Russian Championships 2017: Your regularly scheduled "everyone is injured or dying" -pre-competition update

Russian sports journalist Natalia Kalugina wrote a facebook post about the Russian team ahead of the National Championships, taking place in just a few days, and as usual with Team Russia, the situation is nothing short of dystopian.

That's it. The cycle has ended. Another began. On Tuesday the team will leave for Russian Championships in Kazan. Almost none the Olympians will compete at the start of the new season. Head coach Andrei Rodionenko softly says: "And what did you expect? Olympic Games - that's the way it is, right?"

Finally some wise words from A-Rod.

Kalugina only mentioned the men's team in her original post, but in the comments someone asked about the women and she didn't have much good to say. To her it seems that the burden of leadership has fallen upon Angelina Melnikova. Seda Tutkhalyan is somewhere up there with her, but Daria Spiridonova has not yet recovered from the Olympics. Natalia Kapitonova is in the middle of a growth spurt, and [her coach] Starkin is currently trying to figure out how to adjust her routines and technique accordingly. Elena Eremina has some very bad (but unspecified) health issues. In any case, she'll miss the first half of the season. This is a bit surprising, since we just saw Lena training as usual, and she also posted a picture of herself on her way to Kazan. We have no official word on any health issues, where did this come from??? I really don't know whether or not to believe Kalugina on this one, we will see on Wednesday. If it's true, it's going to be very bad news for the team this year.

The only ones still alive.

WOGA Classic 2017: It's still early in the season...

WOGA Classic was held last weekend and my two Baby Swans, Ksenia Klimenko and Angelina Simakova, did a decent job and managed to win several medals, Sima on every event. I'm very proud. Both also stayed on beam, a miracle basically. I'm even more proud.

But there are finally some videos, so let's take a look.

The Care and Keeping of Grips: Life at Round Lake

Lena posted a new vlog, this time she's showing us what a day at Round Lake is like. Surprisingly, there's actually conditioning. Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of tape and no carbs.

The girls are working out in the smaller gym, this is the morning practice session with conditioning and strength training and no apparatus work. Lena is working on a layout full during their tumbling session on the springboard. It would be an amazing upgrade, but I'm not convinced that she has enough stamina to pull it off. She has a few years to work on it though, her camera is still in 2014.

You might notice that Melka is missing, so are both Masha's. Ulya makes a short appearance, but apparently still isn't training with the usual program. I wouldn't be too worried about Melka, maybe she's training in Voronezh. Kharenkova is injured and you never really know with Beefarm. She's supposed to compete at nationals, but she only returned to training a few months ago, so I don't see where's the rush. She's broken enough as it is without a hurried comeback.

Bonus: Watch the vlog carefully and you might catch a glimpse of Mihai Brestyan's Russian twin :P

Russian Championships 2017: Bye bye Penza

Russian Nationals is approaching fast and we have one huge change from the previous years, the competition will take place in Kazan instead of Penza. You might not think that this a monumental change, but unless they bring with them all of the posters from Penza, Baby Viktoria Komova pointing "a gun" at the contestants will be history. I don't know how I will survive that. That poster has been the backdrop of every Russian routine for half a decade and now it's gone. Russian national competitions just won't be the same without it.

I've been speculating the move to Kazan and naturally ignoring all realistic and logical reasons like money, logistics, training conditions... Because nothing in Russian gymnastics is "realistic" or "logical". My top two theories are both related to the Queen of Russian Gymnastics herself, My Tsaritsa Aliya, who has a Tatar father. For those unfamiliar with Russian geography, Kazan is the capital of The Republic of Tatarstan, a federal subject with a population of Tatar majority. So maybe the team administration hopes that by going to the land of Aliya's ancestors, they can summon some of her spirit and power into the current team. My other theory is about the 2013 Universiade. It was probably the most successful competition of the Rio quad for Team Russia, so maybe they think that Kazan brings good luck.

This will be a major adjustment, but I'm not completely hopeless about the move. Kazan does have some memorable moments. Mainly these pictures of the Queen when she was there the last time and had to be dragged out of a hospital bed to do press and win some medals.

Good times.

Baby Swan Graduates: Elizaveta Kochetkova

Liza is from Moscow and coached by E.P. Baidina and V.V. Gurov. Out of the four new seniors, she has had the most modest junior career. She was never in any major teams and competed internationally only in a few very small competitions, but is now training with the national team at Round Lake. She could make the reserve team and perhaps compete in some smaller meets, but she'd have to improve significantly to be a part of the main team.

To be honest, I never really paid much attention to her, but she finally managed to impress me at the Voronin Cup last December. She is a fairly good all arounder, but rather unsurprisingly for a Russian, best on uneven bars. She's tall and leggy and benefits from her naturally nice lines, but she also has good execution and quality of movement to back that up.