MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

It's been awhile since we checked in with the Russian gymnasts, so it's about time we take a scroll through the 24-hour gymternet news cycle and see what we find! University Games

The first day of event finals in Glasgow have concluded.  History was made yet again with a four person uneven bar tie for gold. Wait, wait, wait, what the fuck was that?  Yes, a FOUR way tie for uneven bars gold. Viktoria Komova, Daria Spiridonova, Fan Yilin and Madison Kocian, all with the exact same score, 15.366. Go home Glasgow judges,  you're officially DRUNK.

Earlier this week, Russian head coach Valentina Rodionenko announced the teams going to the European Championships in April.

The Russian Gymnastics Federation has named a provisional team going to the World Championships in Nanning, China this October. The announcement comes on the heels of the recent Russian Cup in Penza, which served as part of the qualification process for the Worlds team.

Worlds preparation is entering the home stretch. This means getting in routine shape and putting together new skills. Olympic vault bronze medalist, Russian gymnast Maria Paseka has been seen training a handspring Rudi vault.

The Russian Championships are happening this week in Penza, Russia. It has been confirmed that all of the major players (excluding Ksenia Afasaneyva) are there.

After the 2012 Olympic Games in London where McKayla Maroney famously won the silver medal after falling on her Mustafina vault in the vault final, her competitor, Maria Paseka, had said she didn't think McKayla's silver was deserved.

The latest news floating around the gymternet is the betrothal of Russian gymnast, Maria Paseka. The Happy One From Beijing posted this photograph of Maria and her boyfriend (fiancé) on Tumblr. Maria just turned 18 on July 18. She is the bronze medalist from the 2012 Olympics along with a silver medal from the team competition. She is also the European bronze medalist on the uneven bars.

The Russian Federation has just announced their (partial) team headed to the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium at the end of September.

The event finals marked  the last day of gymnastics at the Universiade in Kazan. It also meant more medals for the Russian team and a few upstarts who snuck onto the podium. Miss Ksenia Afanasyeva was Miss Bad Ass vaulter.

Day One of the Gymnastics competition at the Universiade Games was yet another success for the Russian team. Coming out with a gold medal in the team competition and putting gymnasts in all four event finals for the women's gymnastics. After a competition of clean routines and high difficulty, Russia took the gold with 175.5, ahead of Japan who scored a total of 165. Japan's girls had beautiful, clean routines but they were nowhere near enough to match the difficulty of Russia. Coming in third was Germany who finished with a 162.05 total. Impressive since they were not billed among the top four teams who competed in the final subdivision. Princess of the Russian Gymnastics team, Aliya Mustafina came out qualifying in the top spot for the all-around final and the uneven bars final. Aliya had the highest score on the uneven bars with a 15 even. Not bad for a girl who's just gotten over the flu. additionally, she qualified for the beam final with 15.2 and floor finals ...

This edition of Favorite routines is featuring the best and the brightest routines of the 2013 European Championships. I'm featuring routines from the all-around and event finals. I was able to get some suggestions and I am filling in the rest with my own favorites, some old and some new.