V-Rod Announces the European Championships Team

We all know that Valentina Rodionenko has a habit of announcing a lot of teams in a short amount of time, and she's been surprisingly quiet about the European Championships team. I've been waiting for her daily calls to R-Sport, but it hasn't happened. So this team announcement from her could actually we slightly more reliable than usually, but who knows.

According to V-Rod, the Euros team was selected after recent control training and will be Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Ulyana Perebinosova, Lilia Akhaimova and Irina Alexeeva. I don't know what to say, this is very surprising. The most surprising thing is, that Anastasia Ilyankova was left out. I can't come up with any other explanation except that she's injured. Because I was sure she was a lock. The other person left out from my predicted team is Viktoria Komova. Apparently she failed to prove herself after an unsuccessful Russian Cup by making mistakes on both bars and beam during control training and they just can't trust her on beam. I'm not that surprised about Vika's fate, but which one of these gymnasts can you trust on beam, Valentina, really???

Vika and Ilya's spots were taken by Ira and Ulya. Ira had a minor injury so she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but she's apparently fine now. And I might be just fine with her going, who else could they pick if Vika and Ilya are out of the question. I don't think she's necessarily medal material, but she's fit for the team competition. Ulya however... What kind of dream training did she have? We're not trusting Vika, but I would trust Ulya even less. I actually thought she was injured, because she didn't compete at the Russian Cup, but no. She could be used on vault and bars, maybe floor, but she's even more inconsistent than Vika. I guess they're hoping that she hits that wild UB routine of hers for once for a surprise medal.

I'm still a bit weirded out by Ira's sudden return to Russia. I've seen her as basically an American for years now. And now she will be an official part of the Russian team. I just tried to picture Ira wearing a national team leo (like this one), but couldn't.

The Nominative Teams for European Championships

The nominative teams for the 2018 European Championships were published a few days ago and the senior team was named Viktoria Komova, Angelina Melnikova, Angelina Simakova, Ulyana Perebinosova and Maria Kharenkova. I don't even know what to say. Maybe just laugh? Because it's not like they're even trying to name a team here. They're just throwing random names out there. Which is technically allowed, but I think most countries still make a little bit of effort into naming the nominative team.

Russian Cup 2018: Event Finals

The event finals of the Russian Cup were pretty underwhelming, it seemed like everyone important was already over this competition and thinking about getting some rest before the European Championships next month. Melka only competed in the uneven bars final which was a good decision in my opinion.

I couldn't catch the live feed because I've spent 60 hours of this week at work, but I'm trying to write this post based on scores and any videos I can find. As of yet, no one has posted the full coverage to YouTube.

Russian Cup 2018: All Around Final

I know I'm bad, trust me, but I wasn't going to miss the Russian Cup. So even though I'm a bit late, I'm here with a recap of the all around.

The Russian Cup took place in Chelyabinsk this year, and the arena actually looked like an ice rink based on its shape.That reminded me of this dream I once had. I'm happy to say that the competition didn't turn out like in my dream. Not that I would have been surprised if it did, this is the Russian Cup.

The Russian team has been riddled with injuries as usual, and the most notable missing gymnast today was Aliya Mustafina. She's had problems with her knee ever since Nationals. Elena Eremina and Maria Paseka have both returned to training after their back injuries, but are not yet fit to compete, and probably won't be for awhile. Irina Alexeeva, who just made her return to Russia and has been licensed to compete internationally by FIG, is out with an ankle injury.

The scores from the qualifying competition and team final carried over and coming into the final, heavily taped Angelina Melnikova was less than a tenth ahead of Anastasia Ilyankova for the gold medal. Angelina Simakova was comfortably third only a point behind and I would have actually been very happy with this podium. Viktoria Komova came to the all around in fourth place and the always surprising Tatiana Nabieva was fifth. The last gymnast in the top group was another veteran, Daria Elizarova, after Lilia Akhaimova pulled out of the final due to some nagging injuries.

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!

Russian Championships 2018: The Mighty Melka at the Event Finals

The Russian Championships concluded with 3 more gold medals and a silver for Angelina Melnikova. If this is going to be the peak performance of her career, I will be mad. She could have gotten Worlds medals for these performances, but no, she had to hit almost everything at Russian Nationals instead. I'm not mad that she hit, I'm still really happy, I just wish that she could stay in this zone when it really matters. Maybe she will in the future, even if Simone Biles is going to come back and make everyone else nearly irrelevant. Aliya Mustafina finally managed to run out of stamina and finished without medals. Except for her team gold of course. She had to have that one gold so that the competition was worth showing up to.

