Big announcement - new blog address

I've finally launched a stand-alone blog
http://eng.gymnovosti.com/
From now on, all the translations will appear only there.
I'll leave this blog for some rants and more "controversial" content.
Anyway, I post all the updates from this blog and the website on my twitter https://twitter.com/cherity1313, so follow me there if you don't want to miss anything.

Beliavskiy could barely do a salto when he returned to training after a break

David Beliavskiy, our new pommel horse champion, told to Sport Express that getting back to training was quite hard for him. He took a 4-month break after Rio  - to get some rest, to visit family, and, mainly, to get married and go on a honeymoon to Italy (he proposed to his girlfriend Maria in Rio).
When he got back to training he could barely do a salto. While many gymnasts gain weight when not training, Beliavskiy loses weight because of losing muscle mass.
After Euros he and his wife went on vacation to Dubai, but next week he is going back to the Round lake. The national team is also supposed to go to a training camp in Cyprus, however, they won't have much time for lounging on a beach there, they'll spend most of the time in the gym training.
His routines are mostly ready, except for rings. He plans on competing all-around already at the Russian Cup which will be hosted by his home city, Ekaterinburg, this year.

Denis Abliazin on recovery, upgrades and being a father

Denis Abliazin missed Euros, but he's preparing for the Worlds Championship and trying to combine training with being a new father. He talked to Penza Vzglyad about his recovery from a broken leg and potential upgrades.

Q: European Championship which started on 19/04 will not see two leaders of the Russian national team - Abliazin and Mustafina. Each has their reasons: Aliya is expecting a child and Denis had to take a break because of his old injuries flaring up after the Olympics.

A: Yeah, all the issues are my souvenir from Rio. We decided I won't got to Euros even before the New Year. The break in my right leg didn't heal, so we were waiting till it heals in order to start proper recovery and training. Right now I'm more or less healthy. Soon the serious training will start, long training camps, a lot of repetitions. I think I'll be well prepared by the Worlds.

This year's World championship is "early" - it starts in the beginning of October, almost a month earlier than usual. The preparation plan is all figured out. Denis is planning to give a fight at the Russian Cup in August and he might even participate in two World Cups.
Q: What are you working on now?

A: I'm currently training new elements and combinations. I've already learned them, so now I'm training the execution so that in May I will come to the training camp prepared. There is enough time for me to recover slowly, train all the combinations and then go to competitions.

Q: Did you make any significant changes to your routines?

A: I've changed the floor and the rings somewhat. I'm also learning a new vault, but it's still not ready. I'm going to keep my old second vault for now. Currently, I'm training about 2-3 hours per day, if everything goes well. If it doesn't, then I have to do more repetitions. Actually, with the new code, I didn't have to change any of my routines expect the rings. On rings, it was enough to add one element to have a medal-worthy routine. But we decided to make upgrades everywhere so that I would be among the leaders.

Q: These days Abliazin is training in Penza, the city that, according to him, will always stay his home. He feels different here.

A: It's enough to go home for a week to fell rested. Even though I'm also working here without breaks. At least, I don't have such a strict schedule here, I can always move training time around slightly. I need a change of scenery to clear my head.

Q: How else do you clear youre head?

A: I usually play computer games, Counter Strike Go, or football on a console. But I'm not playing it for hours, I can easily get up and turn it off.

Q: So, you don't use any other sports to distract yourself from gymnastics? Swimming, for example?

A: I don't really like to swim, but I do like to ride my bike. Biking is also good for strengthening the ligaments and muscles in my legs. There's nothing like biking. That's my advice to everyone - bike as much as you can.

Q: on Januray 21, Ksenia Semenova, Abliazin's wife, gave birth to a boy. They called him Yaroslav. They didn't spend much time choosing the name, since they really liked this old and proud Russian name. Denis took his wife to the hospital, but he could only hold his son after they were released because of a quarantine.

A: That's so cool to have a son who will look up to me growing up. I will try to work harder because of him. It's too early to speculat whether he'll also be an athlete, though.

Q: By the way, Yaroslav will be seeing his parents' medals all the time: you parents mounted a special medal stand on the wall in their apartment. Ksenia's father helped to install it.

A: I'd do it myself of course, by I was already in Penza by that time. I'm helping Ksenia as much as I can, but I'm also training a lot right now. If I were retired, it would be different, of course, I'd do everything at home.

Melnikova on Euros, her floor, and how she just wants to stay home and sleep in

Melnikova gave an interview to Marafon, sports TV show. Here's the summary.

She says that she was very tired after Rio and really wanted to take some time off, but she had to return to competitions almost immediately. She couldn't seem to get it together and made mistakes in competitions all the time. It was so hard that she was crying a lot and asking to give her a break, she didn't even want to train for a while. Her coaches and teammates helped her through it and she was able to start enjoying training again.
At the same time, she believes the four competitions she went to this year before Euros helped her to gain experience and become more confident. She was extremely nervous competing in Stuttgart, then it was a bit easier in Jesolo, in London, and by Euros she wasn't afraid to compete anymore.

There are rumors that several national team gymnasts left their previous coaches and are now training with Grebenkin as their personal coaches (I've heard this about Spiridonova and Melnikova, but there might be others). Ishkova and Denisevich are still listed on the Russian artistic gymnastics federation website as her coaches, but the website often lists old information. In the video, though, Ishkova is introduced as Melnikova's former coach, so I guess the rumors are true. 

