time believing that she's fully training, which she needs to be if she's at Round Lake. I don't have a hard time thinking that she's training, but usually gymnasts come back from injuries (and retirement) by training at home and after awhile and only when they're super serious, they go back to Round Lake for evaluation and begin training there if they're far enough in their recovery. Even the veterans like Afan do it like this. Aliya did it like this and Afan has done it several times in the past. If she's back, she has been super sneaky about it. There's of course the complication that Afan's coach is a part of the staff and has a personal gymnast at Round Lake, so she could be forced to return early. I don't know. But I'm excited.

Gymnix 2018: A party for the new Lena and Vika

My Baby Swans competed at the Junior International Cup of the 2018 International Gymnix, as always, and looked like a healthy combination of beauty and hot mess, as always. This year our team consisted of two Gymnix veterans, Irina Komnova and Elena Gerasimova, and two newbies, Olga Astafyeva and Viktoria Listunova. They won silver in the team competition and a few individual medals too. I actually watched all of their routines and was really impressed.

Ira is apparently still coming back from an injury (ankle, maybe?) and looked tired as hell. She has also grown a lot this past year and while she was once tiny, she's now the tallest of the group by far. This combined with her exhausted appearance and weird mistakes made the poor girl look like she was ready to retire. Lena was the most confident out of everyone without any hint of nerves of inexperience. Olya was extremely nervous and shaky, while Vika spent her time looking suspicious and unsure about why she was even in Canada. I was close to laughing every time they showed her face. I was actually a tiny bit surprised about her selection to the team too, but she did really well for herself and absolutely deserved to be there. Or more than deserved to be there, she had the biggest medal haul with bronze on all around, silver on bars and gold on floor. Lena was next with gold on the uneven bars and bronze on floor.

Baby Swan Graduates: Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk

The two Viktorias will share the same post, because neither of them is likely to make a huge splash as a senior. I think the two of them will keep competing at national level and maybe win some medals when everyone else is a disaster (à la another Viktoria we know, Trykina, to be precise), but won't be contenders for any major teams.

Viktoria Gorbatova (Виктория Горбатова) is from Khimki and represents the Central Federal Okrug. She shares the same coach with another Baby Swan Graduate, Angelina Simakova. They're both coached by Irina Kolobova. She was never the junior to watch, but she has trained with the national team since forever (probably partly thanks to her coach and her more famous teammate) and has even managed to scrape out quite a few medals during her junior career (on every event, too). She's a pretty balanced all arounder and clean and beautiful to watch everywhere. Her routines are simple, but well executed. To me her best event is bars. She has a basic Russian routine with all of the usual elements from a bunch of stalders and flighty shap half to a piked jaeger and it could be easily upgraded into the standard Russian high scoring routine, ignoring that double pike dismount. As I said before, she's usually nice and clean, but she showed up to the Voronin Cup looking like a mess on bars. I don't know if it was because of an injury or a growth spurt, or if she's just the average Russian mess who just likes being a mess, but ugh. Her beam is mostly simple, but clean and steady (let's again ignore the Voronin Cup) and the same goes with floor too. She a pretty poised gymnast on floor and it makes her look good, but unfortunately she's not that memorable. On vault she has an okay FTY.

Routines: VT|UB|BB|FX

Viktoria Panchuk (Виктория Панчук ) is from Dzerzhinsk and represents the Volga Federal Okrug. She is coached by L. Bolshakova.  Her junior career has been the most modest out of the new graduates and I'll have to admit that out of the two Viktorias, I always preferred Gorbatova. But now that I went back and watched a bunch of their routines, I'll have to admit that Panchuk actually showed great promise at some point. And interestingly, she competed as a Master of Sport (like most Russian promising juniors during their last junior years), while Gorbatova never made it out of the Candidate level. Weird, considering Gorbatova was much more successful. Then again, this would partly explain why Gorbatova was more successful... Never mind. Unfortunately Panchuk was out for all of last year, so her current status remains unknown and because Russia is Russia, she might forever be lost. I think she's good all around and doesn't really have a best event. She has some form issues on her basics and because of that, isn't the most elegant gymnast, but she did show definite improvement during the short time we actually saw her.

Routines: VT|UB|BB|FX

The First One Bites the Dust

The competition season is nearing and Russian Nationals are just behind the corner, so naturally, injuries will start piling up. And the first victim happens to be one of the most important players, Elena Eremina. Earlier this week she made an announcement on instagram, she underwent a surgery to stabilize some of her lumbar vertebrae earlier in February. She won't be able to fully start training until August, which means that she's going to be out for the year.

