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.

The competition will take place from 1 to 5 March, here's the schedule:

March 1 - Qualifications for Individual Finals and Team Final
10:00 - 11:20 Subdivision 1
11:30 - 12:50 Subdivision 2
13:00 - 14:20 Subdivision 3

March 2 - AA Final
18:00 - 20:00 All Around Final

March 4 - Individual Event Finals
12:00 - 14:00 EF (VT, UB)

March 5 - Individual Event Finals
12:00 - 14:00 EF (BB, FX)

Full subdivision lists are here, but the national team will compete in Subdivision 3, regardless of the regional team they compete for. The time zone for Kazan is +3.

The list of competitors is here. Is has all of the usual suspects (I'm actually surprised it doesn't include Aliya and her fetus), notably missing are Viktoria Komova (duh), Maria Kharenkova (yikes) and Ulyana Perebinosova (still). Ulya made a brief appearance at Round Lake, but it looks like she's still injured. Natalia Kapitonova is back from injury and already competed successfully at the Regional Championships a few weeks earlier, she'll be back for Nationals too.