Voronin Cup 2016: The Nabz is back!

The Cup of Mikhail Voronin ended the competition season for our team a week ago in Moscow. It was a nice get together with most of the team present in some form or another. Everyone seemed to be extra tired and sloppy, but in good spirits nevertheless. There was even a live stream, but the competition was such a splatfest (as usual) that I wasn't sure whether to giggle or cry while watching.

Elena Eremina and Lilia Akhaimova easily won the team competition and took home a huge trophy for their efforts. Interestingly enough, while Lena won the junior AA, Lilia didn't even place. I know she's pretty much a one-eventer, but since we're supposed to take her seriously as a national team member now (I'm really struggling with it), she could have snuck in with the weak field they had in this competition. Senior AA went to Daria Elizarova instead, with Polina Fedorova as the runner up.

Merry Christmas

Whether you're celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, something else or nothing at all, I hope you're happy, comfortable and surrounded by people you love! You deserve it.

I and my cat would like to send love and virtual hugs and comfy and furry kitty snuggles to everyone, we're thinking of you and wishing you all the best in the world.

Russian Hopes 2016: Get your hopes up for Klimenko and Simakova

Russian Hopes was held in Penza at the end of November and I've been waiting for videos to show up to make a post about it. There still aren't that many videos, but by now it's probably all we're going to get, so let's see what we have to look forward to during the next quad.

Massilia Cup 2016: On the Other Side

Elena Eremina posted another vlog from France, this time showing some "behind the scenes" footage from the competition and the following banquet.

It's weird seeing how relaxed and chatty the girls seem to be in the middle of the action. I always think of competition (even a smaller meet like Massilia) as an extremely stressful and strict situation. Even during televised meets when teammates are laughing and joking with each other, you can sense this tension in the background, something that they're trying to relieve with the chattiness. But this just seems like everyday life for the gymnasts, which it probably is. There's time to wander around the arena, film a vlog, laugh with someone waiting for the green light from the judges... Maybe it just seems to be in stark contrast with the vault that came afterwards. Oh Seda.

It also seems like Lena speaks English quite well. She's translating for Nastia, who's getting interviewed. And Nastia is very excited about her medals, hopefully that ambition will boost her motivation so she keeps on improving.

Massilia Cup 2016: Just send them back to Mallorca

Élite gym Massilia was held this weekend in Marseille and the Russians sent a team of Anastasia Ilyankova, Elena Eremina, Seda Tutkhalyan and Daria Spiridonova. They won the team competition as expected with a team of this caliber and Nastia (56.550) and Lena (55.250) outdid the seniors taking the top two spots on the AA podium. Seda and Spiridoz... desperately need a vacation.

Nastia was clearly the star of the team, she actually outscored her teammates on every single apparatus during the team/AA competition, and took home the most medals. Gold on team, AA and floor, silver on bars and beam. I have really mixed feelings about her on anything else than bars, but she's definitely improving. She showed a new floor routine with a very...traditional Russian feel, and I actually like it. It's weirdly fitting that they are going back from whacky music selections to the safe past. I just wish she'd fix her form. The tumbling isn't any worse than her teammates, but those leaps... She either has her back knee really bent, or the leg is straight but trailing way under horizontal. For a Russian-themed floor from a Russian, those are some terribly un-Russian leaps.

They're Vloggin'

The newest craze at Round Lake is vlogging and I guess it's a major step up from their previous interests like babies and weddings, rotten teeth and medical tourism. So here'a a quick roundup of the Russian YouTube channels.

Russians on the Move!

It was a busy week for the Russians, both juniors and seniors were back to competition all over Europe and naturally kept falling everywhere like only Russians can. Melka was struggling on beam, yet again, and Seda's block on vault was wild, yet again. Oh, and two juniors had a collective meltdown on beam. A typical week, really.

It's the End of an Era

I'm sure we all know by now that Aliya got married, but I have avoided writing anything about it. Mainly because of my personal life that took a drastic turn to worse these past few weeks, but also, because what am I going to say?

Hi Aliya, I love you and your gymnastics so much that I take personal offence to you basically ending your career in this abrupt and weird manner, please don't make this any worse by making babies. See you in Tokyo, thanks! xoxo

Just kidding. It's actually an incredibly happy occasion and I wish the best to her and Lesha, may their extremely good-looking babies choose gymnastics over skeleton.

Of course her flowers and nails had to be purple. It's also adorable, how Lesha uses purple hearts in his instagram when referring to Aliya.

