Irina Alexeeva spent several years in the citizenship limbo – she lived and trained in the US and was among the top US juniors but couldn’t get onto the national team or get international assignments due to not having the US citizenship. Earlier this year, when she competed at WOGA Classic and Gymnix, it seemed that she was not going to continue her elite career and would focus on getting an NCAA scholarship instead. I actually fully expected Alexeeva to drop down to level 10.
And then suddenly Alexeeva was announced as one of the competitors for the Russian Championships. At first, the Russian national team coaches were a bit cautious about her chances in their interviews, saying that she still needs to prove herself, but Alexeeva started rapidly rising – she made the national team in May and came to train at Round Lake, she was invited to the Euros selection camp, she then made the Euros team and now she’s the European champion.
Alexeeva told the media yesterday that she didn’t quite expect things to progress so fast:
“Coming to the Russian Championships in Kazan in the spring, I couldn’t have imagined this, I was just moving forward one step at a time. And now I’m here. Today, our whole team got ourselves together and we did what we knew we could. Of course, there’s always nervousness, but we managed to overcome it today. My routines were ok today, I did bars well and my beam was ok even though I wobble a bit. I didn’t make any event finals. My next goals are to keep training, to improve my routines. I hope to make the Worlds team”.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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I’m a bit confused about why she was having difficulty getting citizenship. She and her family had been in the US for years. I know nothing about the US citizenship process, but surely there must be some sort of ‘x years time served’ eligibility?
I was born in the US and am a descendant of Irish immigrants, but i empathize with immigrants and refugees because from what i can tell the whole citizenship process is a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. There should be a “time in the US” eligibility, but from what i have seen there isn’t. It can take years and thousands of dollars just to get a green card, that’s not even citizenship. The entire system is a mess