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

New seniors often end up in the reserve team before they prove themselves, so Sima and Schek are clearly considered the most promising new seniors. Eleonora Afanasyeva making the main team is a bit surprising, as she has so far not made any international assignments. I guess they're really worried about floor exercise?

The Senior Reserve Team

• Ksenia Afanasyeva
• Viktoria Gorbatova
• Daria Elizarova
• Varvara Zubova
• Ksenia Kamkova
• Ksenia Klimenko
• Elizaveta Kochetkova
• Valeria Saifulina
• Daria Skrypnik
• Viktoria Trykina
• Seda Tutkhalyan
• Evgenia Shelgunova

The senior reserve team contains a few surprises as well. I suspect that Ksenia Klimenko has been training with the senior team for awhile now, as she is the most promising junior. But she is still a junior. In contrast, one of the Baby Swan Graduates, Viktoria Panchuk, is missing from this list. Why? She's listed in the junior team. Whoops. And I didn't even think to include another new senior, Ksenia Kamkova, in my posts, but she somehow made the reserve.

The Junior National Team

• Anastasia Agafonova
• Rukhshona Azamova
• Olga Astafyeva
• Daria Belousova
• Yana Vorona
• Elena Gerasimova
• Irina Komnova
• Vlada Kotlyarova
• Polina Novikova
• Viktoria Panchuk
• Alina Stepanova
• Arina Strukova
• Vladislava Urazova
• Aleksandra Yudina

This obviously is a mix of some major names and future stars and some that will never even make the senior reserve team The Pre-Junior team was named too, but there's no point posting the full list here, so if you're interested, you can go read the document. Most notable names in that list are Nelli Audi and Viktoria Listunova.

For good measure, here's the Rodionenkos' minion list.

Women's National Team Training Staff

• Andrei Rodionenko, head coach 
• Valentina Rodionenko, senior coach, team, all around and other
• Evgeni Grebenkin (there's two or three good ways to spell his name and I want to stay consistent but I always forget which one I use here), senior coach, team, all around and other
• Sergei Andrianov, uneven bars
• Vitali Bubnovski, physical training (I assume this means conditioning, so shame on you Vitali) 
• Artem Boinov, vault
• Dmitri Gusev, acrobatics and trampoline
• Gennadi Yelfimov, junior team all around
• Marina Nazarova, balance beam
• Larisa Ushakova, balance beam
• Olga Burova, floor exercise

The training staff is exactly the same as last year, no changes there. I didn't include the medical staff.