The MAG and WAG Russian national teams for the year 2021 were announced today. As usual, the men’s team looked as expected but there were a few surprises on the women’s team. On the women’s side, Ksenia Klimenko, Daria Spiridonova, and Elena Eremina did not make the cut this year (they were on the main senior team last year).
According to Valentina Rodionenko, Spiridonova and Eremina are not at the NT level anymore:
“Spiridonova and Eremina are ok. They are training, but they’re training for themselves, not for elite gymnastics. Eremina hasn’t been able to recover after the surgery. We’ve agreed that she’ll continue compete at the level of the Russian Championships. She’s not retiring. It’s hard for them in elite gymnastics now, the same goes for Dasha. Perhaps, Dasha won’t even compete at the Russian Championships. Eremina is definitely training for that but Dasha’s participation is in question. Dasha’s running a business. I think she’s not that interested in elite gymnastics or any gymnastics anymore.”
“Dasha didn’t say she’s retiring but I talked to them and I asked “How are you doing?” They admitted they won’t be able to work at this level. Eremina wants to compete. But her surgery was too complicated, the back, the spine, you know. Why ruin the girl’s life if the surgery was successful? She’s afraid of higher training loads, there are concerns that something might happen. Why risk it? It’s a pity that we lost such a girl but there’s nothing to do.”
Elena Eremina competed at the past Russian championships and a number of other national competitions this year. During the Russian Championships, she received a lot of negative comments from fans online and said that while her career didn’t go as she wanted, she still wants to compete at the level that’s achievable for her now. Spiridonova badly injured her foot in 2018 and had a long recovery from surgery that limited her to training only on bars. In August 2020, she had another surgery to remove a titanium plate from her foot and said she doesn’t yet know whether she will be able to return to gymnastics as this will depend on how well her foot heals.
Another big news was that Aliya Mustafina currently works as a junior team coach at Round Lake. Mustafina had a string of injuries in 2019 that led her to stop training for a while and miss most of the competitions that year. Despite being on the main national team in 2020 and listed on the reserve team in 2021, she has not attended camps as a gymnast since the summer of 2019. Valentina Rodionenko said that Mustafina is currently coaching. Mustafina confirmed that she’s working as a coach but said she does not plan to retire as a gymnast just yet:
“I’m currently working as a coach on the junior Russian national team, I help on all the events. But there’s no talk about retiring as a gymnast.”
Mustafina has already appeared as a coach at the Russian Championships in November where she was seen working with multiple gymnasts on the competition floor. Even though she’s listed as a gymnast and not a coach on the national team, this is not an uncommon situation for recent gymnasts who are starting out. For example, Ksenia Afanasyeva was also listed as a gymnast for the first year of working as a national team coach.
Maria Paseka is also listed on the reserve national team. Paseka got injured at the Baku World Cup in 2020 and decided to take a break from gymnastics. She said that she planned to come back in the next quad to train for the Paris Olympics, while her coach claimed she wanted to have a baby and come back. It is not clear whether she plans to come back already in 2021.
WAG MAIN SENIOR TEAM
- Anastasia Agafonova
- Liliia Akhaimova
- Daria Belousova
- Yana Vorona
- Elena Gerasimova
- Anastasiia Iliankova
- Viktoria Listunova
- Angelina Melnikova
- Maria Minaeva
- Uliana Perebinosova
- Arina Semukhina
- Angelina Simakova
- Vladislava Urazova
- Aleksandra Shchekoldina
WAG RESERVE SENIOR TEAM
- Olga Astafeva
- Nelli Audi
- Alena Glotova
- Irina Komnova
- Aliya Mustafina
- Iulia Nikolaeva
- Maria Paseka
MAG MAIN SENIOR TEAM
- Denis Abliazin
- David Beliavskiy
- Artur Dalaloyan
- Nikita Ignatyev
- Viktor Kaliuzhin
- Aleksandr Kartsev
- Dmitrii Lankin
- Nikita Nagornyy
- Sergei Naidin
- Vladislav Poliashov
- Kirill Prokopev
- Alexey Rostov
- Ivan Stretovich
- Aleksandr Chicherov
MAG RESERVE SENIOR TEAM
- Yuri Busse
- Sergei Eltcov
- Nikolai Kishkilev
- Grigorii Klimentev
- Sergei Krivunets
- Maksim Sinichkin
- Denis Yurov
WAG MAIN JUNIOR TEAM
- Ekaterina Andreeva
- Leila Vasileva
- Liubov Galiuzhina
- Anna Kalmykova
- Elizaveta Karelova
- Diana Kustova
- Liudmila Roshchina
- Valeriia Seliutina
- Elizaveta Us
WAG RESERVE JUNIOR TEAM
- Polina Grushnina
- Sabina Kaigulova
- Zlata Osokina
- Sofia Pudova
- Evelina Stokoliasova
MAG MAIN JUNIOR TEAM
- Vladislav Vedenin
- Kirill Gashkov
- Ivan Gerget
- Igor Grunichev
- Evgenii Kisel
- Ivan Kuliak
- Danil Lobach
- Ruslan Makarov
- Daniel Marinov
- Evgeny Pashkin
- Timofei Prostakov
- Mukhammadzhon Iakubov
MAG RESERVE JUNIOR TEAM
- Artem Avlasovich
- Viacheslav Vitkov
- Aleksandr Zhigalov
- Vsevolod Korotkov
- Daniil Novikov
- Kirill Rodionov
- Timur Sadykov
- Artur Sinichkin
- Savelii Sieedin
- Artem Tsarev
