Mustafina before the 2011 ACL injury, and after, are two different gymnasts. Remarkably, in 2012 the World Champion overcame herself to the extent that she was the leading gymnastics medal-winner at the London Olympics. In 2013 and 2014 she somehow managed to be the whole all around package, with gradually reduced routines that eventually, by this autumn, had little acrobatic content. All by herself, she showed the world what a gymnast really is: not just a trickster but someone whose quality of movement transcends competence and/or extreme bounciness and becomes a whole vehicle for expression. Only a Russian could master the mental contortions it took to make the massive transformation necessary to remain competitive at below full capacity, to make a paradigm shift and fight acrobatics with artistry. Only the daughter of a Tartar wrestler could muster the sheer mystical grit to deliver a perfect fight exactly at the moment needed. But even Mustafina is human. She has managed to conceal the weight of her earthly limitations to this point, but last week looked not just in pain, but defeated. Announcements regarding her back injury are now revealing the full extent of her problems.
Remarkably, the majority of Aliya's progress since the early part of 2013 has been made without a coach. When her personal coach, Alexandrov, left for Brazil, there was no rush to appoint a successor. Raisa Ganina, Aliya's choreographer since childhood, covered as best she could and her influence explains the strides that Mustafina has made in floor choreography and on beam this past 18 months. But Ganina is not a coach, nor a master strategist. She can't help her charge on bars and vault, and in tumbling. Mustafina needs more discipline, more conditioning and more technical and strategic support if she is to realise her immense potential. Both she and Alexandrov said this in their recent interviews, and Alexandrov has been saying it since early 2013.
It is difficult to understand why, in over 18 months, no personal coach has been appointed to help Russia's leading medal contender in artistic gymnastics. Still more difficult to grasp why on earth the national coaches (in particular Stolyar, Ivanov and Grebyonkin) can't help her with her fitness training, competition strategy and upgrades. Mustafina is said to be temperamental and difficult. But these are high level coaches whose job it is to deal with difficult people. Furthermore, someone, somewhere must be approving the state of neglect that has prevailed these past two years. Who, for example, is signing off her visa applications and approving her (non-existent?) training and competition plans?
It is abundantly clear that Aliya is now suffering the physical effects of too rapid rehab from her knee and then ankle injury, and now her back. Her results accelerated to 2012, then reduced with every competition to the present time. With all the problems of training, strategy and moral support that she herself highlighted in her most recent interview with Elena Vaitsekhovskaya, and now this back problem, which has been ongoing for years but which has become intolerable, I cannot say that I believe that she will make it back to full fitness any time soon, if ever.
It is agony to watch such a proud fighter go into decline. It is a tragic waste of talent, a crime against gymnastics, and a heavy loss for Russian sport. Those who are allowing it to happen should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.