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:

I also got a little bit emotional seeing Seda there.

Look how far she's come. All the way from the Youth Olympic Games to Rio, the actual Olympic Games. Awww...

And here's Spiridoz, looking like a pro as usual. Sometimes I feel like she has photographers following her around everywhere taking pictures.

And here's the entire team minus Masha :(

The team is staying in a building reserved exclusively for Russian athletes, so I'm sure they'll have great atmosphere. As the alternates, Kapi and Shelgie aren't staying in the Olympic Village, but in a hotel close to it. The decor looks much better in their room and everything else is probably better too there, if we can believe the Aussies and their complaints.

The Brazilian press had the opportunity to follow the team's training today in the official training hall, where they will be training twice a day until the Olympics. They took some pics, but weren't allowed to speak to anyone, apparently the team is going into full radio silence to better focus on the task at hand, surviving the Olympics. Eh, there's always social media. You can't stop these kids from taking selfies. And if Valentina manages to keep her mouth shut, it will be a miracle.

My favorite picture was this one, so much going on there:

Spiridoz is on the beam with Seda sitting in front of it. I'm convinced that they are trying to scare Seda into a good beam routine. "Look Seda, this mess is going to be a representative of Russian beam work in the team final unless you can get your shit together." Although Spiridoz is actually quite a good example of Russian beam work. A pretty, inconsistent mess. But since she's training beam, they're probably going to use her at the qualifying instead of scratching. Fine. Meanwhile, Melka is conditioning like the dutiful gymnast that she is and Starkin is testing out the Brazilian cell service. Someone on tumblr suggested that he's checking that he can get hold of the emergency services. You never know when one of those glass ankles will break.

As you can see, they are training in the same leos as before Euros, 100 times prettier than the ones GK designed for them. Ugh.

Oh, and Vika isn't dwelling too much about missing the Olympics. She cooking.

Ummmm...yum?