Ostapenko to Take On Russian Juniors; Alexandrov Confirmed As Senior Coach of Senior Team

It seems that Ukrainian coach Oleg Ostapenko, fresh from a seven-year stint coaching the Brazilian girls, is not to work with the Ukrainian girls after all. Gazeta reports that Ostapenko, the former coach of Tatiana Lysenko, Natalia Kalinina and Viktoria Karpenko, has been appointed senior coach of the Russian junior team. No details on the appointment have been released yet, neither in Russia nor in Ukraine. We can only assume that the Russian Gymnastics Federation offered Ostapenko more money than its Ukrainian counterpart (according to the article posted below, the President of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation is also Chairman of the Board of a major banking group - now that's an interesting situation to be working from!), and that Ostapenko foresaw greater success with the Russian team than with the vastly underfunded Ukrainian one. It's too bad for Ukraine (their program is in desperate need of some good, experienced coaches), but excellent news for the Russians.

We'll post more details on that story as we get them.


Oleg Ostapenko and Jade Barbosa at Curitiba (photo: Andre Penner/AP Photo)

Meanwhile, we do have a few more details on the coaching situation regarding the Russian seniors. A few days ago, Gazeta published this article, translated for us by Kristina:

A "Foreigner" Has Taken On the Women

At the recent conference of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation (FGSR), Alexander Alexandrov was assigned the post of senior coach for the Russian national women's artistic gymnastics team. The Federation's work during the past quad, which resulted in two bronze medals at the Beijing Olympics, was acknowledged as satisfactory.

On Tuesday the conference of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation came to a close in the Russian Olympic Committee's headquarters. During the conference, the President of the FGSR, who is also Chairman of the Board of the VTB Banking Group, Andrei Kostin, announced changes in the training staff of the women's team.

Alexander Alexandrov was appointed the new senior coach of the national team, replacing in this post his predecessors, Viktor Gavrichenkov and Alexander Kiryashov.

Alexandrov is a well-known specialist. He was the personal trainer of Dimitri Bilozerchev, the triple 1988 Olympic champion, octuple world champion (including twice in the all-around), ten-fold champion of Europe (including twice in the all-around) and nine-fold champion of the USSR (including twice in the all-around).

At the end of the 1980s, Alexandrov, the senior coach of the USSR women's team, left for the USA, where he then worked with Carly Patterson, the 2004 Olympic all-around champion.

Alexandrov has already returned to Russia and taken over responsibilities at the "Round Lake" center, located in the Moscow area.


Alexander Alexandrov in his Soviet days (photo: Eileen Langsley/International Gymnast)

For almost the entire last Olympic quad, Victor Gavrichenkov was the senior coach of the women's team. However, in April 2008 he was replaced by Alexander Kiryashov, who used to occupy the post of senior coach of the Russian junior women's team.

Before the beginning the 2008 Olympics, Kostin was counting on good medal prospects. "We need one more Olympic cycle before we can return to Soviet standards. However, already in Beijing, we ought to win several gold medals. I will repeat: not one, but several, straight away."

In reality it turned out otherwise. The women's team remained empty-handed, and the men could only earn two bronze medals, both on Anton Golotsutskov's account. Golotsutskov came in third on vault and floor.

But even this modest performance was sufficient to obtain positive feedback from RosSport: "I think we in fact needed one more year in order to show a significantly better result. If we consider the degree of preparation, looking from now toward London 2012, we are in a considerably better position than we were four years ago, looking toward Beijing 2008."

Will all the coaches retain their positions? "This depends on the Federation," Andrei Rodionenko, the head coach of the national team, emphasized, summing up the lessons of the Olympics.

As we can see, the Federation has made its choice, deciding to change coaches, in spite of the successful appearance of the Russian competitors in the World Cup Final in Madrid.

"If we look at this in levels, then the most prestigious competition in gymnastics is without doubt the Olympic Games. Then come the World Championships, but I would position the World Cup Final somewhere on the third level, on a level with the championships of the leading continents," noted Rodionenko.

The gymnast Yulia Lozhechko from Bryansk performed magnificently in the Spanish competition, taking second place on beam. Golotsutskov confirmed his high ranking, taking third place on vault, as in the Olympics.


Yulia Lozhechko in Madrid (photo: Volker Minkus/FIG)

The results of the past four-year cycle were summed up during the conference. In his report, FGSR President Kostin described the results of the national team at the Olympic Games (two bronze medals) as satisfactory, but admitted that he would have preferred more medals and that in the next Olympic cycle nobody is going to make any more allowances for the gymnasts due to a lack of time for preparations.

