Rhythmic
(This is a lose adaptation of a very long thread I posted on the bird site. It's meant as a summary so there are things in here that are overly broad but I mostly want to help artistic fans know what is going on in Rhythmic with Paris on the horizon.)
So you only watch Rhythmic Gymnastics every 4 years and OMG Paris is in a few months and you have no idea what your watching except dropping things is bad and wasn't this sport like super corrupt?
Let's start with the basics. In the ye olden times all female gymnasts used to do exercises with portable and non portable apparatus. So a balance beam would be non portable and things like clubs, or balls would be portable. What we know of as artistic gymnasts competed in team portable apparatus. This video is from the 1952 Olympics and at the .10 mark you can see the Hungarian team which includes the great Ágnes Keleti (HUN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtZ9t_9O-b0
One of my favorite facts about Auntie Ágnes is that not only is she the oldest living Olympic champion at 103, a holocaust survivor and number 3 on the all time women's Olympic medal list... she's also a reigning Olympic champion as her team was the last to win gold on Team PA before the event was discontinued. A lot of things were changing in gymnastics in the 1950s, women stopped doing Rings, the uneven bars started evolving from just being a set of pbars set to different heights, and they stopped doing exercises with portable apparatus. It was in this period that the sport that we now know of as Rhythmic Gymnastics split off and embraced ways to make themselves different from Artistic Gymnastics. What I want to emphasize here is that Rhythmic is just as "old school" as Artistic.
It might be useful to point out here that in a lot of languages call MAG/WAG "Sport Gymnastics" (Russian) or "Apparatus Gymnastics" (many other European languages). In these contexts RG is often called "Artistic Gymnastics" because the sport emphasizes artistry so much more. The idea here is that this is a discipline that emphasizes more musicality, dance, formal ballet, and as a consequence they ban things like saltos. I'm mostly talking to people who are familiar with artistic gymnastics so think of this as "dance elements taken to 11".
Broadly a RG wants to keep the apparatus moving at all times as they perform elements, to avoid dropping it but also to avoid holding onto it with an obvious death grip. The ball should for instance sit in the hand, not be squeezed to keep hold. Here is a basic guide to ball handling by a British RGI (Individual Rhythmic Gymnast) and just understanding that basic foundation of handling really goes a long way to explain just how difficult the sport is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MSLaVO-MM&t=246s
They throw the apparatus but your eye should stay on the gymnast not the flying apparatus as they do dance between the throw and the catch. If they catch the apparatus when they can't see it that's extra difficulty. Sometimes really terrible television camera crews will follow the apparatus in the air instead of the gymnast and this is very much worse than when they do face close ups on beam. All of the elements are what is happening UNDER the apparatus during the throw.
One of the things I find incredible about rhythmic gymnasts is just how smart they need to be in order to do their sport. We're talking a special and physical awareness that is second to none because they need that catch to appear natural and effortless. A hand should meet the apparatus you shouldn't stick your arm up and wait for it to arrive. You should be in the right place to catch it without having to move unnaturally out of your choreography or you will get a trajectory deduction. As a good casual rule of thumb, if you are seeing them trying hard to do something, something is wrong.
In fact, the ability of the gymnast to precisely control those throws means that when they do ribbon at the elite level they turn the air handling off in the arena so as not to influence the 6 meters of flying silk (that's almost 20 feet in freedom units). This adds a new level of awe when you realize that during ribbon qualification at last year's world's in Valencia, Spain it was 35 C (or 95 F). Please think about that later when I show you ribbon routines. And how toasty it will certainly be for athletes in Paris.
The apparatus are Hoop, Ball, Clubs, Ribbon, and Rope. Wait... what? Rope?! Yes. So they used to rotate between the 5 apparatus but Rope has fallen out of favor largely because it's difficult to read on TV, though many purists think it's the most difficult apparatus.
It's still competed among juniors and here is 2019 Junior Rope Apparatus World Champion Anastasia Simakova (RUS) (now GER)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-G47KnUCZY
Another useful thing to know about the apparatus is that the clubs can be connected together or disconnected and this will frequently happen during the course of routines. My favorite weird fact about rhythmic is that if the clubs go out of bounds while connected it counts as one apparatus, but if you yeet the clubs out of bounds while they are separated it's two for double the penalty. No really... I will never not find this funny for some reason.
As a note, Ribbon always scores lower than the other apparatus, and you don't just risk dropping it but knots or even tangling yourself up in the ribbon in a kind of sparkly auto-bondage happen more frequently than you might think.
