Russian National Team of 2018

The list of Russian national team staff and gymnasts for 2018 was published last week. They publish these lists every year and usually the senior national team and senior reserve teams in these lists have little to do with what the actual team is going to look like in the following year. Gymnasts in the reserve team actually might be major players in the main team (like Seda Tutkhalyan in 2015) and gymnasts in the main team might be officially retired (like Tatiana Nabieva during most years). The concept of senior or junior is also lost in these lists. I suspect it has something to do with funding or the government salaries given to the gymnasts. But I still thought I'd make a post about it, because the list usually has at least some relevance. But my point is, if your favorite is on the reserve list, don't worry about it.

The Senior National Team 

• Eleonora Afanasyeva
• Lilia Akhaimova
• Elena Eremina
• Anastasia Ilyankova
• Natalia Kapitonova
• Viktoria Komova
• Angelina Melnikova
• Aliya Mustafina
• Maria Paseka
• Ulyana Perebinosova
• Angelina Simakova
• Daria Spiridonova
• Maria Kharenkova
• Aleksandra Schekoldina

don't call the Queen fat

Just a quick and short post about an old and rather hilarious incident between Queen Aliya and Lidia Ivanova...

Lidia Ivanova proudly wrote in her memoir that she once called the mighty Aliya Mustafina fat. And when the conversation in question wasn't going like she wanted it to (surprisingly), she proceeded to insult the Queen's sacred bitchface. How she's still alive after offending My Tsaritsa, I don't know.

This Bitch

Baby Swan Graduates: Varvara Zubova

Varvara Zubova (Варвара Зубова), Varya, or ZubZub is from Moscow and represents the city at national competitions. She is coached by Vladimir and Elena Kuznetsov/a. She became gymternet famous when she was just a teeny tiny gymnast, so I still can't actually believe that she's a senior. Not only was she gymternet famous, she was also noticed by the national team when she was just a tiny baby, so her international career is very long, illustrious and occasionally strange. I swear she was once sent all the way to Asia just for a compulsory floor routine.

Her many, many medals from Russian Nationals include 2014 gold on floor and silver on all around, 2015 gold on beam and bronze on all around, 2016 gold on floor and bronze in the all around and 2017 silver on floor and bronze in the all around. Internationally she's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion. Her other international competitions include the ever traditional Gymnix, Jesolo and European Youth Olympic Festival, where she won bronze in the all around.

Baby Swan Graduates: Aleksandra Schekoldina

Aleksandra Schekoldina (Александра Щеколдина), also known as Schek or Sasha, is from Surgut and represents the Ural Federal Okrug. Like Sima, she was born in 2002, is a long time Junior National Team member and even has the same strengths as a gymnast, so the two have been confused for one another quite a few times. She's very talented and promising, but has struggled with inconsistency and injuries, so her junior career is a lot more modest than her close rival's. She's a 2016 National Champion on vault and won balance beam and all around silver, but got injured later that year and spent the late 2016 and early 2017 trying and failing to come back. She did compete a few times, but always with disastrous results. To be honest, I was seriously beginning to think that she would end up as a regular Russian burn-out before even making it to senior level, but luckily she proved me wrong. In late 2017 she finally returned to competition again, this time successfully and was sent straight to Massilia with Sima. There she won gold on vault. A month later at the Voronin Cup she finished her junior career victoriously by winning the all around and uneven bars gold, and floor exercise bronze.

Baby Swan Graduates: Angelina Simakova

Angelina Simakova (Ангелина Симакова), in short, Sima (another Gelya actually), is from Khimki and represents Central Federal Okrug. She is coached by Irina Kolobova. She is a long-time and very prominent member of the Junior National Team and probably the most promising of the new graduates. It doesn't hurt that her strengths are currently the National Team's weaknesses, so she's also most likely of the new kids to make important teams. She was injured for most of her last junior year and seems to have struggled with injuries in 2016 too, but her list of both national and international titles is still very long. Veeeery long....