But seriously Russia... Grishina, Semy and Ablyazin, Afan, Rodionova, Beliyavski and now Aliya. All married/pregnant/both within one year. What a crazy year for Russian gymnastics, and that's saying a lot since Russian gymnastics is pretty crazy every year.

Best and Worst of This Quadrennium

Someone asked me to pick my "superficial favorites" and "podiums of shame" on tumblr and I originally meant to add those posts to the series about my favorite routines from this quadrennium, but forgot. But good thing this a blog, not a newspaper so I can just forget stuff and then post it whenever I like. So here we go. The categories were a part of the request, not picked by me.

SUPERFICIAL FAVORITES

BEST LEOTARD

1. Aliya's "lucky blue leo". This leo had some great moments (its Worlds medals include 2013 BB gold, 2014 BB & FX bronze), and it' pretty too. It was definitely one of the favorites among the team too, worn by many.

2. Euros 2016 Team QF. I first wasn’t quite sure about this leo because the rhinestones that go right across the chest looked a bit awkward, but now I actually love the design. Very simple, but still something different. And the color is amazing. The "antlers" on the neck line also good because of the coloring, I'm not a fan of the design when they stick out too much.

3. Baku TF day 2. I just love simple, sporty leos and this one is great. A+.  The patriotic colors are nice and don't seem "forced", and the leo looked good on anyone who wore it, a rarity. I guess this is technically from last quad (they wore it in Jesolo 2012), but I’m just going to ignore that.

A special mention for these two throwback leos:

Vika’s leo gives me those good 2010 vibes, but with a new color. And it must be even luckier than Aliya’s lucky blue one, because Glasgow was the only major competition Vika competed in all quad and this leo got her through alive with a gold medal to top it off. And it looks beautiful on her.

Seda’s vintage leo has survived 3 quads (baby Aliya included), and it actually looks great on her. I love it. 

My Khaleesi

Someone asked me to make an edit of Queen Aliya on the Iron Throne, so naturally I made one. It is only right, that she should have her own throne. It would probably be more appropriate if the throne was made of the destroyed uneven bars and glittered tears of her enemies, but I'm sure she'll be fine with this one.

The reason that I posted this here however is, that it reminded me of THIS:

That's right, Aliya, the Dark Khaleesi, doing floor to the theme of Game of Thrones. The choreography actually fits the music really well, I was half expecting a dragon to fly in and carry her to the podium to get her medal.

I didn't unfortunately make that floor edit, and the person who did has deleted their tumblr so I can't link you to them either. But all the credit to them, may Khaleesi Aliya bless their lives.

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (IV)

So this one should be probably named "My Favorite(ish) Routines", because Russia and floor was kind of a disaster this quad. It was a real shame too considering that they were AMAZING last quad, Aliya, Vika, Grishy, Afan, Belo, Myzdrikova, Semy, Demy...how I miss Russia's 2009-2012 floor. Oh well, since I have to stick with this quad, we might suffer from a bit of an Aliya-overdose. If that's even possible.

It actually took me days to assemble nice routines, and after spending more days looking at them and grinding my teeth over naming this mediocre mess "my favorite", I ended up dividing them into two groups. The first group is dedicated to my actual favorite routines, and the second group are the routines that were highlights in the middle of everything terrible, but not really that memorable. Enjoy. Or not. I don't blame you if you fall asleep after the first group.

FLOOR EXERCISE

My actual favorite routines:

Aliya Mustafina immediately brought on her A-game starting in 2013 with TWO new floor routines. I absolutely love her routine from 2013 European Championships. It's very different from her later routines, it almost reminds me of 2010 Aliya. There's just something understated but captivating about it, and that beautiful pose during her "down to the floor" choreography gave us some great pictures. And look at her execution too, the first tumbling line is pretty much perfect, the other tumbles are very well landed too, and powerful. The spins have control, even the almost "Mustafina". We just haven't often seen the perfectionist side of Aliya on floor this quad, but this performance definitely stands out to me. And the extensive amount of time she spends in the corner breathing and uhm... "dancing" before her last tumbling line, it just makes me nostalgic, such classic Aliya.

Round Lake Update with some old friends

The Munich Munchkins. That's my nickname for the half-German Russians, who spend more time in Munich than in Round Lake. Queen Aliya, the leader of the Munchkins, seems to have stayed in one piece since the Olympics and doesn't have any broken parts that need either replacements or regular maintenance at the moment, but Viktoria Komova and Maria Paseka are in Germany.