RG scoring is fairly complicated but in brief: Difficulty, Execution, and Artistry scores which are combined together to create a total. Execution and Artistry are out of a 10.0. Think of Execution the same way you would in AG, somewhere in the 8s is good. You start to look for something fairly major wrong when you have an E in the low 7s, and anything below 7 for an Olympic contender was a car crash. Like .44 in this video where major Olympic contender Stiliana Nikolova (BUL) trips on the spare apparatus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbx4R4M3akk&t=44s
Difficulty is open ended and is broken up into DA (difficulty of apparatus handling) and DB (body difficulty). If you want a better summary than I could ever give you (if a little outdated because of updates), here is the 2022-24 code in 15 minutes from Clematis on youtube. It was made for a RG point of view but I think if you are used to the WAG code you can probably follow along well enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxIlbaiPJWY
Some gymnasts (like Nikolova and Darja Varfolomeev (GER)) build their routines on extremely high difficulty while others like Ekaterina Vedeneeva (SLO) and Daria Atamanov (ISR) concentrate on lower difficulty more securely done.
Rhythmic Group Gymnastics (RGG) is performed with 5 gymnasts together doing complex interacting choreography and exchanges. The apparatus for RGG changes every few years but always one routine is done with 5 of the same apparatus, and another with a mix of 2. The Paris quad RGG is 5 Hoops, and 3 Ribbons/2 Balls. People who want chaos wish for 10 Clubs but that's not in the cards for the next quad either.
If you aren't used to watching Rhythmic I promise you are probably better at spotting when things go wrong than you think. You may not know what it is, but "wait that's not right" comes quickly. Because the IOC hates fun, there are only two medal events at the Olympics, the All Around in RGI and the All Around in RGG. At world championships there is the All Around for both individuals and groups, but there are also apparatus finals. Because there are no apparatus medals at the Olympics we sometimes wont get to see the real masters of a given apparatus. Imagine if you never got to see Sanne Wever's beam because to get to the Olympics she had to be one of the top 24 All Arounders in the world.
Which is really an important thing to point out. There are only 24 individual rhythmic gymnasts at the Olympics. That is a TINY fraction of the competitive field. Relative to international competition there will be many highly competitive RGIs left home compared to WAGs. I want to dwell on that point for a moment so I'm going to apply the RGI Olympic qualifying procedure to the Artistic field. Rhythmic worlds Olympic QFers were all non-nominative, meaning the place is awarded to the country not the gymnast by name.
If WAG Olympic QF looked like RGI:
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2022 Worlds BRA, USA, GBR
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2023 Worlds USA, CAN, BRA, ITA, CHN, CHN, FRA, NED, ALG, GBR, AUS, ITA, ROU, GER
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Continental Spots MEX, EGY, JPN, BEL, NZL
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Reallocated Host Spot KOR
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Plus a universality spot.
Congrats, each of those flags is 1 of your favorites. You only get 1 dutch WAG, who are you picking? You only get 2 Italians. We know what a bloodbath it was the last time the Romanians had to pick 1 WAG to go to the Olympics...
Back to the real world there are some heart breakers. There are 4 Bulgarians in the top 12 All Arounders this year. They have 2 spots in Paris. Other countries like Germany, Italy, and Ukraine will be leaving at least one great gymnast at home.
I'm going to go through the likely Olympic field, as well as some that will not make the Olympics because they deserve their flowers too. These routines are, for the most part, the their top scoring routines from 2024, or if I thought a 2023 Worlds routine is a better representative I've used that. For the top 5 All Arounders this year I'm showing you a routine on each apparatus.
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😁= Going to be in Paris
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😊= Likely to be in Paris
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😑= Their country earned a spot and they could theoretically get named but aren't likely
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😔= Will not be in Paris
😊 Stiliana Nikolova (BUL)
I call Nikolova "Rhythmic Flavia" after her long lost sister Flavia Saraiva in every sense of the word. Incredibly talented. Incredibly beautiful. But also a reputation for errors in finals that hold her back. She qualified in 1st for the AA at 2023 Worlds but came in 4th in the final. Remember what I said about how you can probably spot something wrong with "that doesn't look natural?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPt-3rifnA&t=119s
By the way, she's 18, just very short which isn't that common for a rhythmic gymnast. Her father was a professional football player and played in the 1986 FIFA World Cup for Bulgaria... continuing my theme of elite gymnasts with international footballer fathers.
😊 Sofia Raffaeli (ITA)
Sofia Raffaeli is the 2022 World Champion and the 2023 World Silver Medalist. She had a pretty major coaching change last year that was very disruptive and it's my perception that she has been doing a lot of tinkering with her routines.
😊 Daria Atamanov (ISR)
Are you starting to get a theme of music pandering to the Paris audience yet?
