Skip to main content

Andrei Rodionenko - Mustafina, Ablyazin and the judging in Antwerp - Lupita translates



Lupita translates this interview with Andrei Rodionenko.

Aliya Mustafina calculating Anna Rodionova's beam D value in Sunday's beam final
Andrei Rodionenko, standing in the bus that left the arena after Mustafina’s victory on beam, said that the Worlds in Belgium had not been a success.  It’s a good thing when the head coach judges himself uncompromisingly.  I myself don’t think it was a failure.

Some of the disappointments - Aliya not winning gold on bars, or Olympic medalist Ablyazin not making any final - have an interesting subtext. There are things that should rather be understood now. It’s better to correct them now, because repenting after Rio will be too late.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, as you were leaving the arena, you said laconically that “Nelli Kim has behaved aggressively”.  Out of the inquiries submitted, ours was ignored and the American complaint was accepted. Was Nelli Kim behind that, like three years ago in Rotterdam?

-  I would like to avoid blaming people. It leads nowhere. We should look for agreement. Of course, it’s difficult to understand why one country’s protest is taken and why the other is ignored. By the way, during the beam final the Americans submitted not one inquiry, but two! They also tried to challenge Simone Biles’ score! [ed – as well as Kyla Ross]. Yet, I don’t think mutual recriminations are the right way to go. I believe in dialogue in order to suppress the existing flaws or failures (let’s call them this).

- Are these failures?

- Sure.  As far as I am concerned, we need an accurate classification of elements. Like in Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table, or in diving.  Is creating a table with the value of each one of the elements so complicated a task?  Give me this table; give it to the judges, the gymnasts, the coaches, the audience. Complaints, inquiries will disappear. Mustafina has been working on the Shaposhnikova with a 1/1 turn for six months.  But this element has been judged like the Shaposhnikova with ½ turn that she performed in London.  Aliya has improved a lot since then. She put so much effort into that. But this doesn’t give her any bonus. Why?  They answer that we have to perform the element, and later they’ll see, and they’ll include it in the highest category (of elements). In such situations, both gymnasts and coaches work blindly. They master new complex tricks that don’t bring along any result.

- Does risk make sense?

-It’s not interesting without risk. In women’s gymnastics in Belgium, only China and Russia have shown something new. The rest, including the US, haven’t progressed. It’s true that the Americans win. But they don’t surprise. Every year they do the same. On the other hand, China … I think they deserve respect. They have brought a completely new team. Without aiming at medals, China came to test their gymnasts in the conditions of the new Code of Points. Even if the girls were of dubious age …

- Yes, one of them looked 11, no older …

- Yes, she had baby teeth (smiles) ... But they performed new routines. One Chinese gymnast, Lin Shaopan, shared gold with Uchimura. He was so relaxed, smiling, he fell, so what? The results were not important to him. He is a young all-arounder who won at the Chinese Championships. He made mistakes, but nobody considered this a disaster. It’s something normal. This is 2013! This is the first important competition on the road to Rio. Nothing else.

- You are vanquished …

- They want medals right now, more and more medals … Although, by the way, we fulfilled the medal plan we had privately established for ourselves.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, I heard some people blaming the Universiade participation … In Kazan I saw Fabian Hambuechen. He lost to Kuksenkov and said that he was too old for the all around. In Belgium he won a medal.

- Hambuechen only performed well on two events at the Universiade. He was not ready then. But he trained for Antwerp. Fabian’s example is not very good for another reason. The German gymnast has been performing the same routines for a few years. He made practically no mistakes. But, as I said, we have different goals. We want to make progress. I was talking here to the judges. It’s important to understand their approach, their criteria. Not everything is clear. For instance, equipment testing was carried out in a surprising way.  We had not been properly informed and were surprised, including Aliya …

- Can Aliya be surprised by something?

- Of course, she is a human being. Mustafina has her own way of warming up. She doesn’t like to train her routines 100% during warm up.  She preserves herself for the most important moments. She is not used to that. She was called for equipment testing.  Can you imagine?  She is not used to that.  They gave her a score and, later, during the whole competition, the details of her routine were stored in the computer. We were surprised when in the all around Mustafina performed better on beam than in qualifications, and got the same score. From the start the judges had worked it out.  Later they remembered this test routine, which normally everyone ignored, and were unable to put aside their first impressions.  There was something weird about the bars.  In the warm-up gym they were not on the podium, and their ‘behaviour’ is totally different on the floor. Before the finals, Aliya didn’t warm up.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, could you explain what happened to Ablyazin?

