...aaand word from the Queen herself, she will compete at nationals!

...barring any further changes, that is...
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After the 100 different announcements about Aliya Mustafina and Russian Championships, we finally have some information straight from Aliya herself via VK (and trusted gymternet source who actually knows her).

My Tsaritsa has informed the peasants, that she will grace us with her presence at the Russian Championships. She just finished her last round of treatments 2 weeks ago and is not yet ready for competition, so she will perform simplified routines on balance beam and uneven bars. This is just to get her competitive spirit back after such a long break and to keep up with the rest of the team in preparation for European Championships and the Olympics.

All hail Queen Aliya!

Checking out hot guys and hospitals with Aliya and Vika

There were some news about the situation with Vika. She has back pain, but the cause is unknown at the moment. They are examining her and she probably has to take a break from training. Ugh. She also posted this:

The weird thing for me is that she's still in a hospital. Why? The way hospitals work here is that you go there and stay only if you absolutely need 24 hour care. And when it's a sports injury, 24 hour care is not needed, unless something is super seriously wrong. Otherwise you go in, get tests done, meet a doctor, and go to your appointments, treatments and physiotherapy etc., but stay home during this. Maybe it's different in Russia and you need to stay at the hospital for a long time. Or maybe she's at some sort of rehab center? But wouldn't her room be more nicely decorate if that was the case? I don't know. Get better soon Vika, we need you!

While Vika was blowing kisses from a hospital bed, Aliya was having all kids of fun with a handsome mysterious stranger and posting about it on instagram.

In the past she's been super private about her love life, especially with instagram, but I guess not anymore? :D  I'm torn about whether I want the NBC commentators to find these pictures. 

Pros: A sequel to that ridiculous RUSSIANS ARE DIVAS OMG SHE TOTALLY SHOVED HER COACH LOOK OUT KHORKINA commentary from London, this time with RUSSIAN SEX SCANDAL LOOK OUT KHORKINA.

Cons: People might actually think that 21-year-old having a boyfriend is a scandal.

Do you see my problem there?

Fun fact: When I first saw this picture, I looked at the upper right corner and thought it was the head coach Grebs. Now that would have been scandalous :D

Open Training at Round Lake

The Russian team is preparing for nationals and the press was invited to Round Lake to watch a training session and we were gifted with lots of pictures. Vika wasn't there as suspected, but also missing were Maria Paseka and Ksenia Afanasyeva. Afan has been training on and off because of ankle issues, but I don't know about Masha's whereabouts. I think we would have heard if she was injured though.

Aliya is at Round Lake training all apparatuses, the pictures show her working on her spins and floor choreo. They are still teasing us about whether or not she'll compete at nationals so we won't know for sure until the competition starts. Valentina stated at an interview that the reason for this uncertainty is that she wants to compete all around and all around only. If she doesn't have all events ready, she won't compete at all, event if her bars and beam are good to go. But why?!? I'd like to think that they are honest about what's going on, but I have a feeling that she's not competing and they just keep throwing her name to the mix in hopes of some publicity for the event, because artistic gymnastics is so unpopular in Russia and she's the most famous of the gymnasts. That or Valentina is on crack, take your pick.

Another one injured is a new senior, Ekaterina Sokova. She's a charmer and her best events are beam and floor, so Russia could have really needed her this year. She spent a lot of last year struggling with injuries and didn't have time to recover properly before a new injury. She's at home recovering, which is a bad sign. It's going to take some time for her to come back, if she's ever going to. I hope she doesn't end up retiring early like Maria Bondareva.

I was disappointed because there were only a few pictures of my Princess Tut aka Seda and none of her training... I guess that means she's not considered a key player. There were a 100 pictures of Spiridoz and she's a World Champion and pretty and all, but I would have loved to see someone else too.

The pictures of juniors were actually a lot better. Some actual training going on and more gymnasts. And how pretty is Ksenia Klimenko?

not again

I swear I was just beginning to feel safe about Viktoria Komova being back and actually sticking around this time, but that was obviously a mistake. Vika is always injured and always will be and I just have to accept that :(

This time she has some back problems that have taken her to hospital and like Aliya, she's most likely unable to compete at nationals. I remember some pictures of her wearing a back brace earlier so maybe it's a recurring problem, like with Aliya? I don't know.

I wish her a speedy recovery, I need her and Aliya to make it to Rio. Please come back!!!

The Russians compete for worst vault of the day in Stuttgart!

And the winner is...... Shelgunova! With a score of 12.550. Not only did she fall, but she also underrotated a DTY badly enough to get her vault devalued. What a performance. Watch the action here:

Dmitrieva came in second with a DTY worth 13.250 and Melnikova third with a DTY worth 14.250. A DTY that scores over 14, wow. Kapitonova competed the worst worst vault. A solid FTY. The score (13.900) was bit lower than Melka's, but I'm giving Melka the bronze medal for terrible execution. Congrats to everyone!

Oh, and a special mention goes to my favorite, Seda Tutkhalyan, who competed at a different competition but still stuck to the party line with 13.400 for an underrotated DTY with hands down. Amazing camaraderie, just like in Glasgow.
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Now that the awards for the worst vaulting have been given, I'm going to move on to the actual competition, DTB Pokal Team Challenge. I'm actually really happy that we got an entire team of Russians for this competition. They kept the most important (and injury prone) players at home, and failed to acquire a visa for Maria Kharenkova (who was supposed to compete in Glasgow World Cup earlier), but sent a team of youngsters, all of whom are fighting for one final spot on the Olympic team, to Germany to show their skills.