Atamanov was on a roll in 2022 as the European Champion (which means a LOT in RG), 2 gold medals at the World Games... and then she broke her leg in warmups at 2022 Worlds. She came back to win bronze in the AA at 2023 Worlds.
😊 Darja Varfolomeev (GER)
Varfolomeev was born in Siberia but left Russia when she was 12 to immigrate to the country of her grandfather. I've heard that Irina Viner thought Varfolomeev's body wasn't right for rhythmic... well she is the 2022 World Silver medalist and swept every gold at 2023 Worlds. One of the things that is really striking about Varfolomeev is that unlike most Germans she enthusiastically sings the German national anthem on the medal stand every. single. time. Which was a lot in Valencia.
😊 Boryana Kaleyn (BUL)
Remember what I said about how European Champions mean a lot in Rhythmic? Well Kaleyn is the 2023 European Champion. But she's been less successful at worlds relative to her continental success. 4 Worlds medals (1 team gold and 3 silvers) to 13 European Championship medals.
If I was a betting woman I'd say the Olympic medals are going to come from that first 5 gymnasts I introduced. There are others of course but these 5 gymnasts own all the World and European AA medals from this quad.
😊 Takhmina Ikromova (UZB)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chS5Y-8c8do
Ikromova owns the 11th highest All Around score of the year so far... her problem is those 5 big names hold the top 10 between them. Still she's the best rhythmic gymnast in Asia and came in 5th at worlds last year. On a good day she could medal in Paris but she may need help. And the Bulgarians are inclined towards helping others medal way too often for the sanity of their fans.
😑 Elvira Krasnobaeva (BUL)
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lw7_y3Rh50
Remember how limited the Olympic field is? Well this is the 7th best RGI by AA score this year. She almost certainly wont be in Paris because Kaleyn and Nikolova are just better bets.
😁 Elzhana Taniyeva (KAZ) - Asian Champs Quota
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb9gZGdUkZY
😊 Ekaterina Vedeneeva (SLO)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NByCW_nEUws
Bronze medalist with ribbon at 2022 and 2023 Worlds is the beloved veteran finally able to shine later in her career. Think about how WAG fans feel about Georgia Godwin or Ellie Black and mix that with the elegance of an Eythora Thorsdottir. She originally competed for Russia but switched to Slovenia in 2018, in contrast to someone I will mention later Irina Viner did not oppose her transfer. A key difference was that Viner never saw Vedeneeva as a threat to take medals from Russian gymnasts.
😑 Eva Brezalieva (BUL)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mTbBZS2TzQ
Remember how I said 4 of the top 12 All Arounders this year were Bulgarian? Meet number 4. Unfortunately for her they only have 2 spots in Paris.
😊 Alba Bautista (ESP)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyTRgKgyK6c
😊 Viktoriia Onopriienko (UKR)
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4icRp-FX5Y
Bronze with clubs at 2023 Worlds, this is one of my favorite routines of last year. It also shows what the power of a giant crowd that actually has rhythm clapping unlike some depressing artistic gymnastics crowds. But you may know her from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCHFWODAGY
😊 Margarita Kolosov (GER)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCwB_3ESnPQ
Remember how I said Germany will have a hard choice, after Varfolomeev they have two very talented gymnasts plagued with inconsistency. Kolosov is likely the one who will win out here (which some may feel is right as she earned the second German spot at worlds however the other athlete wasn't permitted to compete at 2023 Worlds....). I think of Kolosov for her incredibly aggressive towel throwing at the start of her walk out. Every time.
😑 Anastasia Simakova (GER)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OotziO4k34w
Kolosov can't breath easy because running neck and neck with her is her club mate Anastasia Simakova but if inconsistency marks both of them it does Simakova more. She had been a Jr. World Champion for Russia and came to Germany (where her parents had immigrated) in 2022. Simakova's family are from the ethnic German minority in Russia and she told Irina Viner that she was going to Germany to get (a very real) back injury treated. And never came back. The Disney Villain of Gymnastics was displeased and held up her country transfer for a year. A stress point is that she didn't immigrate to a country where it would be easier to make the Olympics. She moved to the one her parents had already immigrated to.
Viner has allowed Russian gymnasts to leave and compete for small unthreatening countries in the past, but generally those have been "B" team gymnasts. Simakova had far too much success and Germany (and her coach Yulia Raskina) were far to outside of Viner's control to allow it.
😊 Fanni Pigniczki (HUN)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsKKiL3kA1Y
The most successful Hungarian rhythmic gymnast ever, she won bronze with the hoop at 2023 Worlds. The Spanish crowd gave her a nickname after the motion one makes while making potato croqueta.
