Maria Kharenkova joined the coaching staff of the Russian national team as the beam coach for the junior team. She will work alongside her former teammates Aliya Mustafina (junior team’s head coach) and Ksenia Afanasyeva (floor coach).
Kharenkova is the 2014 European beam champion and excelled on this event during her career. Multiple injuries led to her dismissal from the Russian national team and she eventually switched nationality in 2019 to Georgia and competed for them at the 2019 Worlds, narrowly missing the Tokyo qualification. She hoped for a chance to qualify to the Olympics in 2021 but tore her Achilles at the Russian Championships (as a citizen, Kharenkova was still eligible to compete at national competitions despite not representing Russia internationally).
Kharenkova has been working as a coach and a judge at her home gym in Rostov-on-Don for several years now. According to Valentina Rodionenko, she will have to pass the trial period on the NT coaching staff to receive a permanent position:
“Masha has retired as an athlete. She was invited to work with the women’s junior team with a trial period. If she will pass this trial period successfully, she will work as a coach.”
Rodionenko also commented on Aliya Mustafina’s work as the head coach. Last year, Mustafina was officially appointed the acting head coach of the junior team, because, according to the rules, only someone with experience in coaching the national team can serve as the head coach. This time, with one year of experience in the role, she is officially the head coach. Evgeny Grebyonkin who served as the head coach prior to Mustafina works as the junior team’s bars coach now. Rodionenko said Mustafina has proven her ability to head the junior team:
“According to the existing rules, a specialist without experience cannot be appointed the head coach of the national team. Because of that, a year ago, Aliya was officially a regular coach. But after Mustafina has worked for a year and proven that she can manage the team, she’s now the head coach of the junior team starting January 1st.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
