Ending 2013, looking forward to 2014, and some words from Valentina Rodionenko

Valentina Rodionenko has outlined the Russian team's plans for the coming months in a recent press statement, highlighting the next major competition for March 2014,the Russian Championships in Penza.  This will be the qualifying event for the European Championships, to take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, next spring.

All the team's major players are back in training now, but not at the most intense level, says Rodionenko. The gymnasts are now working with their coaches to develop new difficulty for their exercises, or to change the composition of their existing routines. 'It is very important that all of them begin the new season in optimal condition', said the head coach.  'On the 22nd, the teams will go home after their current training camp at Round Lake. They return on December 4th, and this year they will go home again on the 20th December.'

Olympic all around silver medallist Viktoria Komova has only just recovered from her illness earlier this year, but Rodionenko was keen to emphasise that Anastasia Grishina has completely overcome the problems of back pain that prevented her from contending for a place on the Antwerp World Championships team earlier this year.  It is clear that preparing well for next year's competitions and remaining in good health is vital to the aspirations of the Russian team: 'We are not competing against Romania, but the United States', said Rodionenko.

Elsewhere, the Russians have confirmed who will compete in the team competition at the DTB Cup (30th November to 1st December), though it is as yet uncertain who will compete as individuals.

Aliya Mustafina

Tatiana Nabieva

Anna Rodionova

Yekaterina Kramarenko

Dmitri Stolyarov

Daniil Kazachkov

Pavel Pavlov

Nikita Lezhankin

I am glad that Anna Rodionova is getting some competition experience alongside her more senior team mates.  She competed at the Massilia Cup this weekend with Ekaterina Kramarenko, Evgenia Shelgunova and Alla Sosnitskaya, but despite her clear potential and superior technique was the only Russian not to take a medal in France.   I would certainly hope for better from her in the coming year.  Alongside first year senior Maria Kharenkova, she should be able to lead a good reserve for the Russian team in 2014.

In Marseille Kramarenko continued the good quality work shown during her Universiade comeback, taking bronze all around and silver on bars. Newcomer Sosnitskaya did well to take the gold on vault; and Shelgunova, in her first proper outing for the senior team after a long period of injury outages, took bronze on beam.  Not a bad weekend for a Russian B team, who were competing against some of the top Romanians including Larissa Iordache and Andreea Munteanu, although I find the regression in vault D scores amongst the Russian team rather worrying.

You can find full results of the team and all around competition in Massilia here, and the event finals here.  Piibunina has also uploaded plenty of videos at his Youtube channel.