I’m the one particular person who has run this weblog since 2009.
Since 1972 I’ve adopted the Soviet and Russian gymnasts by way of thick and skinny. This has included occasions when nearly no info reached our ears to occasions when there was a lot info that my mind has felt prefer it’s exploding. There have been occasions when I’ve needed to step again and decelerate, others when I’ve felt I’m arguing a vicarious debate for the gymnasts, for instance in 2016 after they have been threatened with an unfair Olympic ban for doping.
Typically I really feel as if I don’t have the best to cease.
As of late I’m consistently questioning the rights and wrongs and looking for a good method ahead that provides readers what they need, me and others an opportunity to talk our truths, displays the fact of the game in Russia, and is respectful in the direction of Ukraine and its struggling. My weblog is about gymnastics, not struggle, however in an effort to be crucial I have to heed the context. At current that context contains struggle.
Typically I can’t be crucial as a result of it’s too troublesome to navigate the gray space between totally different truths and outright lies (not from the gymnasts who I feel nearly at all times communicate from their hearts, however greater lies from supermassive states). I monitor social media and the web, and I take advantage of Google translate to attempt to unravel issues which might be occurring – whether or not it’s Melnikova’s celebration on a yacht, Marinov’s struggles with damage or the Russian Authorities’s choices to favour digital sport over motion on the equipment.
Typically, I’m simply recording what the coaches and gymnasts say – I really feel that is vital as a historic report, regardless that I do need to be selective. And my selectivity will inevitably be flawed. I’m not paid for doing this, nor do I communicate fluent Russian. It’s onerous work even when I do love the gymnasts. It typically feels as if I can’t do sufficient.
There are different superb blogs and websites who observe the historical past of the game, however that is the one which focusses on Russia in all its good, dangerous, glory and failure. That is the one which makes an attempt to observe the narrative of latest occasions in Russian gymnastics, to offer some snapshots that may finally inform a narrative of the game in Russia.
I don’t discuss ‘info’. I can say that it’s recorded that Svetlana Khorkina received the World AA in 1997; that’s a truth within the FIG’s data. However info are typically a bit flat and uninteresting. It’s way more reasonable and attention-grabbing to make contentions based mostly on what’s accepted as truth. That entails criticality, and makes the telling of historical past one thing that’s compelling.
I’m pretty certain that after 72 years of being a world chief within the sport of creative gymnastics, Russia is now leaving the stage, and it’s due to its state’s involvement in struggle. We’re at a turning level within the sport. And the rights and wrongs are harder than ever to fathom. Ought to I even be penning this weblog in any respect? The place does gymnastics finish, and propaganda start?
The gymnasts are trapped in a future that most certainly isn’t of their very own selecting. They didn’t ask to be born in Russia. Russia has at all times emphasised the navy in its historical past as if it’s one thing to be pleased with. We predict we don’t have that perspective, however the reality is that we see issues by way of our personal spectacles and nobody else’s. We don’t see the parades on the Cenotaph as navy propaganda; we learn them as remembrance. We’re fortunate that we dwell in a state that provides us the liberty to speak about this, and even give it some thought. Nikita Nagorny is an enormous exhibit who has turned to his nation as a method of creating his voice heard, however in our international locations he could be a chat present host and a scout chief, not a propagandist for an authoritarian state. As David Belyavski stated, if he have been requested to battle for Russia within the struggle towards Ukraine, he would accomplish that: what different selection would he have?
We sit in our comfy workplaces within the west and decide different folks for what we name ‘their decisions’. However it’s simple for us to be large and courageous.
I’m nonetheless the one one penning this weblog, sustaining my Fb web page and updating my Twitter. I’ve about 8000 followers on Fb, and photos and movies are nonetheless the most well-liked factor.
Since 2009 I’ve collected 6 million reads on my Blogger weblog, most of them earlier than about 2016. The web has modified and blogs are much less common. I write lower than I used to, however in all probability write longer than most individuals are comfy with.
I nonetheless haven’t completed writing about gymnasts and gymnastics in Russia, and I don’t know if I ever will. For so long as my mind is functioning I can’t cease serious about it. I hope you stick with me as my reader, and I hope you’ll be able to remark sometimes. I’m going to attempt to persist with this.