😊 Zohra Aghamirova (AZE)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVP7dSfv44k
😊 Helene Karbanov (FRA)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwD31PfYp-0
The French were very proud of the fact that they qualified both a group and an individual in their own right and didn't need a host spot. Karbanov doesn't quite have the difficulty to contend for medals but her artistry is lovely and enjoyable.
😊 Bárbara Domingos (BRA)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD_oAqQINLQ
Domingos is pretty decisively the best RG in the Americas right now and I expect insanity when Rhythmic Worlds is held in Brazil next year. One of the things I love about this routine is you can clearly see how they can't grip the ball so the handling has to be precise.
😊 Milena Baldassarri (ITA)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6beHGGdPq7M
Baldassarri finished 6th in Tokyo and is probably the second Italian but she has a younger potential rival for that spot that is chasing at her heals.
😑 Tara Dragas (ITA)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cto6j-UgN6k
I actually think the fight between the Italians for the second spot should be tighter than the German race but I just can't let go of the sense that it will go to Baldassarri. Dragas is young though and surely a name for the LA quad.
😊 Polina Berezina (ESP)
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Ball (2023) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmXTWF44Xxg
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Clubs (Black Panther) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCL9BUx1_0
This was my personal favorite ball routine of last year, it was choreographed for the University Games in Chengdu but she didn't end up going. She was very careful to make sure she included a mix of real Chinese martial arts movements. I also really like her 2024 Clubs to the music of Black Panther. Though Berezina was born in Russia and her sister works in film there now, she has lived in Spain since she was 4 and has had all her training in Spain. She is a product of the robust Spanish gymnastics system, not the Russian one.
😊 Annaliese Dragan (ROU)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A5zc1Ts_gM
😁 Wang Zilu (CHN) - Reallocated Host Quota
We all have favorites and Wang Zilu is mine. Full disclosure.
😁 Aliaa Saleh (EGY) - African Championships Quota
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r40wQHtYQBA
😁 Evita Griskenas (USA) - Pan American Games Quota
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ergCL_3Ow
She is the 2019 Pan American Games AA champion and 2023 Pan American Games silver medalist. She will be the only American rhythmic representation in Paris as the US did not qualify a group.
😔 Alina Harnasko (AIN)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWf8A6Xem0
Harnasko is the Tokyo bronze medalist and without question I think the best non Bulgarian FIG authorized RGI who wont be in Paris. She can not qualify as her only path to the Olympics would have been the European Championships and European Gymnastics has maintained their ban. That said, I don't think even if Harnasko had been in Paris she would have medaled. Having watched her over the course of the season (as well as other Belarussians), it's fairly clear to me that the Belarussians haven't maintained the difficulty curve to stay competitive.
That covers the top individuals, there will be another European (not from a previously qualified country) and an Australian in the field. Group isn't my thing and I'm not keeping a running tally of the leading scores for groups so this will be a bit more vibes
Israel (2023 World Champions)
3 Ribbons/2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVWyjhZzzU
I think at the moment Israel is the most likely to medal in group (if not gold). But Group can go south very quickly as seen with the same group doing the same routine at the Palaio Faliro World Cup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zl0WAhN3CE
Bulgaria (2022 World Champions)
3 Ribbons/2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXYwZmzSLZo
But I hear you saying, why do I think Israel has better odds than Bulgaria? They're stunning. And aren't they the Olympic champions? Well yes, A Buglarian group were the Olympic Champions, but this is a different Bulgarian group. They are much younger and the pressure on them is tremendous and cracks show quite frequently. Most tragically at 2023 Worlds. When your 5 Hoops routine is suddenly a 7 Hoops routine as you yeet the apparatus out of bounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVzWW0ulHFM
Spain
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LxSPZAK_Vo
China
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wd6wpMmFZo
I desperately want the Chinese group to medal in Paris. They're my favs. I'm sorry I can't talk more coherently about groups than I can about individuals.
Italy
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e05ezkvFHGg
Ukraine
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bUW61a17xU
Brazil
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlE2tP6mVRw
This is a very early season competition but it's my favorite mixed apparatus group routine this year and I think showcases how different styles can be integrated into rhythmic. I can't wait to see this routine in Paris.
France
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZu9ZkZNkyQ
Yes, this is the second Moulin Rouge I've shown you. Welcome to the Paris Olympics!
Mexico - Pan American Games Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K36uEWicn8
Egypt - African Championships Quota
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXCmYIpyAI
Uzbekistan - Asian Championships Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGjMF3VIXjQ
Germany - Either the European Quota OR the Reallocated Host Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py7M0QKBZ3g
There will another European country which will either be whoever wins the European quota or if Germany wins it then AZE
I have been salty about the fact that Australia gets a free pass to the Olympics despite finishing 23 of 24 Groups at 2023 Worlds but apparently they have a new group this year who I'm assured is not that bad.
