AGF Trophy 2017 Concludes In Baku

After the qualifications last weekdays, the FIG Individual Apparatus World Cup called AGF Trophy or World Cup in Baku concluded over the weekend in its host country, Azerbaijan.

This is not the first time Baku has hosted huge gymnastics competitions for FIG, and this time a lot of Olympians have emerged victors in their respective apparatus signature. To start off, probably the oldest in the event and the one with the most experience under her belt—a record SEVEN Olympic Games!—was 41-year-old Oksana Chusovitina from Uzbekistan who didn’t show any signs of slowing down.

In the qualifications and finals, the 1992 Olympic team gold medalist dominated the vault with an astounding performance, and this is done without even attempting the very difficult Produnova vault that she tried in last summer’s Rio. Second to Chusovitina on vault was Australia’s pride, another Olympian Emily Little, followed by the bronze medalist from Slovenia, Teja Belak.

Another experienced competitor was five-time Olympic medalist, Romania’s Catalina Ponor. Albeit leaving Rio without any shiny remembrance, the 29-year-old blasted her competitions on balance beam and floor in both the qualifications and finals without much struggles in this competition. She has boasted her skills in AGF Trophy as a preparation for the European Championships next month, which is going to be held in Romania after sixty years.

Silver and bronze on balance beam was Vasiliki Millousi of Greece and AUS’ Little respectively, whilst on the floor Little once again stole the silver, leaving the host country’s representative Marina Nekrasova with the bronze.

Amidst all these experienced artistic gymnasts, a newcomer has emerged victor as well. Ukraine’s Diana Varinska, a first-year senior in her first World Cup competition, bagged the gold in uneven bars by showing her lovely forms, giving life to the wonders that maybe Ukraine is going to rise in women’s gymnastics once again. Varinska left the silver and bronze to the two Australians, Rianna Mizzen and Georgia-Rose Brown respectively.

Men’s Finals Results

Of course, if the women’s division showed great strength, the men’s division leveled that as well. On the lead was, dubbed “Lord of the Rings” after proving to be the best in the apparatus all around the world in 2015, Greece’s Eleftherios Petrounias who clinched the gold once again in his signature event. He is also aiming for the European Championships next month.

Petrounias’ win on the rings left the challengers from Japan (Kazuyuki Takeda) and Ukraine (Yevgen Yudenkov) with the silver and bronze respectively.

However, not all Olympians had the same fate as Petrounias. Although he was the 2012 Olympic champion, Hungary’s Krisztian Berki was defeated on the pommel horse as China’s Weng Hao bagged the gold, leaving him for silver. On the third was Croatia’s Filip Ude.

Hao’s teammates, Rongbing Liu and Youxiao He also took home the gold and silver respectively on the parallel bars, leaving Japan’s Shogo Nonomura for the bronze, showing that maybe China could win once again versus the Japanese on the Tokyo 2020 Games.

Elsewhere, another Japanese clinched gold at the horizontal bar, Naoto Hayasaka. He was followed by Anton Kovacevic from Croatia and Tomas Kuzmickas from Lithuania. At the vault, AUS’ Christopher Remkes finally got his gold after falling on the second in front of his home crowd in Melbourne last month. Belarusian Pavel Bulauski and France’s Zachari Hrimeche took the silver and the bronze respectively. Kuzmickas, who joined three event finals, was awarded once again by gold this time on the floor exercise, leaving Bulauski and Hayasaka on the remaining two spots.

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Victoria Filanovsky, Baltic Hoop All-Around Champion

Israel’s Victoria Filanovsky twirled her way to the highest top of the All-Around podium on the Baltic Hoop International Rhythmic Gymnastics Tournament held in Riga, Latvia on March 11 to 13, 2017.

Despite placing 10th in the All-around competition of the recently concluded 2017 Grand Prix Moscow, Filanovsky has now become the champion in All-Around this time with a score of 17.500 on hoop, 18.550 on ball, 17.600 on clubs and 14.900 on ribbon events, accumulating to a total score of 68.550. Her total is an astounding five point away from the silver medalist from Belarus, Yuljya Isachanka, who has 63.350. Bronze medalist Julia Evchik, from Belarus as well, was behind with a 62.200 point.

For the individual apparatus competition, Filanovsky only won the gold on ribbons while Belarusians Evchik and Isachanka led on hoop and ball respectively. Finally, Estonia’s Olga Bogdanova snatched the gold on clubs.

The host country, Latvia’s team led in the All-around with their five hoops, three balls and 3 ropes. They are also the hot ticket at the Ludmila Kachkalda Memorial Cup, a concurrently held group competition which is named after Latvia’s most famous rhythmic gymnast. Second to them was Finlad’s team and on the third was team Poland.