Vika was diagnosed with some fractured vertebrae before the Olympics and is probably just getting a routine follow-up. I don't think she can return to full training before 2017, but we'll see. Masha has been suffering from back pain for months and was in and out of training because of it all year, but I think this is her first time visiting the German Miracle Doctors, hopefully they'll figure out what's wrong. Vika spent a long time in Russia with a wrong diagnosis and treatment, so Masha should be better off in Munich too. It's October and they're in Bavaria, so my mind immediately went to Oktoberfest, but unfortunately (or fortunately) for the girls, it ended a week ago. No beer and lederhosen treatment for back pain then.

Aliya Mustafina: Master of Sports -Interview

Queen Aliya graced a Russian radio show with her presence yesterday, they also videotaped the interview so you can watch it here, it's a long one.

She's really shy and it makes her a bit awkward in a quiet and pensive way. It's adorable. And I'm really jealous of that, because I too am extremely shy, but instead of being awkward in a quiet and pensive way I'm "Chandler". I talk nervously to fill the silence, I say anything and everything that pops into my head and then immediately regret it and start cracking bad jokes to break the ice. It's terrible. When I say something really stupid, people just stare at me like I'm crazy (probably because I am crazy), and that happened twice today. It's the worst thing ever.

But I ventured completely off topic, as usual.

They discuss Aliya's career, what growing up in gymnastics is like, what daily life in Round Lake is and how she supports her younger teammates. Aliya's "bad temper" also comes up, naturally... She says she wishes to continue in gymnastics and the poor unworthy interviewer asks/suggests about becoming uneven bars specialist. The Queen is an all arounder, end of story.

The hacking comes up briefly, I don't think Aliya really even commented on it, but they discuss the success of USA. Aliya says they have a lot of kids doing gymnastics, they are very strong and have difficult programmes, but lack beauty, the training is different. They then mention Valeri Liukin's promotion and consider it, because Nastia was a very beautiful gymnast. They also discuss gymnasts/coaches leaving Russia.

They then talk about the Olympic infrastructure in Rio, Olympic Village, food and living conditions. Aliya didn't think were any notable problems, at least for the gymnasts.

They obviously discuss injuries and relationships with coaches,  a lot about Aliya's relationship with Aleksandrov.

I don't understand much about the rest, I'll post a translation of the interview if I find one.

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (III)

BALANCE BEAM

The day of the 2013 World Championships balance beam final I was visiting my grandmother with my mother and missed it live, but when I came back, I immediately went to my computer (I wanted to watch the actual competition before looking at the results), but before it was even on, my mother had turned on the TV and yelled at me that they were showing highlights. I ran to the living room and looked at Aliya with her gold and my mother was like "isn't she your favorite gymnast, she won, how nice" and I was like "NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND this is BALANCE BEAM, it's her worst apparatus, SHE'S A WORLD CHAMPION on BALANCE BEAM!!!!". And that was Antwerp summed up for me. Of all the great beam workers in that final, it was Aliya who somehow took the gold. This routine is fucking legendary and it kills me that people who didn't follow gymnastics back then are like my mother and will never understand those feelings. Those two years when Aliya's beam was a complete disaster and she scored 11 at an international major competition are lost from memory and there's nothing shocking about her being a World Champion on beam anymore.

I can't even keep up with the familial bliss happening in Russia anymore

I have had a few hellish weeks in school, but tomorrow will be my last day for this year. After that it's just work, a few online courses and getting my final thesis finished. Team Russia has been busy in a whole other way, producing babies and marriages and in this case, both.

Behold, Ksenia Semenova and her long-time boyfriend and fellow Russian gymnastic royalty Denis Ablyazin just got married.

Не прошло и 4 года 😂💙💍

Oh, and she's pregnant. And got a new iPhone in pink. Congratulations!

Will Dasha and Nikita be next? Or Masha and her Rio-love? Aliya?

Grishina for AA Champion 2032!

Afan only got married two seconds ago, but we have more happy news! A brand new Russian Gymnastics Baby! After Anastasia Grishina suddenly got married last winter, there were so many rumors in Russian gymternet that she was pregnant, and I guess for once it was true, because behold, Baby Grishy! Congratulations!

I don't know if it's a girl or a boy, but I'm hoping that it's a girl and that she'll be the 2032 all around champion, because the Grishina family has too much beauty to settle for one Olympic silver.

On a side note, I feel SO old right now. Wasn't Grishy herself a baby just a few years ago? And now she has a baby of her own.

Mr. and Mrs. Ksenia Afanasyeva

I'm going to post about the gymnastics galore Russia had yesterday night when we get better footage (I hope the event was televised...), but while the rest of Russia's gymnastic elite was partying it up with Aleksei Nemov, Afan was busy getting married. She looked beautiful and...very Afan.