Anyway so that's the Olympic field, for the most part, because I'm a structural nerd I'm going to hit on a few other points.
Corruption
The sport has a terrible and long history of corruption, including judges cheating on FIG exams (you can thank rhythmic for why FIG doesn't like holding online exams), bribery, favoritism, and straight up writing the code of points to favor a particular athlete. I will be honest and tell you that the corruption kept me from giving the sport a chance for a long time and I don't blame you if you find it a non starter as well. It's still a problem but I have hope.
There is no getting around that Rhythmic is essentially an Eastern European sport and Russia has dominated for many years in part because of the immense amount of money they spend not just at home but in other federations. One might say that Irina Viner bought herself a sport. Not that it wasn't for sale before Viner.
To give a sense of the amount of money involved let's talk about palaces to Rhythmic Gymnastics. Literal Palaces.
This is the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan, built in large part for the first lady/vice president of the country whose favorite sport is... you guest it.
Just the mention of Baku is enough to send some rhythmic fans into PTSD flashbacks for completely unjustifiable scoring (and terrible camera work and and and ...) . The fact that the arena was built for Rhythmic though, will explain to Artistic fans why the arena can't put both a beam and a set of parallel bars on it's floor space at the same time at the Baku World Cup.
The sport also has a vicious history of coaching abuse and eating disorders that I wont defend and I don't think has really been addressed. But the elephant in the room of all of this corruption and abuse is Irina Viner, the president of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. Irina Viner was married to Oligarch Alisher Usmanov, at one point Russia's richest man. He's currently the president of the European Fencing Federation which explains how they've massively botched handling Russian athletes.
Her Wikipedia Article.
They divorced for financial reasons after Usmanov was subject to many many many sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. His mega yacht is stranded in Germany.
Anyway, Irina Viner dresses like a Disney Villain and acts like one too. After she viciously attacked the judges at the Tokyo Olympics she was banned for 2 years starting from the day after Russia's international ban ends.
She has at different points told gymnasts that she'll kill them if they try to retire, and pulled Russian support from her own hand picked president of the Rhythmic Technical Committee because she didn't fall in line in Tokyo. The carrot to performing for Viner though is a promise of a marriage to an obscenely wealthy Russian man at the end of your career. Or you know... becoming the mother of Putin's children. Khorkina's face in this picture...
So they're banned and they've dominated the sport for so long surely they're doing amazing things at their domestic competitions now. Well... for values of amazing. Viner has decided to create her own personal code of points which the Russians are now competing to. It emphasizes elements that in previous FIG CoPs caused massive numbers of injuries. Massive scores despite obvious errors and their gymnasts are breaking down physically. They've also brought up a non-apparatus routine setting called Free Hands which is normally competed by juniors... but hey if Irina likes it she's playing in her own sandbox now.
Would the Russians be competitive if they were in Paris? Sure. Probably. But maybe not? It's hard to tell when they're playing in lala land and have routines composed for an entirely different code of points. No Russians have applied for FIG AIN status.
But here is the best part.... Rhythmic Gymnastics is taking the time they have without the Russians and without Viner and they're fixing as much as they can as fast as they can. The age for juniors was raised last year (something Irina very much did not want) and the 2025-28 Code of Points takes a hatchet to a lot of the difficulty stacking (very broad over simplification) that has been written into previous codes to favor particular Russian gymnasts. They're basically unwinding what she did to the CoP either directly or through her influence.
And right now Rhythmic is more competitive than it's ever been. A wide variety of countries are winning medals, and the RGI All Around in Paris looks to be the most unpredictable that it has ever been and much more unpredictable than the artistic all arounds.
The biggest looming issue for Rhythmic though is the IOC's clear dislike of single gendered sports. With the introduction of men to artistic swimming it's hard to think that Rhythmic will stay in the Olympics for very long if they don't find some way to include men.
There are two competing styles of men's rhythmic but neither has a mass of athletes. The first is Japanese Men's Rhythmic which includes things you normally would see in Artistic. Some argue that it's basically a different sport.
Japanese Men's Rhythmic Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D48ZPoY2e2Y
The second style is Spanish Men's Rhythmic which more closely echoes the women's discipline.
Spanish Men's Rhythmic Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BckY1Glglrg
Men's rhythmic faces a lot of resistance rooted in homophobia and I don't know how it's going to resolve. But the IOC is pretty much an unmovable object and they have been systematically forcing gendered integration on single gender sports.
If you want to learn more here is a great video from a few years ago about the state of Men's Rhythmic and showing a lot of examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhLauzoYOk
I'll leave you off with one last routine.