Baltic Hoop is one of the international events approved by International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) for this year and it doesn’t just surround the Baltic Sea as it has already reached other countries all around the world. This is the first greatest event for many young gymnasts in Latvia.

For a full list of results, click here.

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RG Legend Petrova Cheers Bulgarians For European Championships

This year the 33rd Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships has already been announced to be held at Budapest, Hungary on May 19 to 21. In line with this event, the draw for this was held last weekend. One of the members of European Union of Gymnastics’ (UEG) technical committee who attended this draw was Bulgarian rhythmic gymnastics legend Maria Petrova and she answered some questions from Hungary’s sports daily, the Nemzeti Sport.

Petrova has something to say about the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) newly edited Code of Points (CoP). She thinks the new CoP was better than the old one, because now there is a balance between the work of the body, the work with the apparatus and the artistic part of the sport, which the old CoP didn’t seem to have. Petrova said that for a moment RG lost that artistry and that there used to be a code where audiences couldn’t even see the face of the gymnasts, since they were just doing one element after another. The new code abolishes that, because it will give more possibilities to more gymnasts to be successful, not only just a few of them, as Petrova believes RG is not only for a few countries but the whole world.

Aside from the CoP, there is another change in the sport of RG, and that is the music accompaniments for routines. Petrova liked this change so much because she believes that if a gymnast is dancing to music with lyrics, she has much more possibilities with the variety of music. Sometimes the words give more intensity to the routines and it can make a connection between how the gymnast performs and what the crowd understands. If the fans know the songs, that is another level of connection, and they would also have more fun.

During this line of questioning, Petrova had a short flashback to the kind of music RG used during her time. She said that pianists used to travel with the gymnastics team all the time. In every competition there was a piano and all teams have their own pianists who would play for them. It was convenient at that time because sometimes the gymnast was late to the music and the pianist can slow down to wait for her.

Maria Petrova is a retired gymnast herself, and when she was asked who among the retired gymnasts she would miss, it wasn’t quite a surprise when she said she loved the gymnastics of Yana Kudryavtseva who retired in January and Margarita Mamun who was rumored to have retired as well, although she said in an interview that she was just resting her injured back. Petrova said she loved both and she would miss them for sure.

Although her favorite gymnasts as of the moment are Russians, Petrova still supports the country she represented during her time, Bulgaria. She still hopes that the Bulgarians will do well in this new cycle even if the European Championships is completely changed. The golden legacy of the Bulgarian RG should be a motivation, Petrova said, because RG is what they loved to do. There was a period in which Bulgarians have lost power, but Petrova was positive that they are now standing up and that they will be hard competitors for the other rivals.

Ever since the European Championships has been held in 1978 until 2016, at the senior events Bulgaria has had a total of 44 gold, 24 silver and 35 bronze. Russia was ahead of them with 92 gold, 37 silver and 22 bronze.

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Mamun Clears The Clouds Surrounding Her Rumored Retirement

During the previous weeks, people have been speculating that Margarita “Rita” Mamun has retired from being a rhythmic gymnast. A lot of the fans are sad because they believe this is her most glorious time yet, after she has won the gold in the Rio Olympics All-around Championship. Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation President Irina Viner-Usmanova’s statement didn’t help at all in the cloud that is surrounding Mamun’s real state on the sport. The President said in an interview that Mamun has not trained for a while and she doesn’t expect her to come back.

To clear all these confusions, Mamun has finally spoken. In an interview with a Russian paper, Sport-Express, Mamun talked about her life after the 2016 Olympics, her relationship with swimmer Alexander Sukhorukov, and what her future plans are. The interview is in Russian and we tried our best to translate it so everyone can have an idea of what Mamun’s statements are.

The first question was, of course, the situation with her career. Mamun answered this by saying that she was merely in a hiatus due to back aches. It needed to be fully rehabilitated before she could go back to rhythmic gymnastics. She clarified that she’s still in the team and she did not go. As a matter of fact, she hopes to come back and perform once again. However, Mamun also said that if she would retire or not, all depends on her health. The decision would be announced later if she would fully recover or not.

When asked about her life after the Olympics, Mamun expressed her feelings about the public functions or galas she was invited to. She believed it was not for her, as she is not the kind of person who quickly makes new friends and immediately feels comfortable with strangers. Not surprisingly, she has already been invited to one of the dance shows, but she refused as her back wouldn’t allow her to dance. Although, she believes she has some dancing stuff she need to learn, teach girls in Novogorske, or open a gymnastics school.