Stormy debates were caused by the speech given by Denis Pankratov, the Department Director on State Policy and the Development of Top-Level Sport in Russia's Ministry of Sport. Pankratov, a two-time Olympic swimming champion, stated that "no one is going to throw money away."

"Everybody has the same problems and everybody has identical salaries. But are the wrestlers bringing in medals? Are the track-and-field athletes bringing in medals? It means that someone must find a way to resolve these problems. The Ministry is working on this, but don't feel that it's not your responsibility as well," the agency AllSport quoted Pankratov as saying.

In conclusion, the conference delegates unanimously recognized the Federation's work over the last four years as satisfactory.

So there you have it. Alexandrov is indeed replacing Kiryashov as the man responsible for the national senior team. No word on whether Gavrichenkov and Kiryashov will remain involved with the national team in any capacity. Rodionenko, we assume, will be the team supervisor, rather than a coach actually working with the girls. Meanwhile, Ostapenko will take over the junior squad.

If we were Chinese, American and Romanian gymnastics officials, we'd start to feel just a little bit nervous at this news. And if we were Ukrainian gymnastics officials, we'd feel more than a little betrayed.

Hambüchen's Surgery: No Complications

Financial Times Deutschland reports that Fabian Hambüchen has gone under the knife and that the operation was successful. Here's a translation of the FTD article...


(photo: AFP/Getty Images)

Hambüchen's Finger Operation Without Complications

Fabian Hambüchen has left the Vinzenz Palotti Hospital in Bergisch Gladbach following his finger operation and is now looking forward to the gymnastics year 2009 with full confidence.

"It all went well," the 21-year-old high bar world champion announced after the thirty-minute operation during which doctor Georg Westerdorf and Rainer Koll, the team doctor of the Olympic-gold-medal-winning German field hockey team, artificially lengthened the torn ligament of the little finger of his left hand and fixed it with a titanium anchor.

Hambüchen's injury occurred during the Beijing Olympics. Initally a capsular injury was diagnosed and treated conservatively. However, the pain recurred in November, which restricted his performance at the Stuttgart World Cup event and at the Bundesliga Final, held in Heidelberg last weekend.

Fabian Hambüchen must now wear a splint on his left hand for around a week. Reduced training is currently all that is possible for the Olympic bronze medalist. "He is of course unable to train with his hand. But he is still doing something," confirmed his father and coach, Wolfgang Hambüchen. The stitches should be removed before the turn of the year.

It is currently debatable whether Fabian Hambüchen can take part in the American Cup on February 21/22, as planned. "We will decide in the middle of January, after weighing all the pros and cons, whether it makes sense. If he is to take part in such a competition, he must be in good shape," said Wolfgang Hambüchen.

We wish Fabian all the best.

So Now That the Season Has Come to an End...

Now that the World Cup Final (the last great competition of the year) is over, what's next for the gymnasts, other than resting, recuperating, and learning new, Code-2009-savvy routines?

Well, today the final competition of the year, the Mikhail Voronin Cup, will be held in Moscow. It's usually a pretty good competition for Russian gymnasts, but we're not sure how many of them will show up this year, given the staggering number of injuries on the Russian team. We'll post more details as we get them.


Jonathan Horton (photo: Getty Images)

Furthermore, several top gymnasts will take part in the galas that are becoming an end-of-year institution in the Netherlands and Belgium. On Sunday, December 20th, Sandra Izbasa, Daria Zgoba, Aagje Vanwalleghem, Gaelle Mys, Benoit Caranobe, Olexander Vorobyov, and Sergei Kharkov, as well as many world-class rhythmic gymnasts, trampolinists, sports acrobats and tumbling specialists, will strut their stuff at a gala in Ghent, Belgium, site of the 2001 World Championships. Meanwhile, Chellsie Memmel and Jonathan Horton, along with a host of top competitors from "other" gym disciplines, are slated to perform in three Dutch towns (Eindhoven, Almere and Heerenveen) on December 19th, 20th, and 21st. Olympic silver medalist Horton will reportedly take on local hero Epke Zonderland, who just won the horizontal bar gold at the World Cup Final, for the title of "best bar worker." Aside from Zonderland, several other good Dutch gymnasts are slated to perform at the galas, including World Cup Final vault silver medalist Jeffrey Wammes and "Lord of the Rings" Yuri van Gelder. Suzanne Harmes and Sanne Wevers were also supposed to perform, but we doubt they'll be up to much after the injuries they sustained in Madrid. Too bad - galas like this tend to be a lot of fun.