Russian Championships 2018: All Around Final

Russian Championships continued with the all around final yesterday and I luckily had the time to watch the competition live, but had to go to work straight after, so this post is a day late. And I'm spending the beginning of a the long and boring night shift writing this post. The Russians surprisingly continued to not suck and pretty much everyone in the first group had a decent competition. By decent I mean that not the kind of disaster we usually expect from Nationals and no one had a meltdown. Queen Aliya Mustafina proved that she was truly back by competing her second all around in to days. I need a montage of her gymnastics made to Sia's Greatest, because Aliya is obviously the greatest and I have no idea how she has managed to gain the stamina for this in just a few months. She unfortunately finished fourth by a tenth of a point because Russia suddenly has depth before the injury season really kicks in, but who cares. She's still undeniably the greatest.

Russian Championships 2018: The Queen Is Back

The Russian Championships began with the team competition today and I knew we weren't going to get the repeat disaster of last year, because the class is back. The one and only Aliya Mustafina made her return in her usual way, surprising everyone. No simple layouts, no timers, she had real skills and real routines, less than a year after giving birth. I don't know how, but I never know how when it comes to My Tsaritsa. Because there's no way she would return and not be The Champion again right away, the Moscow team won gold. My Queen is on the top of the podium again. The second team was Central, and third Moscow's second team. Because they aren't lucky enough with their athletes for just one team.

The official livestream doesn't start until tomorrow, so my recap of the day is based on instagram and periscope videos and results.

Stuttgart World Cup 2018: doing team final the Romanian way

So... Russia competed at Stuttgart and promptly disqualified themselves out of the team final. They're testing my patience. Because they have no excuse. It was not a bad team. Viktoria Komova, Anastasia Ilyankova, Lilia Akhaimova, Maria Kharenkova and Viktoria Gorbatova. Almost all of them belong to the better half of athletes they have right now. How can you go to a meet with a team of this caliber and screw up so badly. How? HOW? I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little bit mad right now. Yeah, the other teams had some Worlds level gymnasts, yeah, it's really early in the season, yeah, the Russians downgraded and are saving their strength for Nationals in order to hit the perfect combination of utter disaster and great potential they so value there. And to be honest, this competition had really strict scoring. But even with these things considered, it was pretty bad.

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

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.

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.

Voronin Cup 2016: The Nabz is back!

The Cup of Mikhail Voronin ended the competition season for our team a week ago in Moscow. It was a nice get together with most of the team present in some form or another. Everyone seemed to be extra tired and sloppy, but in good spirits nevertheless. There was even a live stream, but the competition was such a splatfest (as usual) that I wasn't sure whether to giggle or cry while watching.

Elena Eremina and Lilia Akhaimova easily won the team competition and took home a huge trophy for their efforts. Interestingly enough, while Lena won the junior AA, Lilia didn't even place. I know she's pretty much a one-eventer, but since we're supposed to take her seriously as a national team member now (I'm really struggling with it), she could have snuck in with the weak field they had in this competition. Senior AA went to Daria Elizarova instead, with Polina Fedorova as the runner up.

Best and Worst of This Quadrennium

Someone asked me to pick my "superficial favorites" and "podiums of shame" on tumblr and I originally meant to add those posts to the series about my favorite routines from this quadrennium, but forgot. But good thing this a blog, not a newspaper so I can just forget stuff and then post it whenever I like. So here we go. The categories were a part of the request, not picked by me.

SUPERFICIAL FAVORITES

BEST LEOTARD

1. Aliya's "lucky blue leo". This leo had some great moments (its Worlds medals include 2013 BB gold, 2014 BB & FX bronze), and it' pretty too. It was definitely one of the favorites among the team too, worn by many.

2. Euros 2016 Team QF. I first wasn’t quite sure about this leo because the rhinestones that go right across the chest looked a bit awkward, but now I actually love the design. Very simple, but still something different. And the color is amazing. The "antlers" on the neck line also good because of the coloring, I'm not a fan of the design when they stick out too much.

3. Baku TF day 2. I just love simple, sporty leos and this one is great. A+.  The patriotic colors are nice and don't seem "forced", and the leo looked good on anyone who wore it, a rarity. I guess this is technically from last quad (they wore it in Jesolo 2012), but I’m just going to ignore that.

A special mention for these two throwback leos:

Vika’s leo gives me those good 2010 vibes, but with a new color. And it must be even luckier than Aliya’s lucky blue one, because Glasgow was the only major competition Vika competed in all quad and this leo got her through alive with a gold medal to top it off. And it looks beautiful on her.

Seda’s vintage leo has survived 3 quads (baby Aliya included), and it actually looks great on her. I love it. 

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (IV)

So this one should be probably named "My Favorite(ish) Routines", because Russia and floor was kind of a disaster this quad. It was a real shame too considering that they were AMAZING last quad, Aliya, Vika, Grishy, Afan, Belo, Myzdrikova, Semy, Demy...how I miss Russia's 2009-2012 floor. Oh well, since I have to stick with this quad, we might suffer from a bit of an Aliya-overdose. If that's even possible.

