The Russian artistic gymnastics teams are now safely at home in the athletes village at Gwangju, and the competition begins tomorrow. The really good news for us is that we'll be able to watch all the action live for free online. Check the schedule and register at http://www.livefisu.tv/live?ICID_HOM_TOP_1
There are team, all around and event finals. Russia's top gymnast present will be Olympic medallist and European Champion, Maria Paseka, who is captaining the women's team in Gwangju. The men's competition will be favoured by the presence of Ukrainian Oleg Verniaiev who is fresh from his victories at the European Games in Baku. I hope he can maintain his health through the many competitive starts he is working on this year. The funding of the Ukrainian programme is very poor and Oleg does not benefit from the financial rewards or medical support provided to his Russian and Azerbaijani colleagues.
Good luck to all the teams!
Men's team, left to right - Alexei Rostov, Daniil Kazachkov, Kirill Potapov, Andrei Cherkasov, Mikhail Kudashov
Women's team, left to right - Daria Elizarova, Ekaterina Kramarenko, Maria Paseka, Alla Sidorenko, Polina Fyodorova
With thanks to the gymnastics group on VK.com for the pictures
NOTE ADDED 4/7 People are having trouble finding the live streaming. If you follow the link given in the post this schedule comes up in the UK. Scroll down to see the artistic gymnastics team preliminaries which I see as starting at 12.15. I am assuming this will adjust to your local time but I could be wrong. If this is BST it means the streaming is of the final subdivision when the Russian WAG will compete. But I am only human and may have this wrong! You can see the countdown.
FURTHER NOTE. In the US, the Games are being covered by ESPN. Look under Upcoming Events, then International, then scroll down to Universiade. The link is
http://www.espnplayer.com/espnplayer/console. Thanks to Nico!