Her new husband, Roman Suetin, is a former gymnast and national team member and a current coach working in Moscow. So far it looks like Maria Paseka (the grooms ex-girlfriend?) and Ekaterina Kurbatova were the only WAG gymnasts in attendance.

I wish them many happy years together and a life filled with love and joy!

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (II)

Since the uneven bars is obviously the team's best apparatus, this post is going to be a longer one.

UNEVEN BARS

My favorite has to obviously be Queen of the Uneven Bars Aliya Mustafina just being herself  and taking what's hers, the Olympic gold to be precise. She successfully defended her gold on the same apparatus from London, which is an incredibly difficult feat in gymnastics. She also won Russia's only gold in gymnastics, just like she did in London. After struggling with injuries and low difficulty all quad and being counted out from the race to the Olympic gold, she brought her best to Rio, because that's what mattered. She actually ended up having the highest difficulty score out of all the contestants in the final, and since her execution is always impeccable, there was no stopping her. 

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (I)

I've been meaning to do a compilation post about my favorite Russian routines from this quad (2013-2016) ever since I recovered from the Olympics, but procrastination got in the way. I'll do this one apparatus at a time, so the first part is going to be a bit boring. There's only so much you can get out of vault, especially with Russia.

VAULT

Obviously this moment had to be included, Maria Paseka winning gold on vault at the 2015 World Championships. Look how far she's come after London, her amanar was basically a gymternet joke back then, but now it's solid. And to think that she was out with injuries for almost two years prior to 2015, but came back with a cheng. Not to mention winning silver at the 2016 Olympics, and vaulting the amanar that clinched Russia the Olympic silver during the last rotation of the team final.

it's a different team now

The Russians are on their annual training/recovery vacation and this year they are back in Mallorca after trying out Italy last year. Unfortunately it looks like the Spanish snoops are vacationing too, because we haven't seen any training footage yet. I was going through the gymnasts' social media though, and this group picture really hit me hard:

From left: Daria Spiridonova, Lilia Akhaimova, Elena Eremina, Maria Kharenkova, Valeria Saifulina, Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Viktoria Gorbatova, Anastasia Ilyankova, Ulyana Perebinosova, Seda Tutkhalyan

This bunch of babies is the team. This. I knew Aliya, Masha, Afan and Vika are all taking a well-earned break/slow decent into retirement, but this team picture made me really see the situation as it is. Masha K. and Spiridoz are now the team leaders, their most experienced and accomplished gymnasts. Didn't they just turn senior? Seda and Melka are right behind with some major international experience and all around capability. Even they are "veterans" of the last quad come next year, even though we just saw them grow up. Lilia is technically the oldest gymnast of this bunch, but because she hasn't ever been on the main team, her face in the team picture seems even newer than Melka's.

And if you thought like me at first that the rest this picture is filled with tiny juniors, no, it's not. This group (save for Lera, Vika and Sima) is THE SENIOR TEAM. It just feels so weird. The post-Olympic "where is everybody?" slump has officially begun for me. Don't get me wrong, I love all of these gymnasts and the super young "veterans" have a very special place in my heart, plus I'm really excited that Nastia, Lena and Ulya will join the senior team, but I need to adjust to the new makeup and look of the Russian nuclear team...

Looks like Kapi and Shelgie stayed home, I don't think either one of them is retiring though. And Polina might continue her B-team career. Alla is probably a lost cause by now. 

I needed some cheering up after my gloomy realizations because of this picture, and Seda was up for the job. Just look at her in Mallorca, posing with Miley Cyrus :) Who knew they were friends.

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I'm working on a series of posts dedicated to my favorite routines from this quad, probably with a side of some other good things that happened, like leotards, pictures, memorable moments and stuff. We'll see what I come up with.

My Gymnastic Knights of the Order of Vladimir Putin

Time to reap the benefits of years of hard work. And by benefits, I mean cars, the Russian Olympic medalists get rewarded for their achievements big time (not as great as in Singapore though...). Everyone got knighted (not really) by Putin, some cash depending on their medal and brand new BMWs, X6 for Aliya (gold gets you a better model), X4s for the rest of the team. I can't even imagine tiny Princess Tut driving that giant thing, wow.

Rio 2016: Even Finals Day 2 and 3

I wrote a nice post about the last two days of finals, but somehow it disappeared into thin air. So let's try again, I needed to rewatch the finals anyway. Aliya, Oleg and Aleksandrov behind the beam kept distracting me from what was happening on the beam.

Rio 2016: Event Finals Day 1

Vault and uneven bars.