It actually took me days to assemble nice routines, and after spending more days looking at them and grinding my teeth over naming this mediocre mess "my favorite", I ended up dividing them into two groups. The first group is dedicated to my actual favorite routines, and the second group are the routines that were highlights in the middle of everything terrible, but not really that memorable. Enjoy. Or not. I don't blame you if you fall asleep after the first group.

FLOOR EXERCISE

My actual favorite routines:

Aliya Mustafina immediately brought on her A-game starting in 2013 with TWO new floor routines. I absolutely love her routine from 2013 European Championships. It's very different from her later routines, it almost reminds me of 2010 Aliya. There's just something understated but captivating about it, and that beautiful pose during her "down to the floor" choreography gave us some great pictures. And look at her execution too, the first tumbling line is pretty much perfect, the other tumbles are very well landed too, and powerful. The spins have control, even the almost "Mustafina". We just haven't often seen the perfectionist side of Aliya on floor this quad, but this performance definitely stands out to me. And the extensive amount of time she spends in the corner breathing and uhm... "dancing" before her last tumbling line, it just makes me nostalgic, such classic Aliya.

Round Lake Update with some old friends

The Munich Munchkins. That's my nickname for the half-German Russians, who spend more time in Munich than in Round Lake. Queen Aliya, the leader of the Munchkins, seems to have stayed in one piece since the Olympics and doesn't have any broken parts that need either replacements or regular maintenance at the moment, but Viktoria Komova and Maria Paseka are in Germany.

Vika was diagnosed with some fractured vertebrae before the Olympics and is probably just getting a routine follow-up. I don't think she can return to full training before 2017, but we'll see. Masha has been suffering from back pain for months and was in and out of training because of it all year, but I think this is her first time visiting the German Miracle Doctors, hopefully they'll figure out what's wrong. Vika spent a long time in Russia with a wrong diagnosis and treatment, so Masha should be better off in Munich too. It's October and they're in Bavaria, so my mind immediately went to Oktoberfest, but unfortunately (or fortunately) for the girls, it ended a week ago. No beer and lederhosen treatment for back pain then.

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (III)

BALANCE BEAM

The day of the 2013 World Championships balance beam final I was visiting my grandmother with my mother and missed it live, but when I came back, I immediately went to my computer (I wanted to watch the actual competition before looking at the results), but before it was even on, my mother had turned on the TV and yelled at me that they were showing highlights. I ran to the living room and looked at Aliya with her gold and my mother was like "isn't she your favorite gymnast, she won, how nice" and I was like "NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND this is BALANCE BEAM, it's her worst apparatus, SHE'S A WORLD CHAMPION on BALANCE BEAM!!!!". And that was Antwerp summed up for me. Of all the great beam workers in that final, it was Aliya who somehow took the gold. This routine is fucking legendary and it kills me that people who didn't follow gymnastics back then are like my mother and will never understand those feelings. Those two years when Aliya's beam was a complete disaster and she scored 11 at an international major competition are lost from memory and there's nothing shocking about her being a World Champion on beam anymore.

My Favorite Routines from This Quadrennium (II)

Since the uneven bars is obviously the team's best apparatus, this post is going to be a longer one.

UNEVEN BARS

My favorite has to obviously be Queen of the Uneven Bars Aliya Mustafina just being herself  and taking what's hers, the Olympic gold to be precise. She successfully defended her gold on the same apparatus from London, which is an incredibly difficult feat in gymnastics. She also won Russia's only gold in gymnastics, just like she did in London. After struggling with injuries and low difficulty all quad and being counted out from the race to the Olympic gold, she brought her best to Rio, because that's what mattered. She actually ended up having the highest difficulty score out of all the contestants in the final, and since her execution is always impeccable, there was no stopping her. 

Viktoria Komova - I'm Tired of the Pain

A Voronezh news agency RIA Voronezh  interviewed Viktoria Komova (link). And it's heartbreaking, like every interview of Vika.

Viktoria Komova, a gymnast from Voronezh, two-time 2012 Olympic silver medalist, multiple World and European champion, will miss the Olympics because of an injury. Viktoria spoke with a RIA Voronezh correspondent about coming to terms with her circumstances, what treatments she's having and how she'll be rooting for her friends. 

One of the best gymnasts in the world misses the main event of the quadrennium. How did you make the difficult decision not to go? 

It was 4 weeks before the Olympics and I realized that I can't do anything. There was constant pain in my back and it blocked all emotions and feelings. I was so afraid of training, you never know what kind of strain you're going to be under, but I went on. I wanted to be honest, I went to the coaches and said that I didn't want to fail anyone or be deceitful, I had no right to go to the Olympics, perform poorly and let the team down. They asked if there really wasn't anything I could do. When I told everyone about it, I wasn't even crying, there were no more tears. I was just tired of the pain.