The next competition for the gymnasts will be the Championship in Moscow which will take place at the Dinamo gym. Aliya Mustafina will be competing!

It will take place on February 14-17. Good luck Aliya!!

Interview with Aleksandr Aleksandrov, Aliya Mustafina, and Anna Dementyeva. Shows training footage as well!

A new issue of Gymnastika has been released by the federation! It's now uploaded on the websites. You can click the link below to go directly to the new issue.

Gymnastics is a periodical released by the Gymnastics Federation of Russia. The latest issue features an interview with Galina Grishina, Anastasia Grishina's mother. Translation will soon follow.

Click here to see the new issue!

The results from the Couch Gymnast Awards have been announced.

The Most Unfortunate Injury of the Year is the injury Aliya suffered at the Euros last year.

"She was supposed to defend her title.  She was supposed to take us into the big pre-Olympic year proving that she was no flash in the pan.  She was supposed to remind us why she was the best gymnast in the World.  Instead, she landed badly on her most risky skill and was taken out of the game.  It was a shocking, sad moment."

Aleksandr Aleksandrov is also the runner up for the Coach of the Year award.

"Alexandrov tells it like it is, from his opinion of gymnastics, to his appraisals of his gymnasts.  He has  worked to turn Russian gymnastics around, bringing them back to gold medal potential, a position they have not been in for years.  It is a testament to his coaching talents."

As for Gymnast of the Year, Viktoria Komova finished as the Runner Up.

"All eyes have been glued on Komova since her junior debut.  Lyrical, but capable of great difficulty, she is a lovely gymnast.  This year she came back from a lengthy injury break, gaining enough form to seriously content for the World AA crown.  Very impressive indeed!"

Ksenia Afanasyeva finished in third place.

For the Award of Personality of the Year, Tatiana finished as a runner up in second place.

"Tatiana Nabieva, ever the fan favorite for her high spirits and comic charm is still considered one of the great characters of this sport- and where would we be without one of these Russians!  This year Nabieva went from key all-arounder rookie to a two-event team veteran- and she did it with a courage and consistency we have not seen from her before."

For the award of Rookie Gymnast of the Year, Yulia Belokobylskaya finished in second.

"With all the talk about juniors like Komova and Grishina, Yulia Belokobylskaya never figured largely in talk about the Russian up-and-comers.  She wasn’t even part of the junior European team that excited the gym world so much in 2010.  Then she emerged in 2011 to take a European floor bronze in early 2011 and to consolidate herself as one of Russia’s most elegant and exciting young gymnasts. It was less of a surprise then, when she made the World team."

Please check out the full results at the links below along with the comments from voters!

Dark Horse of the Year:

Anna Dementyeva won this award!

"When the European Championships rolled around in April this year, all expectations for the all around gold were placed on Russian team mate and World Champion Aliya Mustafina.  When a knee injury devastated her chances in the first rotation-vault-little Dementyeva stepped up with unprecedentedly confident and consistent performances to take the title."

Part 1 Results
Part 2 Results
Part 3 Results

International Gymnast has an interview with Aleksandr Aleksandrov, Aliya's coach and head coach of the Women's gymnastics team available online and will also publish an exclusive interview with him in their next issue of the magazine!

Currently, Aliya is not in full form yet (about 75 to 80%), but they are hopeful that she will be ready to compete on a few events at the European Championship in May. He points out that there's no guarantee however, as it's more important that she's 100% ready for the Olympics.

More can be found in the interview on their website which is located here.

Aliya is presently on holiday break in Moscow and will be returning to Round Lake on January 5.

Vote Here!

The Couch Gymnast Awards for 2011 is now open for voting!! Russian Gymnasts exist in the following categories:

Gymnast of the Year:
Viktoria Komova

Best Artistry of the Year:
Ksenia Afanasyeva
Yulia Belokobylskaya

Personality of the Year:
Tatiana Nabieva
Viktoria Komova

Rookie Gymnast of the Year:
Yulia Belokobylskaya

Coach of the Year:
Aleksandr Aleksandrov

Most Unfortunately Injury of the Year:
Aliya Mustafina, RUS, knee injury during vault at European Championships

Team Player of the Year:
Tatiana Nabieva
Anna Dementyeva

Team Leader of the Year:
Ksenia Afanasyeva

Junior Gymnast of the Year:
Anastasia Grishina

Reserve Gymnast of the Year:

Alyona Polyan

Dark Horse of the Year:

Anna Dementyeva

Foor Routine of the Year:

Ksenia Afanasyeva

Skill of the Year:

Ksenia Afanasyeva, RUS, double turn in attitude on floor

Vote Here!