Rio 2016: A Complete Collection

Of course she had to get every color!

A complete collection, just as I suspected. Putin better have that car, cash and condo ready for her, she's earned it.

Rio 2016: A Bittersweet All Around

I feel like I'm both emotionally and physically exhausted after so many days of gymnastics. But what a bittersweet AA final. I got my wish and Aliya medaled, which I'm incredibly happy about. But I'm also sad that she couldn't perform to her best and had a lackluster day at the Olympics, especially after her great performances in the team final. I guess she gave her best for the team, again. I still think that she earned that medal, she gave the others every opportunity to take advantage of her mistakes, but nobody could. It really wasn't the best day for anyone except Aly and Simone, who both delivered great performances.

Rio 2016: My Silver Princesses and the Queen

Thank you bad qualifications, it always works for Team Russia! Bad qualifications=good team final.

After the surprise team silver for the Russian men yesterday, the women took another surprise silver. And I'm so happy. I don't even know what I'm most happy about.

• Aliya, who went through hell to get to Rio gets rewarded for her work for Russian gymnastics
• Princess Tut again comes through for her team when it's most needed and hits under pressure again and again
• Gelya turns her tears of disappointment into tears of happiness
• Masha, who had to nervously wait for her one vault for two hours, cliches the team silver with a great performance
• Dasha... did okay I guess
• Aliya and Masha are Olympic medalists, again, after 4 difficult years
• I've seen Dasha, Seda and Gelya grow up from little gymnasts to Olympic silver medalists

Yeah, I can't write a very coherent post right now, I'm too emotional over this. And exhausted. The medals were literally decided during the last rotation and up until that I was a nervous wreck.

Some Stats from Qualifications

I'm watching the MAG team final and don't really understand anything that's going on, everybody is landing stuff with their chest at knee-level but calling it a good routine, Russia is leading, Ukraine is not even trying and Kohei just took off his shorts. Wild.

But I counted yesterday's execution averages from WAG qualifications to have a better look at the scores and compare them between subdivisions. Click on the images to make them larger.

If you look at the individual gymnasts' scores, you can see that they go up a bit almost every subdivision, but there's only just over a tenth between the best and worst subdivision. When it comes to the teams, the teams from subdivision 4 (NED and USA) head the rankings. USA was the only team that didn't have any falls, so it makes sense that they scored well, Netherlands had one fall. The Brits are last, mostly thanks to Fragapane who scored several 6s.

But I think China was definitely lowballed. They had good beam and bars rotations with no falls, but their execution is super low compared to others. Belgium too. The floor scores also definitely went up quite a bit between subdivisions.

I don't know... Make of it what you will.

Rio 2016: Qualifications - A very Russian start to these Olympics

Can we start over on beam???

Ugh. I didn't want or expect a good qualification from Russia, because that would have been trouble, but this? No, just no. Congratulations to Seda though, for being the most consistent member of the Russian team. Who saw that coming?

Viktoria Komova - I'm Tired of the Pain

A Voronezh news agency RIA Voronezh  interviewed Viktoria Komova (link). And it's heartbreaking, like every interview of Vika.

Viktoria Komova, a gymnast from Voronezh, two-time 2012 Olympic silver medalist, multiple World and European champion, will miss the Olympics because of an injury. Viktoria spoke with a RIA Voronezh correspondent about coming to terms with her circumstances, what treatments she's having and how she'll be rooting for her friends. 

One of the best gymnasts in the world misses the main event of the quadrennium. How did you make the difficult decision not to go? 

It was 4 weeks before the Olympics and I realized that I can't do anything. There was constant pain in my back and it blocked all emotions and feelings. I was so afraid of training, you never know what kind of strain you're going to be under, but I went on. I wanted to be honest, I went to the coaches and said that I didn't want to fail anyone or be deceitful, I had no right to go to the Olympics, perform poorly and let the team down. They asked if there really wasn't anything I could do. When I told everyone about it, I wasn't even crying, there were no more tears. I was just tired of the pain.

Rio 2016: Podium Training

--They actually upgraded! And Melka is back to normal! And it wasn't a disaster! And the Mustafina is back!

I'm so happy about this. Buuuut... I'm also worried. It's too good. It's Russia, so they are supposed to look like a disaster, that's how we know they're going to do well. So many mixed feelings right now. At least Aliya managed to be shaky on beam. That needed to happen. Thank you my Queen. She was also not-so-good on floor. Oh, and Seda fell on beam. What a surprise.

