The Queen Retires

As fans may have heard, the two-time Olympic champion Evgenia Kanaeva has announced her retirement.  I will miss her dearly for many reasons, but mostly I will miss the supreme confidence that she radiated. She completely owned her routines and executed them with finesse and with a subtle, controlled, and perfectly natural passion. I never saw Kanaeva attempt to look like someone she is not or to interpret music that did not suit her own temper. At the same time, off the capret, she continuously appeared down-to-earth, modest, and very, very strong-willed.

I am not an aspiring gymnast, just a fan. But I have still learned a lot from Zhenya Kanaeva. Watching her perform has reinforced my belief that when you know yourself well, you can make your strenghts shine, and your weaknesses disappear. Watching her win every international competition has also made me believe that, natural born leaders, like her,  need a lot more than talent in order to succeed, and even more than hard work. What you need is a desire to accept responsibility for what you can't and cannot do. I think she always treated her work with a complete awareness of just how much was at stake. She never complained of injuries, judges, or any other factors outside her own efforts. And it only makes sense that she feels ready to retire after achieving everything an athlete could possibly attempt.

Thank you, Zhenya Kanaeva, for gracing our sport with your victorious spirit.

Oh, Those Gymnastics Moments...

I was looking at older gymnastics photos and videos that I keep storing when I ran into some "different" pictures that show more than just the elegance in gymnastics but also some of the unintentional comedy weirdness.

More scary than funny. Can Lukonina walk with her ankles backwards now:

Gymnastics warm-up traffic jam:

All that traffic must have caused a small hole in someone's leggings ;-):

Caroline Weber is either trying to hypnotize the ball, or the ball has already hypnotized her:

And, of course, another "headless" gymnast moment by Anna Alyabieva:

Bulgaria's Hopefuls

Welcome to my first post with Blogsy, coming straight from my iPad.

I would like to discuss the future of the Bulgarian team now that Silvia Miteva is most likely retiring. Tsvetelina Stoyanova may be joining the group exercise, which leaves the following gymnasts in competition for the spot of Number 1 in Bulgaria:

1. Maria Mateva: she has already represented Bulgaria at many important international competitions. Unfortunately, injuries have tormented her for a long time. Ball is by far her best event:



2. Sara Staykova: younger than Mateva, not as known, but very, very promising. I think Sara has strong apparatus technique and very interesting routines. Unfortunately, she has not performed very cleanly. Here are her clubs:


3. Neviana Vladinova: though she is not officially part of the national team, she has shown consistent improvement in all aspects of her routines. Neviana's ribbon is especially masterful:



4. Zhenina Trashlieva: currently the leader of the junior team, she is very confident and expressive but has not been tested in the senior category:

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