Chellsie Memmel (photo: Al Bello/Getty Images)

Galas aside, we expect most gymnasts will spend the next few weeks and months resting, recuperating from the the long 2008 season, and practicing their routines for the upcoming season. Two weeks from now, the 2009 Code will come into effect, which will require some major (and, as far as we're concerned, extremely welcome) changes to the women's routines, if not necessarily to the men's routines.

We'll discuss the 2009 Code in a future post. We also owe you some recent and less recent interviews, as well as a few profiles on gymnasts who've made a name for themselves recently, so do check back every now and then. We won't post as regularly over the next few weeks as we've been doing lately, but we're not going on hiatus either; there will definitely be several posts a week between now and the first major competition of the 2009 season (the American Cup, to be held in Chicago on February 21st). So see you around!

"Afterward It All Went As If I'd Been Unleashed": Sandra Izbasa Reviews 2008

Interesting articles are being posted left, right and center at the moment. We're having a bit of trouble keeping up with them, but eventually we'll translate them all. Promise.

In Romania, two interesting articles on Sandra Izbaşa were published this week. This is one of them, courtesy of ProSport. We hope to have a translation of the other article up in a few days. Enjoy!



The Sound of Music

She comes from a sport in which, in Romania, only gold counts. All or nothing: the pressure of results.

"If only you knew what they said about us until we won the gold at the European Championships! There was a lot of criticism, and many people who didn't believe in us, who didn't give a dime for our chances, who cut us to pieces."

She came off a year [2007] full of bad luck and injuries. Full of ambition and a wish to show what she was worth, and pressure not to fail. "I was scared. Last year my foot was in a cast for two months, and at the Worlds I only competed for the team. This [2008] was the most important year [for me personally]. There were the Olympics and other competitions where I dreamed of being the best. I was fighting for myself."

Sandra Izbaşa is not a typical Romanian gymnast. Tall (1.64m - 5'5''), blond, expressive, and with an impressive beauty, the leader of the women's team always has a smile on her face. Serious and focused before every routine, she relaxes afterward, posing for the judges and the crowd.

"That's my way of thanking the crowd that has supported me. And my smile during my routines is, well, a bit more formal. But sometimes I'm so pleased with the music and what I'm doing out there that I just feel like smiling the whole time," she says with a smile.


(photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

With the floor exercise for which she received the Olympic gold, she demonstrated that dance and gymnastics make a great union.

The first fight: The European Championships in France

There weren't many gold medals for Romanian gymnastics in 2007. Instead, Nicolae Forminte's girls always seemed to place second. In addition, the team was "hit" by injuries.

"The Olympic year promised to be hard. There were many emotions and many expectations. Furthermore, I was also very frustrated, because I hadn't attained even half of my goals, and on top of that I was afraid. We couldn't afford to make a single mistake," confesses Sandra.

Thousands of hours of training, endless repetitions, corrections and the same thing all over again. The first test of the year 2008: The European Championships in Clermont-Ferrand. The first casualty: Cerasela Pătraşcu. "It was terrible. I saw how angry she was that she couldn't help the team. When I left the room to go to the competition, I said to her: 'Cera, I promise you that the gold will be ours.' Afterward it all went as if I'd been unleashed," Sandra remembers. It was Romania's first European title in its new formation. In 2006 the team had only won silver. It was the beginning of April.

Olympic gold = perfection in sport

Sunday, August 17th. A very emotional day for Sandra. "I hadn't qualified for the beam final. I was sad about that, and at the same time I was afraid because I only had a single shot left at an Olympic title. I couldn't afford to make any mistakes," she relates.

The floor final was marked by many mistakes, until Sandra stepped on the floor.


(photo: AFP/Getty)

"I couldn't believe I was there on that floor. I was so nervous my legs were trembling. Mr. Forminte encouraged me, telling me that he believed I could do it and that now was the time to show everyone what I was made of."

Her first four passes were perfect. Then came the last one.

"On your first few passes, you do everything on auto-pilot. You think: 'Now comes this, then that, then that.' But on your final pass, you're confronted with yourself. I heard the crowd applaud, I felt Mr. Forminte restlessly pacing back and forth, and I kept repeating to myself: 'I have to stick the landing.' I knew that I'd win if I had a perfect landing," she said, reliving the moment.

And she did stick the landing. She went straight to the highest step of the podium, the only female European gymnast to win an Olympic title in Beijing. The title belonged to Sandra and to Romania.


