A revolution of consciousness. The Sky Grace tournament has started in Moscow
The competition was opened by seven Olympic champions of different years at once. After the first day, Russian Lala Kramarenko is in the lead.
The first day of the long—awaited Heavenly Grace tournament, an international experimental competition based on the rules of 2001-2005 and 2022-2024, was held in Moscow. It is attended by 13 gymnasts from countries that, among other things, were represented at the 2020 Olympic Games. The organizer of the tournament is the Charitable Foundation of Olympic champion Alina Kabaeva. On December 16, the grand opening of the Sky Grace took place, after which the audience saw the first performances of gymnasts — with a hoop and a ball.
Colorful opening
The opening of the tournament began with footage of the performances of Olympic champions from different years at the Games. The video series featured the programs of Canadian Lori Fung, Ukrainian Alexandra Tymoshenko and Ekaterina Serebryanskaya, Russians Yulia Barsukova, Evgenia Kanaeva, Margarita Mamun and Alina Kabaeva. After that, the audience saw a colorful number from young gymnasts with five different objects — a hoop, a ball, clubs, a ribbon and a rope.
After that, the participants of the competition appeared on the carpet — one by one they went to the playground, performing their signature elements. Then Olympic champion Alina Kabaeva appeared on the stage, who delivered a welcoming speech and parting words to the athletes:
— It's wonderful that we now have such a venue as the Heavenly Grace tournament. This gives us the opportunity to try, experiment, and be creative. Therefore, we have already partially returned to the rules of 2001-2005 at this tournament, when the performances of gymnasts were distinguished by a large number of complex elements, a high level of artistry and technical performance," Alina Kabaeva said. — Therefore, it will be much more difficult to achieve a high result at our tournament than at official competitions according to the current rules.
— Olympic—level rhythmic gymnastics is a sport of the highest achievements, a sport for gymnasts with unique abilities, for those who can create complex, original compositions. The rules should evaluate the uniqueness of sports talent, not a set of standards that is available to many. Otherwise, rhythmic gymnastics will lose its Olympic level, and we must not allow this. The goal of our tournament is to show the strongest and most attractive sides of rhythmic gymnastics. Not every sport has such potential, but we do. I am glad that my idea to hold an experimental tournament resonated with the Olympic champions who are now with us," Alina Kabaeva stressed.
The Olympic champions of different years from among the guests declared the competitions open. But the communication with them did not end there. The organizers prepared a surprise — before the start of each type of mini-interview was given by one of the famous athletes. The hoop exercise was opened by the 1984 Olympic champion Lori Fang, and with the ball - the 1992 Olympic champion Alexandra Timoshenko and the 1996 Olympic champion Ekaterina Serebryanskaya.
Kramarenko's unusual programs
The performances themselves were held according to a well—established scheme - the "artists" went to the carpet in the order that was determined at the draw on December 6. All of them showed completely new programs — they were prepared especially for this start. Sometimes the athletes even thought for a fraction of seconds — after all, now in rhythmic gymnastics there is a period of the so-called off-season, and there was not much time to prepare for the tournament. The find was a brief explanation of the rules of the tournament before the start of each type — the audience learned how much the object weighs and what it is made of, what elements are evaluated in the exercise and what makes up the final score.
The efforts were not in vain. The programs have really become more complicated — now the complexity of the body is not limited, as according to the current rules. The score of almost all gymnasts was around 30 points or even exceeded this figure — it is difficult to imagine such a thing at other tournaments.
The world junior champion Lala Kramarenko completed the competition — so the lot fell out. The Russian woman showed her two new programs — with a hoop to the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff and with a ball to the French song Nemequittepas. The exercises turned out to be not quite typical for Kramarenko — we are still used to seeing her in more incendiary images, but here she appeared to be a passionate and lyrical girl.
Lala leads the results of two types — in total, she scored almost 72 points. After the gymnast's performances, the hall exploded with enthusiastic shouts and applause every time — in addition, according to the organizers' idea, the audience turned on glowing bracelets. Kramarenko was brought to the carpet by the head coach of the Russian national team Irina Viner-Usmanova.
The first day of the competition ended with a colorful flash mob with the participation of young gymnasts and all Olympic champions, who came out with different subjects and even performed individual elements with them. During the breaks, the audience was also not bored, watching the numbers from men's rhythmic gymnastics and the traditional performances of "artists".
Source: Sport-Express.