MCSMaria's Artistic Gymnastics Blog

World and Olympic Medalist, Aliya Mustafina is hard at work in her new gymnastics home in Penza. She's fixing something that has plagued her fans for so long... her twisting form.

While listening to a podcast about badass people (nearly all of whom were men), I decided it was time to celebrate the badass-ness of women. Since this is a gymnastics blog, this article will focus on bad asses in the sport of gymnastics, particularly women in gymnastics. These women are tough for their perseverance, their bravery, and just generally being awesome.

Today, the Brazilian Gymnastics posted photos of the first official Brazilian national team training camp  with new head coach, Alexander Alexandrov on their Facebook page. The gymnasts convened this week for the first week long training camp that is being held July 15, Monday through this Friday, July 20. From what I gather from the translation that Bing translate told me, this training camp is supposed to be targeting potential athletes for the Rio 2016 team.  The present gymnasts included Daniele Hypolito,    Adrian Garcia, Flávia Saraiva, Isabelle Cruz, Leticia da Costa, Maria Cecília Cruz, Milena Tan and Rebecca Andrade.   The photo that is making it's way around the Gymnternet is a photo of Alexandrov greeting each of his new athletes after a morning practice.

A Brazilian TEAM! That's right, it's official, famed Russian coach and Aliya Mustafina whisperer, Alexander Alexandrov is headed to Brazil to coach the national team. Fulltwist.net broke the news this evening after it was officially posted on the Brazilian Olympic Committee's website. The Brazilian team is up and coming team with a lot of strong individual gymnasts including Floor World Champion, Daiane Dos Santos and Jade Barbosa who finished third in the 2007 World Championships.

A random YouTube search brought me to this gem this fine evening. This is a trailer for the 2010 movie Black Swan starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Here's the kicker, this is made up of clips of Aliya Mustafina and Viktoria Komova. Viktoria is Natalie Portman character, Nina and Aliya Mustafina is Mila Kunis's character, Lily. Also making an appearance are, Vera, Viktoria's mom and Alexander Alexandrov.

Updated 7/7/13. Alexander Alexandrov is moving on. Alexandrov left Moscow at the beginning of the month and he is seriously considering  an offer from Brazil.  Alexandrov has been coaching Russsian Olympic and European Champion, Aliya Mustafina since 2008.

Not exactly the first person to report this. The head coach and Aliya Mustafina's personal coach, Alexander Alexandrov got the pink slip from the Russian gymnastics federation. Basically, what has happened is the board of the Russian Gymnastics Federations pulled a coup, and fired him because of some gymnasts' performances in the team final were sub-par. They voted, and fired him behind his back.