Heartbreaking Retirements - Or Just the Usual Nonsense from Valentina

According to tass.ru, Valentina Rodionenko announced the retirements of three of Russia's former national team members, Anastasia Grishina, Tatiana Nabieva and Ekaterina Kramarenko. Even though the retirements wouldn't be that surprising, you should take this news with a grain of salt. Valentina has a habit of making announcements that don't make sense or are plainly untrue.

And sometimes I actually feel like she uses publicity as psychological warfare, warfare against her own team at that. She's a bit like genuinely delusional dictator who sees enemies everywhere and uses propaganda and mind games to keep everybody under control.

Anyway, at least Nabieva has already denied being retired. And even back when she did retire, she still went to Worlds.... ;)

Anastasia Grishina has been out nearly two years after injuring her knee at the Russian nationals in 2014 and re-injuring it a year later. She appeared at the Russian Cup last year, but her knee was still heavily bandaged and the routines she did were downgraded. She's also studying at university and recently got married, not to mention she's been persona non grata for the Rodionenkos after London, so retirement is likely, or at least believable. She'll just be one of those incredibly gifted juniors who didn't reach their full potential as seniors. I wish she had the opportunity to gain a bit more experience before London, things might have been different if she was born in 1995 instead of 1996. I honestly think she's one of the most beautiful gymnasts Russia has had.

While I think of Grishy as a fragile beauty, Nabs is a daredevil with rough edges. She and Aliya were a power duo as juniors (and Nabieva used to beat Aliya all the time), but she began to struggle as soon as they made senior ranks. She's still a World champ though as she was part of that amazing gold medal winning team in 2010. And let's never forget her amazingly difficult eponymous skill on bars.

Valentina was wrong about Nabs though. She officially retired in 2014, but came back when Russia needed her in Nanning and has been competing for her St. Petersburg team nationally. She's a coach in her home town and spends more time coaching than training, but announced that she's definitely not retired and was pretty mad about Valentina's announcement.

Ekaterina Kramarenko has been around since Beijing quad and is a decent and reliable competitor but has rarely had a chance to shine. Like Nabs, she helped out the team a lot in Nanning when everybody was injured and won two golds in 2015 Universiade. Again, I wouldn't count retirement out (she's 24 and is outshined by most of her teammates even on her strongest event, uneven bars), but wouldn't be surprised if she's still training and keeps competing locally.

I'll post something if/when we get some retirement announcements or denials from the gymnasts themselves.