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?