(photo: Harry How/Getty Images)

"It was a year with many good aspects: my strong comeback after my foot injury, our winning the team gold at the Europeans, the fact that we stayed on the podium at the Olympics, and my Olympic gold on floor," Sandra said, reviewing the year. "And that which didn't work out this year will certainly work out next year..."

She is not at all thinking of retirement. She still has battles to fight and goals to attain, the most important one of which is the world title. "That's still missing from my prize list. I want to get everything I can get on floor," she stated.

Cheng Fei: "What Counts Is That I've Gained Confidence"

Cheng Fei did well in Madrid, claiming gold medals on vault and floor as expected. A fall on beam on a sheep jump prevented her from taking a 3rd medal on that apparatus.


Cheng Fei remembers what it feels like to win a vault final (photo: Volker Minkus/FIG)
After the competition, Cheng Fei said that the medals themselves didn't mean a great deal to her, but that the Madrid competition had given her self-confidence a major boost. "The gold content of the World Cup gold medals may not be very high, but what counts is that I've gained confidence," the multiple world champion was quoted as saying by Sina.

Cheng's former coach Zhao Hanhua echoed the confidence-boosting aspect, saying, "There weren't many top competitors at this World Cup Final, but through her own performances, Cheng Fei had the opportunity to tell herself: 'I can still do this!' Many people don't know how discouraged Cheng Fei was after letting the vault and floor titles slip through her fingers at the Beijing Olympics. Today she had a chance to prove herself again, which wasn't easy."

Cheng herself once again stressed that she had gotten over her Beijing disappointment. Speaking of the mental journey she had made since the Olympics, the 20-year-old said, "There was nothing for it. When something has just happened, you have very strong emotions, and you may be in low spirits. But it's over now, and I can only move on now, step by step."

According to Sina, Cheng appeared quite relaxed in Madrid. To prove this, the site quoted Cheng's father, Cheng Ligao (now a coach), who said, "Today my daughter finally rang her mother, saying that she was having a lot of fun in Madrid. So we asked her: 'In that case, will you still be training?' She said: 'Of course.'"

As far as the elder Cheng is concerned, his daughter now has to confirm that she'll be at next year's National Games. After that, he says, it's up to her to decide whether or not she wishes to stay in the sport.


Cheng Fei performing her floor routine in Madrid (photo: Volker Minkus/FIG)

Cheng herself once more expressed an interest in pursuing academic interests after this year. "After today I may spend a bit more time studying," the athlete was quoted as saying by Sina. "After this competition, I hope I can learn a bit more about other things."

Cheng Fei is a student at the Wuhan Sports Institute, but she indicated in Madrid that she would like to study some non-sports-related things now. Asked on what kind of course exactly she would like to embark, Cheng answered: "I haven't really thought it over yet in detail. I just hope I'll gradually have a bit more time to study."

We're not sure that sounds like a future 2012 Olympian, but as far as we're concerned, Cheng has earned the right to pursue her own interests for a while.

Woluwe-Saint-Lambert: Complete Results

The Belgian Gymnastics Federation has finally released the complete results of the Challenge International tournament, which was held in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert last week and on which we reported earlier here. Click here to see the results.

There were two 15+ scores in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert, both for Romanian super talent Larisa Iordache. Her very lively floor exercise, featuring an amazing 2.5 twist-punch front-punch front combo and a super fast triple turn, garnered a 15.10. She also received a 15.05 for her fast and difficult beam set, which came with a 6.3 A score but was subject to many small deductions. Iordache is still somewhat imprecise in her movements, but once she gets stable (she will - she's Romanian), she'll be hard to beat on both floor and beam. She also has a decent bars routine - when she hits, which she didn't in Belgium. However, her vault (currently a layout Yurchenko) needs some work.


Corrie Lothrop, the best vaulter at the Challenge International competition (photo: Al Bello/Getty Images)

The top score on vault, 14.75, was awarded to AA winner Corrie Lothrop, who showed a solid 1.5-twisting Yurchenko with a small hop on the landing (click here to see it). Lothrop's teammate, AA silver medalist Olivia Courtney, scored the highest mark on bars, 14.85, for a powerful set featuring a toe-on Shaposhnikova, toe-on-full to Gienger, Jaeger and full-in dismount (shown here).

Six gymnasts received B scores of 9.00 or higher, all on vault or floor: Corrie Lothrop (9.25 on vault); Amanda Jetter (9.15 on floor and 9.00 on vault); Larisa Iordache (9.20 on floor and 9.15 on vault); Lieke Wevers (9.10 on vault and 9.00 on floor); Jocelyn Kraan (9.00 on floor); and Marieke Herteleer (9.15 on vault). Olivia Courtney's execution scores never exceeded 8.95, but high start values helped her clinch the silver medal.