Meet the Team: Aliya Mustafina (II)

If you didn't have time to read through my lengthy introduction to Queen Aliya and the history of her reign, shame on you. JK. This post should sum up nicely the most important points of that post and give you an idea of what to expect from her in Rio.

So, to sum up:

• Queen Aliya is a BAMF
• She's the Queen of Russian gymnastics
• And the Queen of elevator selfies
• She also the Queen of handstands
• Let's face it, she's the Queen of everything
• She has too many nicknames to list, so you can just call her the Queen
• She tore her ACL in 2011, but came back in 2012 and won the most medals out of any gymnast in London, she's the reigning Olympic Champion on the uneven bars
• She also established herself as the Queen of tie-breaks, #don't tie with Aliya
• And she had eye-makeup that inspired 1000 YouTube tutorials
• Her uneven bars routine in 2012 was so cool that everybody is still doing it
• She has a Worlds medal on every apparatus, 11 all together
• Once she became the World Champion on her worst apparatus, just to mix things up
• She re-invents herself faster than Madonna, whenever an injury prevents her from doing something, she quickly has a new thing she's the best at
• She kept Russian gymnastics relevant for years all by herself
• She performs best under pressure, when she knows she has to fight and she will steal your medals when you least expect it
• She has a bad knee, bad ankle, bad back, bad shoulder and bad wrist, but she will still steal your medals
• She has more elegance in her fingertips than you anywhere
• Even her mistakes look elegant
• You know what, she doesn't make mistakes, only choreography changes
• She has two and a half skills named after her in the Code of Points
• She can kill you with just her stare, Beware the Stare!

That's Aliya Mustafina. Learn it and appreciate it.

Meet the Team: Aliya Mustafina (I)

This introduction is going to be different from the rest because My Tsaritsa deserves it, and it's impossible to explain Queen Aliya in only a few paragraphs. So I ended up dividing her introduction to two separate posts, the first one (this one, to be exact) is going to be about her career before the Olympics, and the second one (to be published later today or tomorrow) will focus on what she has in store for Rio.
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Aliya Mustafina. My Tsaritsa. Queen Aliya. Musty. Conqueror of the Podium. When I was little, my mother used to say that a loved child has many names, and it certainly applies to Aliya. She is the team captain in Rio and a London veteran. A London Olympic Champion. She's also my favorite gymnast of all time. And she's awesome. And I've been sitting here for an hour trying to figure out how to sum up her awesomeness and it has proven to be impossible. It's too much, she's too awesome. She's the ultimate BAMF. Thank you and goodbye.

Aliya was born in 1994 in Yegorievsk, Russia (Moscow Oblast) to a Tatar father and Russian mother. She was introduced to gymnastics by her Olympic wrestler father, who believed that children needed to do sports, because it was healthy. She was a determined and independent child, who navigated the Moscow metro transit system at a very young age to take her and her little sister Nailya to gym. Her father has often told the story of how she cut her finger and and was told to keep it elevated to help with bleeding and swelling; Aliya went to bed and fell asleep and still managed to keep her finger up throughout the night. She was that determined and disciplined, even as a child.

Team Russia Training in Rio

Several Russian news channels brought us some training footage today, nothing terribly interesting (except that Masha is vaulting!), if not for this golden moment that deserves to be archived in the Aliya Mustafina Collection of Awesomeness. And if that archive doesn't exist, it should.

WTF is she even doing, I LOVE HER. Her face when she takes off her hat. And her attack on that poor mic. Apparently there was a bug on it. Gotta keep the Zika away.

Out and About

I've been trying to write Meet the Team: Aliya Mustafina for three days now and it's so difficult. No matter what I write, I feel like I can't adequately describe how amazing she is and why. Maybe tomorrow is my lucky day. I'm also considering splitting it in two parts, Part 1 would be her long career history and Part 2 would be what we can expect from her in Rio.
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The team had some time off yesterday and went sightseeing. It's probably frustrating to get to visit all of these amazing countries and cities and spend most of your time sweating in a training hall and stressing about whether your back can take a few more weeks of torture. So it's nice that they at least had a day to do something else. They took the opportunity to visit Christ the Redeemer and take a stroll on the beach.

Dasha posted a short video of their trip, looks like Aliya has the panda with her in Rio <3

It's technically winter in Rio (yes, the Summer Olympics takes place during winter), but both the water and air temperatures stay above 20 °C. How nice. It's actually summer in here, but much colder. I need to move to closer to the equator.