😑 Taisiia Onofriichuk (UKR)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz58tmfBVQ
Onofriichuk will almost certainly not be in Paris but I feel like her exhausting ribbon is a good way to end this marathon of a thread.
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This write up is amazing
Re Viner: the documentary Over the Limit is a no holds barred, unflinching look at the way she abused margarita mamun
Also upsetting are the people who handwave the abuse: “that’s just how Russians are, this is normal is Russia, it’s just abuse in YOUR country!!!” “That’s how you create champions!” “If Rita didn’t like it/if it was really abuse, Rita would leave!” “But that’s how I was coached!” etc etc etc etc…. Sickening.
I knew it was bad but I did not expect it to be THAT bad. I need to rewatch it!
It’s even more jarring because in several Russian-produced documentaries (the RT channel one being the main), she insists she’s never raised her voice or been crass to Rita- only for this one where she had no control over it to come out and shatter that image
Yes! I watched the RT one multiple times and Viner was very tame.
Where can I watch the RT one? YouTube?
A controversy to point out about Alina Harnasko competing as an AIN is for the last several years she’s been performing in all of Viner and Kabaeva’s shows and competitions in Russia that have been all ran either state money (you cannot disentangle either of them from the state and they are vehemently pro war), but all the captions thanking them for putting on said performances have mysteriously disappeared from her Instagram and been replaced by just photos of her and other- generally Belarusian and not Russian NT members- gymnasts. The RG fandom is very split on her right now, since she is incredibly beloved (especially in Spain) for what she did in Tokyo and her personality and vlogs, but at the same time she is very far from neutral and disentangled from the Belarus/Russia money pots and politics
Which is a fair argument but also simply performing in shows and appearing with Russian national team members isn't against the AIN rules.
Has she said anything personally pro war? That's the line the rules draw for social media. Or has she participated in the parts of the shows that are explicitly militarized?
I'm not saying she's neutral in her heart but I've seen these discussions and I haven't heard anything that actually violates the rules technically.
Yeah I think the problem is that she's toed such a vague line. She liked and commented in support of many posts at the beginning saying the ban was silly/so they could eliminate competition/overreacting.
I want to say yes, because she participated in almost every show that Kabaeva and Viner threw, but because it's all been deleted from social media there's no proof anymore. I remember seeing her post about a show (no soldiers), and then Viner's Palace post the same show (with solider uniform performances), but again there's no proof so I can't be certain. I think most people's hesitation is from the fact that she was very obviously receiving state funding for all these years, and she still trains in the national training center, so they're arguing she can't really be considered neutral. I think she saw a grey area and took advantage of it, and I can't really blame her for that
Yeah so that's the issue.
Posting that the ban is wrong/silly isn't a violation of the rules.
State funding in and of itself isn't a problem for the rules either. It's military or police funding. So hypothetically you could be a member of the Russian national team, get all your income from the state, but as long as your club is a civilian club and your funding comes from the ministry for sport and not from the ministry of defense/interior then you are still going to pass the AIN rules.
And I guess what I'm saying about the shows is that say she does a ribbon routine at a show where there are a ton of soldiers etc., as long as there are no soldiers in the part of the show she's participating in she's free and clear.
I'm not saying the rules are perfect (though the FIG rules are some of the most strict from sport feds), they are trying not to punish people for simply making a living.
I totally get that might be frustrating for a lot of people.
I agree that that's what it comes down to. She's fully in compliance with the rules, a lot of people just feel that she's not in the spirit of them.
I understand why we don't see any Russians pursuing AIN status because of the way the national team is funded there, but I'm surprised Salos (despite injury) or anyone else on the Belarusian team hasn't persured it
I wish reddit still had awards because this definitely deserves one!
Im curious what the RGG apparatus are for next quad, assuming it's been announced already?
2025: 5 Ribbons / 3 Balls 2 Hoops
2026-28: 5 Balls / 3 Hoops 4 Clubs
Thanks very much for laying all of this out!
Could you go a bit deeper into what is the Artistry score once you’ve had a chance to rest from writing all this out?
Explaining RG artistry is probably beyond my ability but here is a really good youtube video that goes through the major deductions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5bFJ1REJeM
Not gonna lie, I’d give somebody else’s left arm for a “do something actually timed with and emphasizing the music” requirement in WAG floor.
I might be confusing with figure skating, but doesn’t the end pose need to be choreographed with the end of the music?
It is, but that’s not what is described in the rhythmic code. (Well, that’s also a deduction in rhythmic but separate from what I’m talking about.) They have a deduction for not having any section where the dance steps/elements are emphasizing something in the music. The example in the video linked above shows someone doing repeated turns, and they’re hitting the same point in the turn as the lyrics repeat a word a few times. You could do something similar with leaps or with choreo steps.