- Denis was outraged, we were all outraged … It’s the first time that he has failed his dismount from rings – double layout with double twist …

- Denis failed on his three events…

- I can explain this. Ablyazin has a fantastic technical level. He has always had problems in focussing himself. Denis is temperamental. Recently I told him: “My friend, I know what to do with you. Before the competition we have to take you to the arena and have you perform on all apparatus at a 200% level so that your level of performance will be 100%”.

Editor’s note: we are not completely sure what Rodionenko means by ‘equipment testing’ in this interview; sometimes he refers to it only as ‘testing’. 

Comments

  1. I think "equipment testing" is what we'd call "podium training" in English, judging by the context

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but there is a Russian word for this which he repeatedly doesn't use. And I don't think Aliya would be surprised by podium training. We think it might have something to do with the testing of the judges' computer system, which explains what he then goes on to say about the practice score being stored in the computer. But we are not sure. It is unclear

      Delete
    2. Well, I need to know what that phrase "equipment testing" means! Please Queen, keep us updated :)!

      Delete
    3. My guess is the equipment testing is related to testing the computer stored memory of an routine. And my other guess is that Aliya was pick for testing that equipment is the sense of testing the whole routine with her full D score. Remember the he said that Aliya is not use in doing whole routine in warm-up.

      Delete
  2. It's an intriguing mystery that might never be solved :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. The longer the Rodionenko’s are involved in Russian Gymnastics the more hurt is going to happen to the team's preparation for Rio

    ReplyDelete
  4. I felt so terrible for Denis Ablyazin - he really is in the top 3 in the world in vault and floor (and not far from it on rings) in terms of sheer ability, but he's always let down by his focus. He could have done better in previous competitions, but this is the first time that he's really collapsed ... I'm glad I'm not Semy having to deal with that emotional fallout!

    ReplyDelete
  5. The caption for this photo is incorrect... Aliya was calculating her own D score, not Rodionova's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cece, why? A close up of this picture shows the total to match Rodionova's D score, not her own ... More information please.

      Delete
    2. I was watching a broadcast of the EF at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px-U4jcjBAI when this part came up at 17:54, Rodionova hadn't even performed yet but it was after Aliya's enquiry was rejected. It had something to do with that I think.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

USSR is a mighty sports power!

Once upon a time sportsmen were heros and role models, a shining moral example for all of society as to the values of a strong work ethic and a healthy body. USSR is a might sports power!  B. Reshetnikov, 1962  Picture courtesy of A Soviet Poster a Day I love these Soviet era posters and the way they capture the spirit of the time, something special about the purity of the collective sporting effort.  Of course today, sport is about different things.  The political and behavioural symbolic value of sport has been replaced by sport as a commodity.  Sports stars exist as brand heroes in our shopping centres and glossy magazines, the sometimes lurid details of their everyday lives trumpeted on the pages of such magazines as Hello! and the gossip pages of the internet. Compare photographs of Olympians Svetlana Khorkina (1996, 2000 and 2004) and Ludmilla Tourischeva (1972, 1976): Khorkina is in all her glamour shot, sexually charged splendour; Svetlana Khorkina, undated Tou

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but they should be able to hold

Who really won the WAG All Around?

You will find a link to the FIG's newly published book of results at the Olympic Games here .  This year, they have broken down the judge's execution scores so you can see exactly how each judge evaluated the gymnasts' performances.  It makes for interesting reading - if only I had more time to analyse each judge's marking.  A skim reading already highlights multiple inconsistencies in individual judges' marks and makes you wonder why they bother with the jury at all. I have taken the time to look at the reference judges' scores for the top four in the women's all around.  The FIG explains here what their role is, and how they are selected.  I even used my calculator, which is a risky thing in my hands.  My, how I wish we could have seen a similar document for the Tokyo World Championships. I wonder if anyone can explain how, if the FIG's Code of Points is so objective and fair, it is possible to come up with two different results using two differ

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more