Author: Rick Mc

I’ll be commenting on Twitter @GymCoaching.

Wednesday is Jr Men’s podium.

Thursday August 9th Men’s European Championships competition begins.

One highlight at Europeans was watching Ukraine.

Q: What is the reason for the rising level of women’s artistic gymnastics in our country?

A: I think it’s because we have a new head coach – Oleg Ostapenko. He created a new program for practices, warm-ups, and conditioning. Before, we usually didn’t do long warm-ups – you warmed-up quickly and went to the apparatuses. With Oleg Vasilyevich, we now start with conditioning sessions. Then we do a warm-up but not just five minutes, we do a difficult one, with tumbling. Then we do the four events. These warm-ups are needed in order to be able to do more work. With more conditioning, we started to do better on the apparatuses, too.

DIANA VARINSKA: NASTIA LIUKIN IS MY IDOL

Q: How did the team environment change after Oleg Ostapenko [new head coach] started working with you?

A: Everything changed. Before we used to be all on our own, even, for example, during warm-ups before practices. Now we’re all more together, the training load has changed, there’s some sort of system now. It didn’t exist before but he set up a system. …

ANGELINA RADIVILOVA: WE USED TO BE ALL ON OUR OWN BUT NOW WE’RE A TEAM

Angelina Kysla (now age-27) is married to Ihor Radivilov. 

The equipment supplier for European Championships 2018 is Gymnova.

Scottish Gymnastics has secured a new seven-year deal with the equipment sponsor.

Gymnova is providing a nice lounge near the training Gyms.