The 2019 World all-around champion Nikita Nagornyy gave an interview to Soviet Sport, talking about his success this year and what he does in addition to gymnastics. Q: At the 2018 World Championships, you won team silver and...
Tag - Worlds 2019
While usually Russian gymnasts get on the national team radar when they are still juniors, Lilia Akhaimova only earned a spot on the national team at 18. She was supposed to be one of the alternates for the Rio Olympics but ended...
When Svetlana Khorkina first made the national team, her new teammates asked how many Olympic Games she would like to compete at. “Seven!”, she blurted, not quite knowing how often the Games happen. The teammates...
Daria Spiridonova broke her ankle last year and ended up having to miss most of the 2019 season in order to recover. She was originally reluctant to talk about the injury and carefully posed for photos so that her cast...
In 1989, Svetlana Boginskaya won three gold medals at the World Championships in Stuttgart – as a part of the Soviet team, in the all-around, and on floor. As she told Dvora Meyers, the medals aren’t what she remembers...
Ivan Stretovich had a long recovery from the wrist injury he got in 2016. He was only able to make a major team for the first time since the Olympics this year. Surgeries, growth spurt and coaching issues were among the obstacles...
David Belyavskiy qualified to the pommel horse final at the World Championships but finished only 7th. He feels like at his current shape, he would not have been able to compete for a medal in that final even without a...
Nikita Nagornyy has been one of the strongest gymnasts in the World for a while, and his won his first senior medal at the European Championships back in 2015. However, his first individual medal at Worlds did not happen until...
As a rising junior and in 2016, Angelina Melnikova looked like the future big star of the Russian team but it took her a few more years to reach this status. As a senior, she has been competing non-stop since 2016, despite...
Lilia Akhaimova first made the national team at the age of 18 – quite late for Russian elites who normally get noticed when they are still juniors. She trains at the same gym as Elena Eremina and Tatiana Nabieva but only...