Bad News

The Russian Team has suffered another injury, and this time it's to their Queen, Aliya Mustafina. She has withdrawn from Osijek World Cup due to a knee injury. The injury on her meniscus is supposed to be a minor one, so probably not a tear. It's still alarming considering her history with knee injuries. The last time she was out for something other than back pain was in late 2015, when she tore the meniscus on her right knee and had a surgery. And of course we all remember her famous ACL tear in 2011. She's supposed to be back to training by the end of May, but I can't help but think that she's been back for 2 seconds and her body is already showing the wear and tear. It's almost like we're picking up right where we left off.

I wish the Queen a speedy recovery.

And just in case you've forgotten how many other injuries the team has accumulated during the past few months: Elena Eremina, Lilia Akhaimova and Aleksandra Schekoldina. Angelina Melnikova apparently has some minor knee injury too.

Freezing in Mallorca

The team is on their annual training vacation in Mallorca and unfortunately the weather as been very cold for this time of the year. Based on social media it looks like they have gotten a few days on the beach and pool, but the rest of the time has been spent shivering and training. And in case of Vika and Masha, all kinds of dangerous activities. I'll be happy if we get those two back unharmed. Queen Aliya stayed in Penza according to her individual training plan, but Lena made it to Mallorca and is training again, at least lightly.

Have fun, girls!

The First One Bites the Dust

The competition season is nearing and Russian Nationals are just behind the corner, so naturally, injuries will start piling up. And the first victim happens to be one of the most important players, Elena Eremina. Earlier this week she made an announcement on instagram, she underwent a surgery to stabilize some of her lumbar vertebrae earlier in February. She won't be able to fully start training until August, which means that she's going to be out for the year.

I can't really think of a worse loss for the team. Lena single-handedly saved Russia's ass last year. We have a bunch of veterans returning this year, but they're wild cards at this point. So are the new seniors. And I don't really have that much hope for Angelina Melnikova to get her shit together.  Russia always manages to scrape by, so I'm really interested in seeing how. Or rather, who will fill the spot of their best all arounder, because now it's wide open. Again.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, she went to Munich for the operation. Your regular pilgrimage to meet the sacred German Miracle Doctors then. You aren't really a senior member of the Russian National Team unless you have Munich Munchkin written on your resume. Or unless you have "back pain" attached to your name every time Valentina Rodionenko opens her mouth.

As for Lena, I hope that she makes a full recovery and return to gymnastics in 2019. I really don't want her to be a forgotten one-hit-wonder of a post-Olympic year. She's too good for that.

Round Lake Update: upgrades and injuries on beam

Russian Gymnastics Federation posted some training footage of the gymnasts on their instagram account. Most of it was obviously about their biggest start Aliya Mustafina, but we saw glimpses of Maria Kharenkova, Elena Eremina and Anastasia Ilyankova too. We even saw a few skills form Aliya and Masha, but the rest was only choreography and warm-ups.

Бревно - самый коварный вид женского гимнастического многоборья!🤸🏼‍♀️ ▫️▫️▫️ Уделим ему особое внимание☝🏻😈 вместе с @musaliya135 @heleneremina @nastyailyankova @hariys98 ▫️▫️▫️ Enjoy❤️ #toprusgym

Henkilön Top Russian Gymnastics (@toprusgym) jakama julkaisu Helmi 1, 2018 kello 7.16 PST

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.

European Championships 2017: Podium training non-disaster

The podium training today was extremely short on disasters, I'm not sure how to feel about it. Russia is supposed to be awful in podium training, be generally lazy and sloppy with no full routines and something like 5 falls for each gymnast on every apparatus, but maybe the newbies haven't gotten the memo. Then again, Beefarm didn't feel like looking like shit either, and she's a hardcore veteran.

Meet the Team: European Championships 2017

The 2017 European Artistic Gymnastics Championships will take place in Cluj, Romania between April 19 and 23. There is no team competition this year and the gymnasts will compete for individual medals only. The federations are allowed to send 4 gymnasts and the team for Russia is Angelina Melnikova, Natalia Kapitonova, Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka. This team is very young and inexperienced with Maria Paseka being the only veteran, and two of the gymnasts having never competed in any major competitions at the senior level. It's going to be interesting to see how they do, and if any new stars will rise.

