Valentina Rodionenko confirmed that Russian MAG and WAG athletes plan on attending a friendly competition in Hiroshima, Japan on November 8th. Morinari Watanabe, the president of the FIG, facilitated Russia’s participation when during his visit last month. According to Rodionenko, in addition to Japan and China, USA also decided to send gymnasts to this competition:
“The Japanese Gymnastics Federation which is organizing the competition sent us the directives. According to them, the competition will take place in one day, on November 8th. Four teams plan on attending the competition – Americans who also expressed the wish to participate were added to Russia, Japan, and China. Each country will send eight athletes – four men and four women.”
“We’re ready to participate in this competition although we’re not quite happy with the one-day format. But this will be the first competition after a long break, so it’s fine. The information regarding how we will travel to Japan where we plan on flying on November 6th will be known later. I can only add that the athletes we will select for this competition will not participate at the Russian Championships in Penza.”
The Russian Championships were originally supposed to be in Lobnya in November but will take place in Penza. MAG Nationals will take place from October 26th to November 1st and WAG Nationals – on November 2nd-8th. Both seniors and juniors will participate as the upcoming European Championships in Baku include senior and junior competitions.
Russian junior national team returned to training later than the seniors except for a select group of Tokyo-eligible juniors who joined the senior team at Round Lake in May. The rest were able to start training again in July and in August, they were allowed back at Round Lake. At the moment, the national team is almost back to their pre-pandemic routine with three-week camps and week-long breaks between them. However, gymnasts still have to be tested for Covid-19 when they arrive at Round Lake and are mostly not allowed to leave the training center for the duration of the camp. Rodionenko said gymnasts have arrived for their current camp and are awaiting test results before they can start training again:
“Full teams came to the training camp to Round Lake, there were no unpleasant surprises. Today, they’re being tested for coronavirus and tomorrow, they might be able to start training. The camp will last until September 24th, after which, the next camp will start. The preparation for the Russian Championships is starting.”
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