We haven't had much news about the training, but maybe it's better that way, because whenever there's news about Team Russia, it's always bad. The doctors are evaluating Beefarm today and we should know by Wednesday whether or not she can compete. Fingers crossed. Kapi is their first alternate, but I was trying to imagine her in the team and I couldn't figure out a place for her. Masha would only do vault and Kapi has a FTY, so she obviously can't replace Masha there. Melka, Seda and Aliya have DTYs so they could just go as a 4-member team without Kapi. Perhaps if they want to take some of the load off from Melka and save her and her bad hamstrings for the all around, they could put Kapi on floor instead of her. They'd lose a few tenths though. Kapi also has a more difficult bar routine, but I would rather rely on Melka, she's more consistent and has much more experience. And the only way they could use Kapi in qualification on bars would be at the expense of Seda's all around, I'm not sure if I'm okay with that. And let's face it, Kapi is terrible on beam, so even injured Melka would be better there.

I found this news clip, but they show only conditioning and beam choreography from the girls. What's interesting though, is that Dasha is shown on floor and beam, so they are probably not going to risk 3-up-3-count in qualification and use Dasha instead.

Meet the Team: Maria Paseka

Maria Paseka (Cyrillic: Мария Пасека), affectionately called Masha (also known as Beefarm in the gymternet due to the Russian meaning of her name), is one of the two Olympic veterans in the team, having competed at the 2012 Olympics in London. She was born in 1995 in Moscow and turned senior in 2011. She is 21 years old and the team's vault specialist in Rio. She was the team's vault specialist also in London, competed successfully there and came home with two medals, team silver and vault bronze. Now in Rio she's the reigning World Champion on vault, and has a good chance of coming home yet with another medal on her best apparatus. She is also the 2015 European Champion on vault.

Russia had a very deep field of junior talent before London and while a good gymnast, Masha didn't stand out among her internationally successful peers. Her only major success as a junior came in 2010 when she made the junior European Championships team and contributed to her team's first place finish. She also took the silver medal on vault, losing the gold to another member of the future London team, Viktoria Komova. Her first senior year was also without much success, she suffered from injuries and inconsistency and didn't make any major teams. Her only international competition was a World Cup in Belgium, where she didn't get any medals. It didn't look like London was in the cards for her.

Meet the Team: Daria Spiridonova

Daria Spiridonova (Cyrillic: Дарья Спиридонова), affectionately called either Dasha, or Spiridoz, is the third Olympic newbie in the team and one of their two specialists. She was born 1998 in Novocheboksarsk, but moved later to train and compete for Moscow. She's 18 years old, a third year senior and an experienced competitor, having made the Russian team for every major competition ever since she turned senior in 2014. This means also that she's a rarity in the team: no major or minor injuries keeping her from training and competing.

Her junior career was short and modest. She was promising on the uneven bars with her beautiful lines and swing, but had messy execution and didn't shine on any other event. It wasn't until she joined the senior team that she started improving, and fast. First it was bronze on the uneven bars at the 2014 European Championships, and later that year, a bronze at the World Championships. The next year she just kept on improving, becoming both the European Champion and World Champion on the uneven bars. Her other major titles include Worlds team bronze, Europeans team bronze and gold, 2016 Europeans uneven bars silver and several national titles.

Meet the Team: Seda Tutkhalyan

Seda Tutkhalyan (Cyrillic: Седа Тутхалян, Armenian: Սեդա Թութխալյան) is the second youngest member of the team, born in 1999 in Gyumri, Armenia, but her family moved to Moscow when she was young. She is 17 years old and a second year senior with plenty of international experience under her belt. She's also interestingly (almost) an Olympic veteran, having represented Russia at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing when she was just a junior. She came out as the best gymnast of the competition, with all around and uneven bars gold and floor exercise silver. She is also both junior and senior European team champion, and European Games team champion and vault silver medalist. She's Russian national vault champion and AA silver medalist. She was also part of Russia's 2015 World Championships team and qualified to the AA and beam finals, but didn't win any medals.

She is a tiny powerhouse and the innovator of the team, not a typical Russian gymnast. Her gymnastics is quick and dynamic, and her energetic routines and selection of skills differ a lot from her teammates. She goes for the difficult and risky instead of the safe and pretty, but she still has something "Russian" about her execution. She is coached by the same coach as another Olympic team member Maria Paseka, and they share some similarities in their gymnastics. She is a talented gymnast with huge potential, but is also the endless source of frustration to her fans and coaches alike. She is very inconsistent and regular underachiever, rarely rising up to that huge potential. She tends to make nervous mistakes under pressure, a great example of a so-called headcase.