I thought I'd really quickly introduce the Russian team to those of you not as familiar with them as us gymternet regulars.

Round Lake Update with Grebs and the Euros team

The main news this time is, that Evgeny Grebenkin announced the Russian team for European Championships. I'm going to have to take a guess, that he locked up V-Rod in a closet in order to get to say anything to the media, let alone do something as Valentina as announce teams. Crazy. I'm also going to take a guess that V-Rod already has taken action about this, scratched her way out of that closet and given 100 possibly semi-offensive and probably conflicting interviews to make up for Grebs' one, but I'm not going to even bother to check. Whatever.

The (current, nothing is ever final with Russia) team consists of the main suspects, Angelina Melnikova, Elena Eremina and Natalia Kapitonova, but saw the surprise return of Maria Paseka. Masha hasn't competed since the Olympics. She took a break because of back problems and because after completing two Olympic cycles, she really earned it. But she returned to training in December and was supposed to compete at nationals, but didn't. This is one of those cases when I'm not going to really believe that she's competing until I see her marching to the arena with the audience cheering and music playing, but I'm not opposed to her selection either. Even if she's semi-back, she should be able to medal easily. I just really don't want to see another Moscow 2013 from her. It was dreadful and heartbreaking to watch and please, no more. So I really, really hope that she's ready this time. We haven't really seen anything from her apart from some training footage of a bad DTY.

The selection of Kapi, Melka and Lena makes perfect sense and I'm happy that for once the veterans are (nearly) gone and we're seeing a young team of 2000-2001-born girls. It should give them some motivation and the opportunity to rise to the occasion and prove that Russia is not just Aliya Mustafina. That they can achieve something without her and don't need her, Ksenia Afanasyeva and to some extent Viktoria Komova to carry their entire team and earn all of their medals. Of course there's a 90% chance that they will only prove that Russia is yet again nothing without the veterans, but let's stay optimistic.

Viral Infections and City of Jesolo Trophy 2017

It's only appropriate that right when the Russians make their grand return to Jesolo, Flo blocks everything. Gone are the days when Italian Gymnastics Federation streamed everything for everyone and we had hours and hours of footage from the meet. Ugh.

1. USA 2. Brazil 3. Russia

But first... The Russians didn't have the best time leading up to this competition. In another WTF RUSSIA?!? moment less than two weeks ago, their training base Round Lake was closed and the athletes evacuated after a rotavirus epidemic hit the base. Apparently during the same morning, around 50 athletes from several different sports (the training base has several national teams training there) fell ill with vomiting, fever and diarrhea. Because the athletes were from different sports and training halls, they suspected that the food in the dining hall was contaminated. I guess it could be a swimming pool too. There are some conflicting reports about whether or not any of the gymnasts were sick too (because when are there not conflicting reports about team Russia?), but they were evacuated along everyone else on the base to some old camp grounds, obviously not good for training. I don't know whether or not to laugh or cry. V-Rod tried some stupid bullshit about everyone traveling to different countries and catching the virus there, but obviously when there's so many people falling ill exactly at the same time, the source is somewhere on the base. She probably herself infected everyone on purpose to make them lose weight. But the training halls were inspected and disinfected and they resumed training fast.

Stuttgart World Cup: Spiri as a vault specialist?

Russia won the Team Challenge! But let's not get too excited...

1. Russia 2. Germany 3. Spain
This was the only picture of the podium, sorry Spain :(

The DTB Pokal Team Challenge final was yesterday and Russia showed up in one of my favorite leotards. They were promising me good things with that leo, but didn't deliver. They did win by several points, but it was not because they were really good.

Stuttgart World Cup: Not getting surgery this time

I always find it a tiny bit confusing when the Russians go to Germany and it's not for some medical treatment. But this time they're in Stuttgart, Germany, trying desperately to prepare for Europeans. Natalia Kapitonova, Elena Eremina, Daria Spiridonova and Lilia Akhaimova are competing at the Team Challenge, and Angelina Melnikova is taking part in the World Cup competition. The original team included Seda Tutkhalyan, and switching her with Kapi probably means that Seda is a lock for Euros already. They're testing Lilia, Lena and Kapi (and Spiri) trying to figure out the rest of the team.