Romanian gymnasts Patricia Tiron and Mihaela David had a very rough time on bars, scoring 9.25 and 8.60, respectively (A and B scores combined). Tiron had many form breaks, no releases, and a bad fall on her dismount. David came off twice on handstand skills, had bent knees throughout her routine, didn't do any releases, and had bad handstands even by Romanian standards. She'll need an awful lot of work ever to become remotely competitive on bars. The third Romanian, Ana Maria Baicu, had much better form, but lacked interesting elements and fell on her double pike dismount. The only Romanian to show a decent bars routine in Belgium was Larisa Iordache, who fell on her Tkatchev-Pak combo but showed good form, decent handstands and two releases.

Over on beam, Lieke Wevers proved that her sister Sanne isn't the only one in the family who has a knack for turns. Lieke's elegant beam routine features three (!) different turns, including a double one. She'll probably have to ditch a couple of them under the new code, and add more acrobatic difficulty instead, but still, she's beautiful to watch on beam. Click here to check out her routine.


Lieke Wevers (photo: Jasmin Schneebeli-Wochner/Gymbox)

On floor, the three Americans and Iordache were the only competitors to show difficult routines. Olivia Courtney fell on her third pass, a double Arabian, but other than that, her tumbling was excellent and very mature. Amanda Jetter and Corrie Lothrop also showed typically American routines, with solid acrobatic skills but so-so dance. In terms of choreography, the Challenge International tournament proved once again that some of the most interesting floor exercises are being shown by minor gymnastics countries. Holland's Lieke Wevers probably had the best and most expressive choreography of the competition, shown here. If she can upgrade her tumbling passes (she's still recovering from an injury which sidelined her for a while), Wevers will be a great gymnast to watch on floor. For her part, Belgium's Monica Dejardin needs more flexibility and amplitude, but she showed some expressive and unusual dance. Her teammate Kim Van Limbergen performed an elegant routine to ballet-like music (seen here).

YouTube users Dutchfan33 and gymcat67 have by now uploaded pretty much the entire competition between them. Check it out!

Li Shanshan Shrugs Off Bronze Medal Upset

As part of its extensive World Cup Final coverage, Sina recently posted a whole article on Li Shanshan's beam routine, which normally carries a 7.3 difficulty value, but was given a 6.3 value in Madrid after a lengthy discussion between the judges. That 6.3 A score was 0.3 lower than eventual winner Lauren Mitchell's A score, and 0.10 lower than silver medalist Yulia Lozhechko's.


Li Shanshan in Madrid (photo: Volker Minkus/FIG)
After the beam competition, women's team coach Liu Guicheng said: "We originally expected a 6.8 difficulty value, but the judges didn't credit certain things, such as connections and the body's position in the air. These things are complicated in gymnastics competitions."

Li Shanshan and her coach didn't argue the judges' decision, as it wasn't clearly a case of the A panel judges getting it wrong. As Liu Guicheng put it: "This is about whether the judges thought you hit or didn't hit a certain skill. It's very hard to argue about that sort of thing. It's obvious that Li Shanshan's routine wasn't perfect today. For instance, there were 3 skills she didn't link, which meant she lost 0.2. In addition, there were a few skills which they might have seen as piked rather than laid out."

Li Shanshan's final score was only 0.10 short of victory. If the judges had given her the expected 6.8 A score, she would have won the competition by a fair margin.

Li herself, who is coming off an injury and looked a little out of shape in Madrid, was a bit disappointed with her bronze medal, but took the defeat in her stride, saying: "Scores are up to the judges. I can't change anything about them. This kind of situation is common enough. Maybe there was something the judges either could or couldn't credit and they chose not to credit it."


Li shows off her bronze medal at the World Cup Final (photo: Volker Minkus/FIG)

She was similarly sanguine about her Olympic disaster. "This is what gymnastics competitions are like," she told journalists with a smile. "You can always make a mistake. Perhaps that's exactly what makes competitions so interesting. The past is the past. I'll continue to do my best from now on."

As to the rumors that Li has been sent home from the national training center in Beijing to train with her provincial team (Guangdong), this appears to have been a temporary arrangement, brought on by the fact that Li was injured and the Beijing coaches were too busy traveling around the world with other gymnasts to attend to her. Reportedly she's back in Beijing now, with the other national team members.

ETA: Li's beam routine at the World Cup Final can be seen here!