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.