As a New Year present, the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation announced the national team roster for 2020. There are some changes compared to 2019 and the biggest of them is the new head coach of the senior WAG team. Evgeny Grebeyonkin has held this role since 2013, when he replaced Aleksandr Aleksandrov. However, the federation’s management has expressed unhappiness with the current senior team’s results and it seems they thought it was time to shake things up. Olga Bulgakova who replaced Grebyonkin has been coaching the junior WAG team for several years and achieved great results with it. According to Valentina Rodionenko, the replacement happened because the gymnasts turning seniors in 2020 wanted to keep training with the same coach:
“We made the decision to replace the head coach of the women’s senior team because a very strong group of girls came from the junior team. And they wanted to keep working with the same coach under whose guidance they’ve already managed to achieve high results. In the past, Valeri Alfosov was transferred to the senior men’s team in the same way. It’s a normal situation.”
That likely shows the priorities of the national team – the new seniors will get the star roles. At the same time, most of the current senior gymnasts also had experience training with Bulgakova as the head coach during their junior career. The only ones who did not have that experience would be Mustafina and Paseka who turned senior earlier and Akhaimova and Trykina who only made the national team as seniors.
Grebyonkin will have some star assistant coaches with Ksenia Afanasyeva and Nikolai Kuksenkov joining the junior team staff. Afanasyeva started working with the senior team as a choreographer in 2018, when she came back from maternity leave. In 2019, she was one of the senior team’s floor coaches and choreographed Angelina Melnikova’s new routine. However, she is now listed as a beam coach of the junior team.
The changes in the women’s senior roster are not very dramatic and not surprising either. Irina Alexeeva who hasn’t attended a single camp in 2019 is not listed. Missing from the roster are Ksenia Kamkova, Tatiana Nabieva, Polina Fedorova, and Seda Tutkhalian. The last three were added to the national team in June when they were vying for spots on the Universiade team. Uliana Perebinosova and Viktoria Trykina were delegated to the reserve team, while several new seniors – Yana Vorona, Vladislava Urazova, and Elena Gerasimova – were added to the senior team. Aliya Mustafina who missed most of the season with injuries and took a break from training at the end of the year is still on the main senior team. However, Valentina Rodionenko, as usual, was unhappy with Mustafina’s weight:
“Aliya Mustafina is among the candidates for the Russian national team for now and was included on the 2020 roster. But we will only count on her if she will get herself in order and solve her weight issues.”
On the MAG’s main team the only change was the removal of Nikolai Kuksenkov and the addition of Andrey Makolov who was on the reserve team last year. Several of the gymnasts who turned senior this year or will turn senior next year, such as Yuri Busse and Vladislav Gudz, are still on the junior team. With such a strong senior MAG team, it’s not surprising the federation does not think any of the new seniors will make an impact in 2020.
WAG MAIN SENIOR TEAM
- Anastasia Agafonova
- Liliia Akhaimova
- Yana Vorona
- Elena Gerasimova
- Elena Eremina
- Anastasiia Iliankova
- Ksenia Klimenko
- Angelina Melnikova
- Aliya Mustafina
- Maria Paseka
- Angelina Simakova
- Daria Spiridonova
- Vladislava Urazova
- Aleksandra Shchekoldina
WAG RESERVE SENIOR TEAM
- Olga Astafeva
- Daria Belousova
- Varvara Zubova
- Irina Komnova
- Uliana Perebinosova
- Alina Stepanova
- Viktoria Trykina
MAG MAIN SENIOR TEAM
- Denis Abliazin
- David Beliavskiy
- Artur Dalaloyan
- Sergey Eltsov
- Nikita Ignatyev
- Dmitrii Lankin
- Andrey Makolov
- Nikita Nagornyy
- Vladislav Poliashov
- Kirill Prokopev
- Alexey Rostov
- Maksim Sinichkin
- Ivan Stretovich
- Aleksandr Chicherov
MAG RESERVE SENIOR TEAM
- Viktor Kaliuzhin
- Aleksandr Kartsev
- Ilya Kibartas
- Nikolai Kishkilev
- Grigorii Klimentev
- Sergei Naidin
- Mikhail Khudchenko
- Denis Yurov
WAG MAIN JUNIOR TEAM
- Nelli Audi
- Olga Bachurina
- Alyona Glotova
- Polina Ivanova
- Khristina Kalinina
- Sofia Korolyova
- Angelina Kosynkina
- Viktoria Listunova
- Maria Minaeva
- Yulia Nikolaeva
- Daria Ozhigova
- Arina Semukhina
WAG RESERVE JUNIOR TEAM
- Liubov Galyuzhina
- Ekaterina Zyablova
- Nina Puzatikova
- Anastasia Rasseykina
- Draia Kholopova
- Ursula Shakirova
- Alina Shklokova
MAG MAIN JUNIOR TEAM
- Valentin Beskhmelnitsyn
- Yuri Busse
- Kirill Gashkov
- Ivan Gerget
- Vladislav Gudz
- Ivan Kulyak
- Ruslan Makarov
- Makhammadumar Mamadaliyev
- Evgeny Pashkin
- Maksim Syrov
- Denis Tovlinets
- Mukhammadzhon Iakubov
MAG RESERVE JUNIOR TEAM
- Vladislav Vedenin
- Nikita Zelenskiy
- Ivan Karasev
- Vladislav Novokshenov
- Mikhail Pavlov
- Timofey Prostakov
- Lev Sharapov
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