The team with American Infiltrator Morgan Hurd

Russian Championships 2017: Post-Competition Round-Up

Now that the competition is over, let's take a look at what we saw. You also sent me plenty of links, so I think I'll go over some of them too. Oh, and Valentina Rodionenko has obviously announced the European Championships team that will change 1000 times before the actual competition, so we'll get to that too.

But let's start with a short interview about Aliya's impressions of the competition, because she managed to sum up my own opinion too:

Not Drawn to the Podium

Let us remind you that Aliya Mustafina is in a great position for a girl - the 22-year-old athlete is pregnant and taking a break from her sports career. At the Russian Championships in Kazan, Aliya was not only the guest of honor, but also did commentary for the competition. 

-How does it feel to be only in the role of a cheerleader and commentator? You don't feel drawn to the podium yourself?
Not yet, doesn't temp me [smiles]. I'm content with what I have. I'm very glad that during this pause in my career I still have the opportunity to be around gymnastics.  

-What kind of impression did the championships in Kazan leave?
The organization of the event was of the highest level. I liked everything, and from the athletes' point of view, I can tell that they agreed. Kazan gave a great opportunity to prepare for the upcoming international competitions. It was evident that the girls who competed at the Olympics are still getting back in shape. But those who are only aspiring to get to the national team, showed quite good results. This is just the beginning of the season, there are new rules it is too early to make any conclusions. 

-What can you say about the changes made to the rules of artistic gymnastics, the evaluation of difficulty in particular?
I cannot say if it will make the athlete's job easier or more difficult. The fact that they lowered the baseline of difficulty score 0.5 points has no effect. And as for the connections, you can get used to everything and it will all work out. [note: I have no idea if I translated this sentence anywhere near correctly, probably not]

Russian Championships 2017: At least it's over now

I think I ended yesterday's post with "Let's hope that tomorrow won't ruin my good mood." so naturally it had to happen. Day 2 of the event finals was another day of falls after falls. It was pretty much what I expected on beam, but I was still hoping that they'd surprise me positively, like they did on bars. But no such luck.

Russian Championships 2017: Finally a good day

Today was Day 1 of event finals, and we had a high quality stream again. Too bad that whoever was responsible of the stream, didn't really care about WAG and kept the cameras on the men. They actually tried to show both by having a tiny box in the corner of the screen with a different footage, but gave up on that within two minutes and went back to MAG. The Russian WAG team is much more accomplished than the men, just saying. At least show both tomorrow.

I would have really loved to see more, because it looked like the girls were finally, finally getting their life together. Not only did we have plenty of acceptable and good performances, but there were even a few brilliant ones. 

As a plus, we had Aliya Mustafina commentating. She has such a relaxing and soothing voice that I think she could make even beam finals less nerve wracking. She will be put to the ultimate test tomorrow.

Russian Championships 2017: It got worse

Today was the AA final and we actually had the best stream we've had in awhile. Too bad the performances weren't able to match it. I'm really missing Aliya right about now. She usually looked fabulous no matter how small a meet, and even when she wasn't ready for a competition, she failed with poise and elegance. I can't really say the same about this lot. When they suck, they just suck. Ugh. But it wasn't really as terrible as it seems, I still think that they can get their shit at least somewhat together by Euros.

Although Elena Eremina's face says it all about this meet.

AA: 1. Natalia Kapitonova 2. Elena Eremina 3. Evgenia Shelgunova

Russian Championships 2017: Sluggishness AND upgrades aka Best of Both Worlds

So I predicted either sluggish B-grade gymnastics or surprising upgrades and I got both? Thank you Team Russia!

Melka is eyeing the position of a new Russian Queen now that Aliya is out of the way. 

Russian Championships started out with a combined team competition and individual qualifications with Moscow taking the team title ahead of Central (2nd) and St. Petersburg (3rd), and Elena Eremina leading the all around with a first day score of 55.366. Clearly Kalugina had her confused with someone else as she looks relatively injury-free and right now is a serious contender for the Russian European Championships team. She's actually a serious contender for the European AA podium with the way things are going.

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.

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