Aliya out of nationals?

My favorite friend sworn enemy Valentina Rodionenko is making interviews and press releases again still. I think she has to make one every day to stay alive or something. This time she's saying that it's unlikely that Aliya Mustafina will compete at nationals, because she's still in recovery from her knee surgery. Read the article here, there's no word yet from Aliya herself.

Wasn't it like last week when she was suggesting that Aliya could compete at Stuttgart this weekend? But now won't make nationals. Yeah, Valentina has no idea what's going on as usual. That or she just likes to confuse everyone: If we go back to her press releases, last year she thought Aliya would have AA by nationals. A few months ago it was beam and uneven bars. To weeks ago she was ready for Stuttgart. And now she'll have nothing ready by nationals.

Because I'm much wiser than Valentina (hopefully), I thought it would be extremely unlikely that My Tsaritsa would have all events back by nationals. Her surgery was back in Novermber, and she wasn't able to start full training until February. Two events sounded realistic. Stuttgart sounded crazy. Not competing sounds again, realistic. Disappointing, because we haven't seen her in ages, but not surprising.

Aliya's absence from competition this time is a long one. It's starting to feel like that time Vika went off the grid and I thought she was never coming back. But Aliya is still at Round Lake training and her surgery was only 4 months ago. If she needs more time, she needs more time. Or maybe she wants to compete only once a year to make it extra special, have people miss her and then adore her when she's there. Or maybe she's giving us emotional practice for when she retires? Slowly easing us to get used to extended periods without her so that the end will be easier when it finally comes.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy. Please come back before Rio, okay? I miss you.

This is a happy day because MY GIRL SEDA HIT BEAM!!!

Why work on my final thesis when Seda Tutkhalyan is competing and actually hitting? Hitting beam at that!!!

And sorry about the videos not fitting that column, but it's a problem with the theme and I'm going to fix it one of these days...
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The last of the World Cup events for this season (2015-2016) was in Stuttgart and had a nice turnout of gymnasts. And I actually remembered to tune in for the live feed!

My congrats go to Sophie, what a fantastic night for her. She was the only one to hit every routine without any notable mistakes, it was a great win in front of the home crowd with tears of joy. 

Seda however managed to give me heart palpitations again, actual arrhythmia with chest pain and everything. I feel like I'm super old with a weak ticker. Russian gymnastics might just kill me some day. What a lovely way to die.

ummm...

It was a weird competition for Princess Tut (I decided to call her that back in 2014 but then completely forgot about it). 

Baby Russians at Gymnix and my shower thoughts (nothing creepy I swear)

So I was going to write about the Russian babies at Gymnix sooner and I failed. Surprise. I got caught up playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. And I actually went to school yesterday but my failure was mostly caused by gaming as usual.

So Gymnix? It didn't go so well, but it wasn't a disaster either. The Americans dominated as I suspected, but my little swans managed to grab a few medals, team silver most importantly. The Canadians won bronze in front of a home audience.

(Is it just me or do the Russians look a bit cranky there? Practicing that Russian bitchface I'm sure. Can't move to senior level without it. But I'd be cranky too if I was wearing a leo with weird boob tentacles.)

The Americans also swept the all around podium even with their best gymnast, Jordan Chiles, having an incredibly rough day and finishing way down the standings. Anastasia Ilyankova scored highest out of the Russians, but came in 4th after a low score on uneven bars, her best event. Event finals ended with gold for Nastia on uneven bars, and silver for Varvara Zubova on beam (yay!).

Dasha is flying and I'm jealous.

I'm going to post some kind of recap about Gymnix tomorrow, but first, look at Daria Spiridonova.

Video, jonka Dashkoy✔️ (@dashkoy83) julkaisi 7. 03ta 2016 klo 1.29 PST

If I was a gymnast and capable of something like this, this is all I would be doing all day every day (instead of playing computer games all day and crying at the public transport semi regularly). I was always wondering if any gymnast was like me and just picked a combo like this and did it in an endless loop and I guess I got my answer. She's just flying and flipping from bar to bar like a pendulum and I'm so jealous. I want to fly too! I WANT TO FLY!!!

Now I'm just going to stare at this for the rest of the day night (it's past midnight already) and drown in my sorrowful thoughts.

This week in Russian gymnastics

I've had a busy week filled with working on my final thesis and procrastinating. Mostly procrastinating, because whenever I should be doing something important I remember that I have Cities: Skylines. I start playing and notice that the city I built and played for hours and hours has been broken because of a new update. I use mods on plenty of games, but that shitty game is the only one that always, ALWAYS breaks. And then I have to start all over again. It's so frustrating. What was I talking about again?

Oh right, gymnastics. I was trying to explain why I didn't post anything about gymnastics this week. But nothing too important really happened, just a lot of little things so I'm just going to scramble together all the news here in one post. We have lots of great instagram action from Round Lake, Shelgie being Shelgie and Valentina not knowing what's going on. So just the usual.

Let's start with the most important: Rio. Rio Test Event to be precise. Actually, there's no test event for the Russians, because they are not going.