I can't really think of a worse loss for the team. Lena single-handedly saved Russia's ass last year. We have a bunch of veterans returning this year, but they're wild cards at this point. So are the new seniors. And I don't really have that much hope for Angelina Melnikova to get her shit together.  Russia always manages to scrape by, so I'm really interested in seeing how. Or rather, who will fill the spot of their best all arounder, because now it's wide open. Again.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, she went to Munich for the operation. Your regular pilgrimage to meet the sacred German Miracle Doctors then. You aren't really a senior member of the Russian National Team unless you have Munich Munchkin written on your resume. Or unless you have "back pain" attached to your name every time Valentina Rodionenko opens her mouth.

As for Lena, I hope that she makes a full recovery and return to gymnastics in 2019. I really don't want her to be a forgotten one-hit-wonder of a post-Olympic year. She's too good for that.

New and Old Rules at the Gala

Aliya Mustafina, Angelina Melnikova and Daria Skrypnik performed at a gymnastics gala in France over the weekend. Apparently no one was interested in seeing poor Melka and Dasha, but we have a Periscope recording (with a quality of an old potato) of Aliya, because the Queen is not to be ignored.

I feel like screen recording another screen recording in order to post the routines here would be a bit too much, so I'm just posting the links this time. Here is her bars routine to New Rules by Dua Lipa and her beam routine, unfortunately without a sound.

We obviously have new rules on bars, because there's choreography! And old ones on beam, still no acro series. And I know the routines are just for exhibition purposes at a gala, but still. I'm actually really impressed about that bars routine. Her stamina is not there, which is expected at this point, but she still managed some good handstands and a dismount. The first half of the beam routine was pretty terrible, but she eventually seemed to get the hang of it. And she had a new element, a split ring jump.

The only footage I found of Melka is this one, but it's shot from far away. She fell on the layout, because she always falls on the layout (GET RID OF IT ALREADY), but the rest of the routine actually looks pretty good.

If someone has better footage, or anything from Dasha and Melka, let me know.

Throwback Thursday: Brighter than Gold

Just a teeny, tiny throwback to last summer and the European Youth Olympic Festival where my Baby Swan favorite Ksenia Klimenko competed like the champion she is. She won the all around and got gold on balance beam and floor exercise too, but finished second on bars, her best apparatus.

Buuuuuut... Look at her.

We can clearly see that Ksyusha is still the brightest star on that uneven bars podium. The brightest star with the brightest medal.

I can't even tell you why I love this picture so much. Maybe it's because the way this picture ended up is the kind of shit that only happens to Queen Aliya. So maybe it's a sign for great things to come for Ksyusha.

Baby Swan Graduates: Valeria Saifulina

Valeria Saifulina (Валерия Сайфулина), or Lera, is from St. Petersburg and coached by the famous Kiryashovs. In case you were wondering, that makes her a teammate of Elena Eremina and Tatiana Nabieva, so she's in good company. She even shares many of the same characteristics of their gymnastics. A famous coach comes with great opportunities in Russia, so her junior career has been busy. Her national medals include 2015 silver in all around and vault, and bronze on floor exercise, 2016 bronze on vault and bars, and 2017 gold on vault. She missed out on the Junior European Championships, but has competed regularly in the smaller competitions, such as Gymnix. Last year she competed at the European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won gold with her team and individual gold on vault. When she's not busy competing and training (and a lot of the times when she is), she makes appearances on the St. Peterburg girls' YouTube channel.

Round Lake Update: upgrades and injuries on beam

Russian Gymnastics Federation posted some training footage of the gymnasts on their instagram account. Most of it was obviously about their biggest start Aliya Mustafina, but we saw glimpses of Maria Kharenkova, Elena Eremina and Anastasia Ilyankova too. We even saw a few skills form Aliya and Masha, but the rest was only choreography and warm-ups.

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Henkilön Top Russian Gymnastics (@toprusgym) jakama julkaisu Helmi 1, 2018 kello 7.16 PST

Reykjavik International Games 2018

Last week Russia showed up at the first international meet of the season, Reykjavik International Games in Iceland. I'm really jealous, I would have loved to go to Iceland, even though my relationship with Eyjafjallajökull is highly problematic. As last year, they sent one senior and one very tiny junior, Ulyana Perebinosova and Nelli Audi, respectively. Ulya is now a second year senior who just returned to competition after spending most of her first year as a senior injured. Nelli is a 2005-born sensation who has spent the past few years posting her incredible skill set to YouTube. They both won the all around and a bunch of other medals, but I wouldn't get too excited, the field wasn't exactly deep.