The Mikhail Voronin Cup was an important meet for 2010 World All-Around Champion Aliya Mustafina, not because of any result, but foremost so that she could try herself out, Russian Artistic Women's Gymnastics Team Head Coach Aleksandr Aleksandrov told R-Sport.

The Voronin Cup was Mustafina's first meet since sustaining a torn ACL at the European Championships in April. The Russian only managed to make the final on uneven bars where she ended up winning a silver medal.

"Everything is fine, especially for her first competition in eight months. It was very important for her to participate in a meet and feel that she is coming back, and to test herself and see how her leg felt. And the result — that is secondary in this case. She did not do a lot of what she is capable of doing", Aleksandrov said.

The coach expressed his hope that Mustafina would be able to recover her optimal form in time for the Russian Championships. "We'll see how it goes. But we are doing everything we can for her to make it. The team needs her and we are counting on Aliya", he stressed.

Aleksandrov said the many Russian gymnasts had to skip the Voronin Cup for various reasons.

"(Kseniya) Afanasyeva just barely returned from performing in Mexico, (Alyona) Polyan was in Hungary. To keep too many meets from piling up and to avoid injuries, we decide to let them skip competing here. We wanted Nastia Grishina to compete, she has already begun training again, but she fell ill with the flu. But we are waiting for Grishina to get back in the team as soon as possible. She is a good gymnast and can help the national team", Aleksandrov said.

"(Tatyana) Nabiyeva's back is bothering her and she is treating it. This meet is more like an inter-squad for us. The training camp just ended and instead of having a control meet at Round Lake, we brought it here. We are paying our respects to Mikhail Voronin and we get to compete in a more important atmosphere. It is very nice that everyone is working well and doing their routines. Some are better, some are worse, but they are all working", the head coach said.

He noted that next year, the Russian coaching staff was counting on 2011 All-Around European Champion Anna Dementyeva, who was unable to compete well at the World Championships in Tokyo.

"She missed a lot of things this year; she went to a lot of world cup events. When Mustafina got injured, we practically used her to cover up. She competed very well at the Russia Cup, the main meet before worlds and she won it, but it looks like she had a few more meets than she should have had", Aleksandrov stressed.

He added that one more experienced gymnast, Kseniya Semyonova, was not likely to return.

"She has gained a lot of weight and it will be very hard for her to get back in shape. It's easier for the guys in that regard. And also, she had injuries that are hard to treat and recover from. She missed the whole year and it will be even harder to start the new year, so we are not counting too much on her. If a miracle happens, thank god, why not?", Aleskandrov said.

R-Sport. Original Article Here.

Translation below (Credit: TripleFull368)

Mustafina: I came to the Voronin Cup to compete for the first time after my injury. Because it's very important-I didn't compete for a long time and needed to try because next year is already the Olympics (this part I'm not quite sure of, but I think that's right).

Alexandrov: When one doesn't train for a certain amount of time, ones loses the feel for competition...something I'm not quite sure about but that boils down to it's always hard to get back into competition when you haven't competed in a while. The second half I'm also not too sure about.

Komova: Yes, she's still not in top form (or something like that)-she had a fall on beam, but generally she was able to do everything that she trained. She was successful and competed well.

Today was the last day of the competition! The Event Finals took place today.

Congratulations to Aliya Mustafina for finishing in second place on the Uneven Bars (15.445)!

Aliya is not back in full form yet because she just started training earlier this month after her long recovery. However, considering what she has been through, her results are very good and show great promise from Aliya!

Yesterday I received an inaccurate correction that Aliya was in 4'th place. The report was incorrect. She finished in 6'th place as I first reported. I apologize for the inaccurate update.

This concludes the Voronin Memorial! Videos will be posted shortly.