Artistic has a “background music” deduction but this feels like a better way of defining how you’re supposed to use the music in the routine.
Can you break down that person who won worlds with an absolutely horrible routine full of visible errors? Like 2005-2010ish? I remember there was a commentator ripping her to shreds throughout the routine - one mistake that was really bad was her full turns (promenade?) and that she just stayed in one spot. And then she won ahahaha
You're thinking of Olga Kapranova at 2005 Worlds. She was one of the long line of Russians coached by Irina Viner-Usmanova, the Disney villain-looking lady and RG political mastermind mentioned in OP's post - the sport's Tony Soprano, as the commentator puts it.
I'm not an expert in RG technique by any stretch, but for a simple comparison showing how static and motionless the choreographical composition of Kapranova's routine was, watch Ukrainian Anna Bessonova's Beijing 2008 ribbon routine from the same Olympic quad, and notice how much more of the floor area she uses.
Calling her Tony Soprano has me intrigued. What's the worst things she's accused of allegedly doing (but obviously did not do wink wink).
This Tumblr post from 2016 has a rundown.
That doesn't include some of Viner's antics from the Tokyo Olympics, though. OP alludes to some of it, but there's a more comprehensive explanation of some of that drama here, if you're curious.
My new reality is that Viner was behind the roof leak in Liverpool.
I'm late to this post but if you haven't watched it, Over The Limit is an amazing eye-opening documentary for how she interacts with athletes.
You are referring to the absolutely iconic commentary by Stella Angelova of Olga Kapranova at the 2005 worlds.
https://youtu.be/EG5OoGDveCo?si=AzrbnBnLdZ_Y5M1K
YES OMG
I don't know enough to do that but I remember another bad thing in that was that she was hopping her turns (I don't know the technical words for it) and also her turning foot was wondering a lot. But IIRC one of the big issues was that she basically stayed in one place and didn't use the entire floor area.
There is also a time in the past when the parents of a group were told they needed to give the coaches X amount of money to bribe the judges at Euros (and that group won Euros). One of the ways that Viner has gotten a lot of influence is also basically entirely funding the sport in a few countries so the judges and officials were basically obligated to do what she wanted
The massive cheating scandal in the judging exam happened in 2012 where 56 judges got essentially impossible scores (they were sharing answers), but the case was dismissed against them by the FIG appeals panel because they hadn't proven how they cheated but here is the NYT description:
In the old days it was also a case where the Russians didn't invent robbing everyone blind.
This was 1987 Worlds (in Bulgaria)
Anna Kotchneva is Anna Liukin btw.
There was also a tie for gold on every apparatus that year so the Bulgarians got a gold on every event and the only Soviet medals were shared. Anna Liukin btw, is a World Champion on Rope. Every year NBC describe it she was an All Around World Champion.
It's a beautiful sport and I don't think the corruption is inherent to it, but cleaning it up will take commitment. I just thing it's probably cleaner now than it's ever been and there is an institutional commitment to make things better.
Wow this is amazing! Thank you!!! Take my poor girls gold 🥇
OP I adore you for this. Thank you!
Thanks, this is very helpful! Do you know of a similar guide to trampoline?
(Also, the Moscow Gymnastics Palace looks really cool)
Is it me or could Viner and Griselda Blanco (notorious drug queenpin) have been sisters? I see a resemblance and since they are both villans (Blanco even more so) that makes it all the more eerie.
It’s wonderful to hear that the sport is changing as much of the crap that Viner has done as it can. She’s had WAY too much power for WAY too long.
Upsetting to hear that Viner has created her own COP, complete with body-destroying elements. Not surprising though.
Do you know what the IOC has against single-gender sports?
They are heavily promoting women's equality in sports and most of the single gendered sports they've made integrate were men's only sports.
This is an exceptionally insightful (and frequently funny) thread!
Re Australia, it’s not actually guaranteed that an Australian individual will qualify for Paris. It’s an Oceania spot, and Havana Hopman (NZL) is absolutely in with a chance. For funsies, the Oceania championships will be held within the European championships.
In terms of group, it is essentially an Australian spot as NZL doesn’t have a senior group, to my knowledge. But…the Australian group that will be confirmed at Europeans is from a completely different gym than the group from 2023 worlds.
This group have won numerous medals (including gold) at European comps this year, outperforming highly ranked teams including Mexico.
Here is their seriously funky and fun five hoops.
https://youtu.be/qD8YVgaR9LQ?si=QK8h22b63OvNTNly
A fun fact - Lidiia Iakovleva is in this group, and competed in the individual event in Tokyo. She will become one of a tiny number of gymnasts to compete in both the individual and group rhythmic events at Olympic level.