Russian National Team of 2018

The list of Russian national team staff and gymnasts for 2018 was published last week. They publish these lists every year and usually the senior national team and senior reserve teams in these lists have little to do with what the actual team is going to look like in the following year. Gymnasts in the reserve team actually might be major players in the main team (like Seda Tutkhalyan in 2015) and gymnasts in the main team might be officially retired (like Tatiana Nabieva during most years). The concept of senior or junior is also lost in these lists. I suspect it has something to do with funding or the government salaries given to the gymnasts. But I still thought I'd make a post about it, because the list usually has at least some relevance. But my point is, if your favorite is on the reserve list, don't worry about it.

The Senior National Team 

• Eleonora Afanasyeva
• Lilia Akhaimova
• Elena Eremina
• Anastasia Ilyankova
• Natalia Kapitonova
• Viktoria Komova
• Angelina Melnikova
• Aliya Mustafina
• Maria Paseka
• Ulyana Perebinosova
• Angelina Simakova
• Daria Spiridonova
• Maria Kharenkova
• Aleksandra Schekoldina

don't call the Queen fat

Just a quick and short post about an old and rather hilarious incident between Queen Aliya and Lidia Ivanova...

Lidia Ivanova proudly wrote in her memoir that she once called the mighty Aliya Mustafina fat. And when the conversation in question wasn't going like she wanted it to (surprisingly), she proceeded to insult the Queen's sacred bitchface. How she's still alive after offending My Tsaritsa, I don't know.

This Bitch

Baby Swan Graduates: Varvara Zubova

Varvara Zubova (Варвара Зубова), Varya, or ZubZub is from Moscow and represents the city at national competitions. She is coached by Vladimir and Elena Kuznetsov/a. She became gymternet famous when she was just a teeny tiny gymnast, so I still can't actually believe that she's a senior. Not only was she gymternet famous, she was also noticed by the national team when she was just a tiny baby, so her international career is very long, illustrious and occasionally strange. I swear she was once sent all the way to Asia just for a compulsory floor routine.

Her many, many medals from Russian Nationals include 2014 gold on floor and silver on all around, 2015 gold on beam and bronze on all around, 2016 gold on floor and bronze in the all around and 2017 silver on floor and bronze in the all around. Internationally she's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion. Her other international competitions include the ever traditional Gymnix, Jesolo and European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won bronze in the all around.

Baby Swan Graduates: Aleksandra Schekoldina

Aleksandra Schekoldina (Александра Щеколдина), also known as Schek or Sasha, is from Surgut and represents the Ural Federal Okrug. Like Sima, she was born in 2002, is a long time Junior National Team member and even has the same strengths as a gymnast, so the two have been confused for one another quite a few times. She's very talented and promising, but has struggled with inconsistency and injuries, so her junior career is a lot more modest than her close rival's. She's a 2016 National Champion on vault and won balance beam and all around silver, but got injured later that year and spent the late 2016 and early 2017 trying and failing to come back. She did compete a few times, but always with disastrous results. To be honest, I was seriously beginning to think that she would end up as a regular Russian burn-out before even making it to senior level, but luckily she proved me wrong. In late 2017 she finally returned to competition again, this time successfully and was sent straight to Massilia with Sima. There she won gold on vault. A month later at the Voronin Cup she finished her junior career victoriously by winning the all around and uneven bars gold, and floor exercise bronze.

Baby Swan Graduates: Angelina Simakova

Angelina Simakova (Ангелина Симакова), in short, Sima (another Gelya actually), is from Khimki and represents Central Federal Okrug. She is coached by Irina Kolobova. She is a long-time and very prominent member of the Junior National Team and probably the most promising of the new graduates. It doesn't hurt that her strengths are currently the National Team's weaknesses, so she's also most likely of the new kids to make important teams. She was injured for most of her last junior year and seems to have struggled with injuries in 2016 too, but her list of both national and international titles is still very long. Veeeery long....

