A Look into the Near Future of Russian Gymnastics with Andrei Rodionenko

An anon sent me this interview, and someone asked if I could translate it. It was actually conducted a few weeks before the Russian Championships and mostly focuses on the controversial replacement of Leonid Arkayev with Sergei Zelikson, but there are a few questions about the national team. I'll go over the Mordovia part rather quickly paraphrasing the interview and concentrate on what he says about the Russian and European Championships. 

I'll also add some other interviews that he did recently to the end of this post. Spoiler: He disagrees with Valentina about the European team. According to him, it isn't even named yet and won't be for another month.

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: Meanwhile in Kazan...

It was a rough start for everyone...

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.

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.