Mamun wasn’t sure about coaching, and said it was still all guesswork. If there is something she would love to do after retiring, it was to enroll in an art class. She has this favorite hobby, which is painting, and she would love to put more time into that hobby of hers. She was looking into maybe even designing.

Mamun and Sukhorukov were engaged on December and the rhythmic gymnast said she answered yes without any hesitation. Their relationship has struggled during the last Olympic cycle as training forced them apart. But they succeeded in that obstacle and after everything, they vacationed in Dubai. Right now the date is still not chosen, but the wedding would be in the summer.

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Nastia Liukin, Youngest Texas Sports Hall Of Famer

February 21, 2017 marks the day when the 27-year-old artistic gymnast Nastia Liukin becomes the youngest member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2017 with seven other members. This is the sixth in a series of profiles on the Texas Sports Hall of Fame induction class.

“Gymnastics has taken me places I never thought I’d go,” she said. “It’s still part of my life today. It’s what I loved to do as a young child, I had a passion for it, which is why I went as far as I did. It’s really exciting to be honored for something that was such a big part of your every-day life.”

Liukin has grown to be one of the top gymnasts in the world with her nine medals at the World Championship, five medals at the Olympic Games and the gold medal in the all-around at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Her passion for gymnastics has brought her not only to a ride all over the word, but also to record-setting heights.

Nastia Liukin’s Life

Nastia was born on October 30, 1989 in Moscow to a father that is an artistic gymnast and two-time gold-medalist at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea—Valeri Liukin. Also, her mother is a world champion in rhythmic gymnastics in 1987 named Anna Kotchneva. Having both parents from the sport of gymnastics, people naturally assume they put her up to follow on their steps, but Liukin debunks this.

“When we moved to Texas, we didn’t have the money for a babysitter to watch me all day long,” Liukin said. “So I spent the days at the gym with my parents. Luckily for them, I fell in love with gymnastics. People thought because my parents were successful gymnasts that they pushed me to follow in their footsteps, but it was the opposite. I wanted to do gymnastics because it made me happy.”

Their family has moved to US when Liukin was just two years old, in search of a new start after the fall of the Soviet Union. They then settled in Texas after being in New Orleans for a while. Her father and his former teammate opened a gym in Plano called World Olympic Gymnastics Academy. This is what became as Liukin’s second home.

Nastia Liukin’s Career

By spending too much time in the gym, the Olympian has fallen in love with gymnastics that she devoted too much time on it until her talents began to show. By the age of six, she has registered for her first gymnastics competition, her father as the coach. That was the beginning of her budding start career.

At the age of twelve, Liukin competed in her first junior national meet. She did not finish splendidly at it, but she qualified herself for USA’s Junior Pan Am team. At that event, she finished second in the all-around, helping Americans claim a team gold medal. Since then, Liukin grew and matured to the point that she even won multiple junior national and world titles.

Like many other athletes, Liukin has dreamt of becoming an Olympian, although she said it was hard to say when the Olympics became a reality. When she was on the age ten to twelve, it was when it started to become achievable. Only one thing stood in her way: she was not as powerful when it comes to upper-body strength like her other world-class competitors. She made up for it with her unmatched balance and grace though, and became a beast on the uneven bars and the balance beam.

In 2007, she had an ankle injury which prevented her to compete much on that season. Liukin being a strong-willed athlete, she came back with a fury, determined to make her dreams come true. She won the American Cup and finished second at the US Championships. At the US Olympic Trials, she won a second place, which gave her ticket to the Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

In China, she showed the world what she has to offer with the performance of her lifetime. She brought home five medals in all, including helping the US women to a team silver medal. Among all awards, she also claimed that “heavyweight belt” of gymnastics, defeating US teammate Shawn Johnson for the all-around title and a gold-medal.

After that win, she had a layoff because of tours. She immediately got back to training soon enough, in hopes of returning to Olympics in London. However, Liukin couldn’t bring back her old flame. She fell face-first on the mat during the bars competition of the US Olympic Trials. She stood up and finished her routine, but she has lost her chance for another Olympic Games.

Although she did not have any regrets at all, soon after that she announced her retirement from the sport. She was contented from having accomplished so much, add to all her medals a diploma from New York University, but she didn’t get away from her beloved sport that much. She still spent last summer in Rio as a part of NBC’s Olympic broadcasting team.

After all of that whirlwind of a career and life, now Nastia Liukin is a part of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame—before even turning 30.

Keep up with the latest news and updates about the sport of gymnastics by following our official blogs and social media sites. Enroll today at Bianka Panova Sport and Art Academy and learn gymnastics for kids with us! Come and experience world class training and education!