“We are trying to move forward!” Coach Irina Dzyuba talks about preparing the Academy gymnasts for tournaments

The 1996 Olympics Games bonze medalist and coach Irina Dzyuba told how the students at the Alina Kabaeva Sky Grace Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy are getting ready  for competitions.

“Karolina Tarasova, Kristina Voitenko, Ksenia Savinova and Olga Chernykh are preparing for China and have started to finetune their Sky Grace programs. Also, the girls will soon, in early December, go to the Russian Cup and will compete there as part of the international tournament program according to the FIG rules. It will be Olga Chernykh, Anna Vakulenko and Valeria Medvedeva. The season has already started, so we are not sitting around. We are trying to move forward,” the coach said, 

Irina also emphasized that in order to achieve results, it is necessary to properly organize the preparation process. The experience of previous competitions has shown the importance of control training sessions. 

“We will now hold two assessment training sessions every time. This is what we have decided on. We had good preparations for Minsk in August and we also did it twice each week. This was Alina Kabaeva’s request. And indeed, I now understand this has had a very good effect because the girls performed well at the tournament,” she said. 

The international Russian Cup competition will be held in Yekaterinburg, December 1 to 7, while the Sky Grace tournament will be held in Beijing, December 15 to 17.