Her National titles lead all the way back from 2014 to 2016 with plenty of gold medals in the all around, uneven bars and vault, without forgetting some silvers and bronzes on balance beam and floor exercise. She's a 2016 Team Junior European Champion and a veteran and regular medalist of the usual international meets that Russia sends their juniors to, such as Top Gym, Gymnix and Junior Japan International. During her last junior year in 2017 she pretty much dominated WOGA Classic winning one bronze and silver and three gold medals (including all around) and competed at Massilia, where Russia usually sends their most promising juniors right before turning senior. In Massilia she won all around, floor exercise and balance beam gold and uneven bars silver. I don't know if you made it through that list of accomplishments, but if I lost you, don't worry. The only thing you need to remember is that she had an amazing junior career and is really good at winning medals on every apparatus.

And now that I dared to open my ask box on tumblr...

...I'd like to acknowledge the rest of you too.

My asks went unanswered for quite a long time as I previously stated. Partly because I'm a bad person and partly because tumblr had this bug so I didn't receive any notifications when I got a new ask. I'm really sorry for not answering you guys, but I'm really grateful for all the messages you sent me. Those were one of the biggest reasons that I decided to return to this blog. If it wasn't for so many of you enjoying this blog and sending me messages asking for when I'm coming back, I might not have. You made the return worth it!

Some of you have clearly already found your way back here and hopefully the rest of you who missed my blog will too. I'll be here waiting for you <3

Baby Swan Graduates: Class of 2018

It's 2018 and some brand new former Baby Swans are braving the Russian senior team. This year we have technically six gymnasts that have been or are national team level (most of them have spent a decent amount of time injured during these past few years), but two of them I count as more promising ones and two more the most promising. We'll still go over each one of them individually to wish them the very best. May they all exceed expectations and survive the dangerous-for-little-Russians transition into senior.

With our well-wishes out of the way, here they are: Angelina Simakova, Varvara Zubova, Aleksandra Schekoldina, Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk. We'll remember you in our prayers to GymGods!

Angelina Simakova and Varvara Zubova

Aleksandra Schekoldina and Valeria Saifulina

Viktoria Gorbatova and Viktoria Panchuk

More posts about these Baby Swan Graduates to follow.

And just because... Here's an ask that I received last year that made a reference to one of my Baby Swan Graduates posts from 2017. It unfortunately went unanswered like most of my asks last year, partly because I'm a bad person and partly because tumblr's asks were having this bug that made new asks invisible to me, but I'm really sorry for not answering and thank you so much for sending it to me. It made my day when I finally received it.

Yes, she really did it. I'm so proud.

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Routines

Team Russia had some great routines last year. And plenty of bad ones... But these are my picks for the best and worst routines for 2017. I didn't bother to include that many worst ones, the few I picked just happen to be close to my heart.

The National Team of 2017

The Best and Worst of 2017: The Gymnasts

I decided to reward the team with my own personal awards honorable mentions for the past year. Some are good, some not, but that's the Russian way. Here's everyone who made my list.

The Champion of the Year: Aliya Mustafina

What can I say? She's pretty much the Champion of every year and she didn't even have to compete to win. No, she just gestated and pushed out an entire baby and returned to training only after a few months. Because she's the Queen.

"But I thought it [coming back to gymnastics after giving birth] would be way harder." -Aliya Mustafina

An Unfortunate Calendar

If this is the way Russian gymnastics is going to look this year, I am not okay.

I was looking for pictures for my next post and unfortunately stumbled right into the calendar pics from the Russian Gymnastics Federation. They've released most of the pictures ages ago, but seeing them all together just reminded me of how much a I hate them. The only gymnast looking even half decent is Aliya Mustafina, and that's just because she's the Queen and it's nearly impossible to make her look ugly. They still managed to make her look like Mary Poppins ready to take off without an umbrella and I don't know why. Thank God for that gorgeous face though.

Happy New Year!

So uhm... *clears throat awkwardly* On the off-chance that someone still occasionally visits this blog to see if it's still dead, it's not, I'm back now. There's an explanation to my absence and I'll give it to you later, but most of you (if there's anyone still out there) probably aren't that interested in it anyway, so I'll begin this post by just apologizing for leaving so suddenly and without telling you why and if I'll ever be back. I'm sorry. As a punishment, (one that I will enjoy way too much for it to actually be a proper punishment) I will look at pictures of My Tsaritsa putting me to shame by giving me her best Death Stares. If you're not happy with my awesome punishment, you're welcome to suggest a better one. May your cruel hearts get their fill of revenge.

I'll soon be back with some recaps of last year and the traditional Baby Swan Graduates -post.

Punish me, Queen Aliya.

Explanations and excuses to follow...