Ishkova, Gelya's former coach, clearly disapproves of Melnikova going to so many competitions before Euros, saying that Gelya was completely exhausted by the end. She also disapproves of Gelya competing two vaults already because she believes the second vault isn't ready yet.

When asked about not making the all-around final at Euros (she finished behind Eremina and Kapitonova), she said it doesn't make her very sad and it's not the end of the world. She is always surprised by her falls because physically she is ready and doesn't fall in training. However, she is afraid of falling in competitions and thinks that's why she falls. She started getting afraid when she got injured before the Olympics and it's been hard for her to overcome the fear.

Her new floor was choreographed by Olga Burova. Gelya was at first afraid she wouldn't be able to do both complicated and physically demanding choreo and the tumbling, so learning the routine required a lot of repetitions. She likes this routine very much. In the EF after her third tumbling pass she realized she's in for a medal, so she tried really hard to stick her last landing.

After Euros Melnikova finally went home to Voronezh for 5 days. She hasn't been home for several months. And during these 5 days, she is mostly studying because she needs to prepare for several exams (she's in 10th grade right now).

She is dreaming of just staying home for two days, doing nothing and sleeping in. Clearly, it's not happening, because next week she's going back to the Round Lake.

Beliavskiy on Euros and kidney stones

David Beliavskiy talked to MK on his pommel horse win at Euros and how kidney stones prevented him from training properly.
David had to miss a week of training before the Russian championship because of the kidney stones, and then he trained through the pain. Sometimes the pain was so bad he had to be taken to ER by ambulance. Then he had a hand injury that also stalled his training process.
He didn't expect to win pommel horse and he was very surprised. He knew, though, that parallel bars are not yet completely ready, so his results were expected.
He plans to return to all-around, because it's boring for him to be an event specialist.

Valentina continues to trash everyone including Komova

Valentina is on a media spree continuing to trash all the girls on the national team except for Eremina, who is currently her "little ray of sunshine" (I wonder how long will it last? Till the next competition in which Lena falls and stays out of medals? Till Aliya comes back?)
Now she has some more bad things to say about Melnikova, Kapitonova, and even Komova (who isn't even currently on the main national team and haven't been to Round Lake in forever).

Valentina Rodionenko talked to MK about Euros and the perspectives for Russian WAG.

Here's the translation of her interview:

What were our goals for these Euros and for 2017 in general, the first year of the new quad? Well, of course, we were going to have a completely new national team – absolutely. To say there are tensions in the team right now would be nothing. Yes, we could bring someone else to Euros, but Seda Tutkhalian is slightly injured right now, and there are certain issues with Daria Spiridonova. I’m talking here about experienced gymnasts, the ones who’s been to the Olympics. But they’re also still young, they haven’t accomplished everything they could yet.

Of course, in Romania, our bets were on Melnikova who was supposed to compete at the highest level. I’ll say it right away: this competition proved us wrong. We can’t understand what is going on with Melnikova. It’s already her fourth competition this year and she performed poorly at every one of them, she was never able to achieve the results she was supposed to. Maybe, it’s psychological. When we ask her what happened she only says: I don’t know. And that worries us.

Next is Natasha Kapitonova. She has a difficult personality, she is quite reserved and guarded it leads to lack of understanding and communication between her and the coaching staff. She doesn’t tell us how she feels, how to do some things with her in a better way. Yes, they’re all still kids in a way, but in our sport, they need to grow up fast. So, we need to consider whether we are going to continue working with this athlete. Now, after we’re back home, we’re going to make decisions about every of the WAG athletes. The worst thing is that they have the potential for winning, but they fall apart in competitions.

The only athlete we’re happy with, even though there were fails there, too, is Eremina. We can already say that this girl can show the highest level of gymnastics. We haven’t had such a unique gymnast in a long time. She’s showing us the well-known Soviet style of gymnastics. Exactly what we want. It’s such a high level, her every move is precise. Look at her on floor, she starts and finishes every move exactly to the music. You know, it’s now the bane of gymnastics everywhere that when gymnasts do floor, the music is by itself and the gymnast is by herself, they don’t connect.

I’ve heard that during Euros Komova claimed she’s back again. I can tell her one thing: we’ll be happy to take her if she’s really back. But I don’t believe she’s going to work hard enough to produce the results we want from her. We’ve been waiting for her a long time, so let’s not put our hopes up. Let’s wait and see.

Nagorny and Dalaloyan on Match TV

Nikita Nagorny and Artur Dalaloyan were on Match TV today talking about Euros.
Artur thinks they could've done better at Euros and haven't yet peaked.
Nikita is really nice praising Artur and saying how much it means to become second to Verniaev, who is an amazing competitor.
For Nikita, his bronze on parallel bars means more than any gold, because it's not his strong apparatuses. He was European champion on vault and floor in the past, but he can't compete them right now because of his injury. He never expected to medal on other apparatuses and it's exciting for him to realize he might be good on something other than floor and vault.
Nikita says he was struggling with motivation before Euros, not following the training schedule and just coming to the gym whenever he wanted. He was told he'd be suspended if he continued this and only then he realized he really wanted to continue training and he's only at the beginning of his career. He started training really hard between Russian Champs and Euros and got mad at himself for losing so much time on not training properly before.
The main goal for both of them right now to prepare for the Worlds in Montreal. They will only have two competitions before the Worlds - Russian Cup and the Universiade.