For funsies or because no one trusts OGU to hold a Rhythmic champs after 2021 *crying*
triggered
Seriously, I know they did it at Asian champs last year. Did they decide to do it for money reasons (the travel alone makes this sound insane), or perhaps was this an unstated condition of the resolution of that scandal?
(Linking to a summary in case anyone else needs it, because I needed a reminder of what exactly happened.)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Gymnastics/comments/11sjdd7/fig_gymnastics_ethics_foundation_ruling_in_the/
For the record having read the report... I think it was mostly incompetence but bigger issue was that the head of the OGU/GA seemed to have been lying. A lot. And I think the most damning element may have been that she got approval for other changes in WAG/MAG from FIG ahead of time but didn't with RG.
My instinct is that she knew they'd never approve what they did do and just hoped it wouldn't be an issue. And it was.
Holy crap, I read the corruption section with my jaw on the floor the entire time. It's like something out of a B movie. Incredible write up, thank you. And truly amazed by the gymnastics palaces.
Then I stayed up way too late last night watching rhythmic videos, thanks for providing a great selection!
ETA: Oh, and when I got to the part about the sport RUNNING to change the rules in Cruella's absence, I practically jumped up and started cheering!
Yeah the corruption is just crazy on so many levels and I only gave the most high level overview. But one of the more idiotic things that Viner did during her Tokyo Tantrum is that she withdrew support for the re-election of the Rhythmic Technical Committee President, who was Russian and her hand picked ally before. What that meant was that the the Russians had no one on the RTC this quad to write the next code AND she handed the presidency to a woman from Egypt.
I'm sure she thought she'd just bay a new friend or whatever but then the ban happened. There are still some pretty obvious issues in the sport, she wasn't the only thing corrupt, but the longer she's away the healthier it will get IMO.
What I didn't have space to talk about is the coach in Germany driving them to be such a big power is Yulia Raskina who was a Belarussian RGI Olympic Silver medalist who lost to a Viner gymnast in Sydney (and competed at the same time as Alina Kabaeva the one who became Putin's mistress). Let's just say she has no love for Viner.
I wasn’t a fan yet in 2000, but I remember hearing that it was a bid deal that Kabaeva dropped her hoop in Sydney and placed third behind Yulia B and Yulia R, since Alina was favored to win.
Where can I learn more about Yulia Raskina?
There’s a video by Clematis RG on YouTube called “What happened in 2000” where you can find a part resuming Raskina’s career. And, important to know, she is now a coach of the German national team, including 5-time World champion Darja Varfolomeev !! 😊 So, 24 years after her silver medal, she can win another one as a coach…
I already saw this thread on Twitter, but it’s amazing to re-read it on Reddit! Thank you for all your work, and as an RG fan, I can say that it is more than accurate!! And btw, we share the same favorites 🇨🇳🇨🇳🙈
I'm relieved, I was so nervous writing this that I'd get an entire fandom who knows a lot more than me mad at me. And some of the links in the twitter thread don't work because apparently the youtube channel died while I was writing the thread *l*
This thread is amazing and one of the few I’ve saved! Thank you so much!
Last year a friend gave us two tickets to the Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships that were held in Valencia (Spain) very close to where we live. My wife went to see the competition with my 12-year-old daughter, who competes in artistic gymnastics. After the competition we asked the girl what she thought of rhythmic gymnastics and her response was: "It's very boring, they don't do anything. It's like ballet with toys."
So teams can either compete 5 hoops or 3 ribbons and 2 balls for group competition? If so what decision making process goes through with a team deciding which one to do? What’s the age for junior-senior switch? You mentioned that it was raised but I’m not sure to what age it was raised to.
Groups compete 2 routines, one with 5 of one apparatus and one with a mix of apparatus (the apparatus depends on the quad). The two routines are combined for a Group All Around score. At competitions other than the Olympics they also compete those routines in apparatus finals.
So a team can win a medal at worlds in the Group AA, and then compete in the 5 Hoops Final and then later the 3 Ribbons/2 Balls final.
The minimum age for juniors was raised last year to 14. Irina Viner had been arguing that the senior age would be lowered to 14.
RGs turn senior the year they turn 16 just like WAG.
Presumably she wants it lowered to 14 because, like Tutberidze, she believes adult women’s bodies are the enemy (read: doesn’t know how to coach them without starving them)?
This is amazing! Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for this breakdown! So excited to see the Israeli team in Paris 🇮🇱🇮🇱
They really strike me as the Group I'd put money on in Paris. They're much more consistent than the Bulgarians.