Russian Gymnastics - Highlights (and Lowlights) of 2013

The post-Olympic year has been interesting, and occasionally dramatic, for Russian gymnastics.  An eventful and very busy year for RRG, including a first, but hopefully not last, visit to Russia.  The Russian team participated in three major competitions - Europeans, Universiade and Worlds - two of them in their home country.   The women's team confirmed themselves as Europe's leading gymnastics force.  They were supreme and unbeatable amongst the mature competition at the Universiade, held in the Tatar capital of Kazan.  Even with only one of their leading gymnasts competing - Aliya Mustafina - they managed to finish in second place in the medal count at Worlds in Antwerp this autumn - including that brightly shining gold on beam.  The men's team looked promising, but in the generally stronger international field of play, are locked in a fierce battle for bronze with Germany, USA and Britain.  

Russia lost a jewel in its crown when WAG coach, Alexander Alexandrov, felt forced to walk away from his team and his individual gymnast, Mustafina.  Harsh words had been exchanged, mostly initiated by head coach Valentina Rodionenko.   Alexandrov put a stop to all that when he opened Pandora's Box and told the truths that Valentina didn't.  2013 has been a year when Russia has begun to look at itself, and we still don't know what the outcome will be.  

Russia is finally beginning to acknowledge that its gymnastics system has not emerged from the USSR-Russia transition unscathed, and is attempting to quantify the damage, with the migration of coaches very much in the headlines currently.  But funders want positive publicity for their commitment, and much less emphasis has been placed on the dwindling number of participants in the sport (more critical for the women's programme than for the men) than on the immense investment being made in local and national training centres by bank VTB (majority owned by the Russian government) and the Russian government themselves.  The fragility and conditional nature of current funding arrangements, allied to the increasingly risky nature of the sport, seems to be making the Russian team management nervous and uncertain in both its training and sporting practice.  A careful and conservative nature does not sit comfortably with the aim to win gold in a sport that continually tests the physical and psychological boundaries, and Russia's gymnasts are sometimes looking a little demoralised.

Russia's sporting mega events programme, to be headlined by the Sochi Olympics in the next month and a half, will continue and grow over the coming years, hopefully without any major security problems.  Sport is an important part of Russia's social, youth and economic policy (tourism/infrastructure development).  Gymnastics is traditionally one if its headline sports, but Artistic ('sportivnaya' in Russian) is shrinking in the shadow of its rich big sister Rhythmic, both in medal-winning and popularity stakes.  The domestic audiences for both MAG and WAG are frighteningly small.  

Russia is certainly in a state of 'catch-up', especially within its women's programme, and we just hope that its funders will have the patience to wait on medal prospects in this most unpredictable of sports.  Whether current measures taken by the Russian team will rescue the sport post 2016 is a moot point.  This is something about which Main Coach Andrei Rodionenko and his now departed WAG counterpart, Alexander Alexandrov, have been locked in a strategic struggle.  For now, Rodionenko has the upper hand, but not without some resistance from the ranks of local coaches who train and feed talent into his national team.  They, and Alexandrov, protest that Rodionenko's measures make it much more difficult to qualify to train as a coach, or even to remain in the sport as a competitor.  That isn't taking into account the economic barriers to career participation in the sport that the Head Coach can't control.  

Rodionenko himself doesn't yet seem to have gone public to explain the rationale for these, his changes in the standard for Master of Sport accreditation.  The effectiveness, or failure, of his strategies will probably only be seen after he retires, and while his support from the ranks seems questionable, he appears to hold the whip hand with his bosses at the Ministry of Sport.

Internationally, there have been unprecedented levels of strife between the Russian team management and the FIG.  That nasty spat between Nellie Kim, head of the Women's Technical Committee, and Russian head coach, Andrei Rodionenko, had been brewing for a long time and was about more than a few minor arguments over individual marks.  You only have to read some of the new proposals for the women's floor exercise to understand why the Russians feel such disquiet.  Mustafina herself would not be blamed for taking a career break while all the political dalliances - both within and outside of her country - play out and unravel.  Today, female gymnasts are competing in an environment of endlessly changing goalposts.  

Russia's most decorated gymnast has also been the leading gymnast in the world in terms of her medal count since 2010, and she has regularly been Russia's saving grace in achieving its medal targets.  If Russia does not have her undivided attention on its team in 2014, it may well feel the effects  sooner rather than later, and any lack of discipline in the training will be laid bare.  In 2013, alongside Mustafina, veteran of the 2008 Olympics, Ksenia Afansyeva, looked strong in the early part of the year, shining on floor in her home country twice to take gold medals at Europeans and the Universiade.  Blossoming late in her career, the beautiful Afansyeva seemed determined to complement her classical grace with world-beating difficulty both on floor and vault.  Indeed, had it not been for a nervous beam performance, she had threatened to take gold all around in Kazan; her silver was still a great reward for her, but her growing promise for Worlds was stifled by that untimely ankle injury.

Injury has continued as a major theme in the Russians' Yearbook, and even the Americans seem to be in agreement that the Code needs more emphasis on technique, and less on difficulty, to reduce the injury rate (see USA team doctor, Dr Larry Nassar's, interview).  The Russian girls have been riddled with various physical problems - Komova's meningitis, Mustafina's recurrent back, knee and heel problems and a virus infection that just wouldn't go away, a nagging ankle injury for Afanasyeva, a back injury to Grishina, and a horrible accident just prior to Worlds to Nabiyeva, that made her look as if she had been in a boxing match.  

The team has seen the retirement of outstanding gymnasts, Anna Dementyeva and Tatiana Nabiyeva.  Komova was all but invisible, and most of the gymnastics we saw from the rest of the team seemed to be 'work in progress'.  The women's team looked well prepared and relaxed in Antwerp, but questions were raised about their physical fitness and discipline.  Even on the generally better motivated men's team, we saw Olympic team captain Emin Garibov take a quiet year as a specialist on high bar and parallel bars, while he worked up difficulty on the other pieces.  Russia's MAG all arounders were significantly strengthened by the addition of Ukrainian migrant Nikolai Kuksenskov to their ranks.  He and David Belyavski took two of the three major all around titles up for grabs in 2013, but both were tired and injured in the most important competition, Worlds.  We will wait to see if 2014 brings better luck - and a better, more manageable, competitive programme for its seniors.

Even so, Russia had quite a good year, and still looks competitive on the international scene.  Its gymnastics maintains an international appeal, and its gymnasts regularly win awards and popularity polls both within Russia and the wider world.  With better focus and discipline, and contributions from some of those promising juniors we have been watching for a few years, who knows what the teams might achieve in 2014?  Congratulations to the Russian team for all the have achieved in 2013.  May good luck and happiness follow you in 2014!!!

Picture credits : courtesy of Aliya Mustafina fan page on VK.com and the RGF.