A Normal Day for Russian Gymnastics: Injuries, injuries, doping problems

I told you that it would be a miracle if Valentina managed to stay quiet until the Games. So she had statements and as usual, you're not going to like what she had to say.

Maria Paseka is waiting for doctor's approval to compete. Her back problems are back (if they ever left) and she's not training full loads right now. The doctors will decide August 3rd whether or not she can compete. I want to remain optimistic because she only has to do vault, but since I'm not an optimistic person, it's difficult. That's a huge score in team final, and likely individual medal that they would to lose. I'm just going to hope for the best.

The Three Musketeers Troublemakers

Angelina Melnikova pulled her hamstring way back in Russia and still hasn't recovered. She's also not training with full loads, and they are working to simplify her routines. That is bad, because she's extremely important to the team. She's supposed to do AA in qualifying, team final and individual final. Not to mention this could also ruin her chances for individual medals. Last time when she had hamstring problems, she looked terrible on beam. She should be able to compete, but remember Yao Jinnan in London with a similar injury? Yeah, that was heartbreaking. Melka is the future of Russian gymnastics and I don't want her first and maybe only Olympics to go that way. She deserves so much more. Again, I'm just going to hope for the best.

The third bad news to come out today, is about their reserve, Natalia Kapitonova. The FIG has been working hard to clear the Russian gymnasts for competition, but since Kapi hasn't competed internationally in any major competitions, she has never been tested for doping. Or if she has, the testing has been done in Russia and isn't considered reliable because, well, state sponsored doping programme and Sports Ministry approved sample contamination in RUSADA. There's nothing official yet, so they might be able to clear Kapi and this is just a speed bump.. It's not like she has any convictions either. For the third time, I can only hope for the best. With Beefarm and Melka and their problems, it's not good for one of the alternates to get banned from competing. UPDATE: The FIG cleared her.

We know that Valentina loves drama and isn't usually right about anyone's health (or anything else for that matter), so this might be just her usual shenanigans and there's absolutely nothing to worry about. For the fourth time, I can hope that is the case.

So, what a typical day for Russian gymnastics. All drama all the time.
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Sources: Tass and R-sport

You will want to click on those links just for the pictures of Valentina ;) Deer-in-the-headlights "I don't know no doping!!!" and evil grin "just wait for my next announcement, I have even worse news for you".
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the obligatory olympic village pics i was waiting for

UPDATED WITH MORE PICTURES!
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Yes, they are here. I already posted Aliya's, but here it is again, because she made it. And what a struggle it was, last year it started to look like it wouldn't happen. But she's there and ready to compete. And I'm happy.

I expressed earlier some relief over those rings being on the ground instead of elevated like in London (it inspired a bit too hazardous climbing), but I'm still nervous to see Aliya up there. They're gymnasts, super strong and incredibly coordinated, so they have a far better chance of surviving that climb than me, but I don't have Olympic medals to lose if I fall down. Here's Aliya and Masha tempting the fate:

Meet the Team: Angelina Melnikova

I wanted to do a series introducing the Russian Olympic Team to any readers that are new to gymnastics and find my blog by chance. This gives you the basics if you are not quite as familiar with the gymnasts, as the hardcore fans who spend their daily lives waiting for devastating injury updates are.

Let's hope that during these Olympics we can turn as many 4-year-fans to gymternet regulars and Russian stans as we can.

Angelina Melnikova (Cyrillic: Ангелина Мельникова, affectionately called Gelya or Melka) is the youngest member and the newbie of this team. She just turned 16 (born in 2000), and made the senior ranks this year right in time for the Olympics. Only it doesn't really feel like it. When she turned senior, it was more like "about time!" than "already? But she's just a baby". She had a long and successful junior career, so it feels like she's been around forever. As the leader of the Russian junior team for years, she has plenty of international experience and the titles to match it. She's a junior European all around, team and balance beam champion, and uneven bars silver medalist, and she spent her last junior year competing against her senior teammates (something that the most promising Russian juniors get to do) and proved herself to be better than most of them. In the senior level, she's the Russian national all around, balance beam and floor exercise champion and European team champion.

Her youth can be both an advantage and disadvantage at the Olympics. On one hand, she's in good physical shape, not too many nagging injuries and years of fatigue, but on the other hand, she lacks the maturity that the years of senior competition bring to one's gymnastics. When it comes to one of the most important, if not the most important aspects of the competition, handling the pressure, she's yet relatively untested. Some new seniors do extremely well with the pressure just because they don't think about it like the older contestants do, but those who think about it, often crumble under it. We'll see which category she belongs to in Rio. If European Championships are any indication, the nerves certainly have their effect on her, but not too much.