Russian News

A few days ago, IG published the results of the Mikhail Voronin Cup, the final top-level competition of the 2008 season. As you can see here, Kristina Goryunova won the senior women's title in Moscow, but it was precocious junior Viktoria Komova, fresh from a successful appearance at the Massilia Cup, who impressed most, outscoring Goryunova by 1.3.


Kristina Goryunova, senior AA winner (photo: Stefan Wurzer/Gymnasticsunited)

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, this is the beam routine Viktoria Komova performed at the Voronin Cup. Check it out - she's a very stylish gymnast (like her mother, 1986 Goodwill Games champion Vera Kolesnikova) with great form on her layout stepouts, an excellent standing Arabian, and a very difficult Patterson (double Arabian) dismount. Sadly the cool combination of flipflop, layout stepout and Arabian that she was practicing last year seems to have fallen by the wayside, but there's enough yumminess left.

Also, this is the floor routine Komova recently performed at the Massilia Cup. She has a very abrupt way of landing her tumbles (we're wondering if she's suffering from an ankle injury), but she's promising all right - check out that 1.5 twist through to double Arabian mount!


Viktoria Komova (photo: Stefan Wurzer/Gymnasticsunited)

Other Russian news

Firstly, the Russian Gymnastics Federation has announced that Oleg Ostapenko will assume the position of head coach of the Russian juniors at the national junior training center at Malakhovka on January 8th.

Secondly, MKRU confirms that the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation is indeed investing heavily in its competitive program. Not content with bringing experienced coaches back from abroad, the Federation is trying to train its younger coaches by letting them take part in practical training sessions under the leadership of the best coaches at the Round Lake national training center. In addition, the Federation recently completely re-equipped 18 gymnastics schools with state-of-the-art apparatus. All this, it is said, with an eye not just to the future, but to the present. Sounds like the Russians mean business, doesn't it? We can't wait to see what will come of this all-out attempt to restore Russian gymnastics to its former glory.