Her National titles lead all the way back from 2014 to 2016 with plenty of gold medals in the all around, uneven bars and vault, without forgetting some silvers and bronzes on balance beam and floor exercise. She's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion and a veteran and regular medalist of the usual international meets that Russia sends their juniors to, such as Top Gym, Gymnix and Junior Japan International. During her last junior year in 2017 she pretty much dominated WOGA Classic winning one bronze and silver and three gold medals (including all around) and competed at Massilia, where Russia usually sends their most promising juniors right before turning senior. In Massilia she won all around, floor exercise and balance beam gold and uneven bars silver. I don't know if you made it through that list of accomplishments, but if I lost you, don't worry. The only thing you need to remember is that she had an amazing junior career and is really good at winning medals on every apparatus.

And now that I dared to open my ask box on tumblr...

...I'd like to acknowledge the rest of you too.

My asks went unanswered for quite a long time as I previously stated. Partly because I'm a bad person and partly because tumblr had this bug so I didn't receive any notifications when I got a new ask. I'm really sorry for not answering you guys, but I'm really grateful for all the messages you sent me. Those were one of the biggest reasons that I decided to return to this blog. If it wasn't for so many of you enjoying this blog and sending me messages asking for when I'm coming back, I might not have. You made the return worth it!

Some of you have clearly already found your way back here and hopefully the rest of you who missed my blog will too. I'll be here waiting for you <3

Baby Swan Graduates: Class of 2018

It's 2018 and some brand new former Baby Swans are braving the Russian senior team. This year we have technically six gymnasts that have been or are national team level (most of them have spent a decent amount of time injured during these past few years), but two of them I count as more promising ones and two more the most promising. We'll still go over each one of them individually to wish them the very best. May they all exceed expectations and survive the dangerous-for-little-Russians transition into senior.

With our well-wishes out of the way, here they are: Angelina Simakova, Varvara Zubova, Aleksandra Schekoldina, Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk. We'll remember you in our prayers to GymGods!

Angelina Simakova and Varvara Zubova

Aleksandra Schekoldina and Valeria Saifulina

Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk

More posts about these Baby Swan Graduates to follow.

And just because... Here's an ask that I received last year that made a reference to one of my Baby Swan Graduates posts from 2017. It unfortunately went unanswered like most of my asks last year, partly because I'm a bad person and partly because tumblr's asks were having this bug that made new asks invisible to me, but I'm really sorry for not answering and thank you so much for sending it to me. It made my day when I finally received it.

Yes, she really did it. I'm so proud.

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Routines

Team Russia had some great routines last year. And plenty of bad ones... But these are my picks for the best and worst routines for 2017. I didn't bother to include that many worst ones, the few I picked just happen to be close to my heart.

The National Team of 2017

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Gymnasts

I decided to reward the team with my own personal awards honorable mentions for the past year. Some are good, some not, but that's the Russian way. Here's everyone who made my list.

The Champion of the Year: Aliya Mustafina

What can I say? She's pretty much the Champion of every year and she didn't even have to compete to win. No, she just gestated and pushed out an entire baby and returned to training only after a few months. Because she's the Queen.

"But I thought it [coming back to gymnastics after giving birth] would be way harder." -Aliya Mustafina

An Unfortunate Calendar

If this is the way Russian gymnastics is going to look this year, I am not okay.

I was looking for pictures for my next post and unfortunately stumbled right into the calendar pics from the Russian Gymnastics Federation. They've released most of the pictures ages ago, but seeing them all together just reminded me of how much a I hate them. The only gymnast looking even half decent is Aliya Mustafina, and that's just because she's the Queen and it's nearly impossible to make her look ugly. They still managed to make her look like Mary Poppins ready to take off without an umbrella and I don't know why. Thank God for that gorgeous face though.

Happy New Year!

So uhm... *clears throat awkwardly* On the off-chance that someone still occasionally visits this blog to see if it's still dead, it's not, I'm back now. There's an explanation to my absence and I'll give it to you later, but most of you (if there's anyone still out there) probably aren't that interested in it anyway, so I'll begin this post by just apologizing for leaving so suddenly and without telling you why and if I'll ever be back. I'm sorry. As a punishment, (one that I will enjoy way too much for it to actually be a proper punishment) I will look at pictures of My Tsaritsa putting me to shame by giving me her best Death Stares. If you're not happy with my awesome punishment, you're welcome to suggest a better one. May your cruel hearts get their fill of revenge.

I'll soon be back with some recaps of last year and the traditional Baby Swan Graduates -post.

Punish me, Queen Aliya.

Explanations and excuses to follow...