Anna Li at the San Jose tour stop. © USAG
In this week’s episode Blythe’s mom goes to see the tour, we discuss Alexander Alexandrov’s demotion, the net worth of gymnasts and the way in which the new Code of Points tries to address fashion faux pas. In our chat with Anna Li, we get an update on her neck injury, find out exactly how it happened, if we will see the Kovacs before we see her in Cirque or SYTYCD and what her least favorite costume is on the tour.
Where can you buy a copy of the ’92 Olympics with all of the routines?! Is it the same one that is one youtube?
VK refers to “V Kontaktye (In Contact),” what is essentially the Russian version of Facebook, but also incorporates what you could consider to be YouTube, with next to zero copyright restrictions. You can also download pretty much anything you want. It is by far the most prevalent social media network in Russia. Pretty much all of the Russian national team members have accounts, which can be “verified” in much the same way you would “verify” a Twitter account. Although things can be a little more ambiguous on vk due to the lack of restrictions on reposting content, you can usually tell when an account is real and when it is not. For example, many of the gymnasts’ accounts posted beach pictures while all the athletes were still in Mallorca.
As for the source of the posts made by national team gymnasts, they can be found in a closed group on vk dedicated to supporting the team. The main gist of them is that the gymnasts are angry that fans think they can tell them (the gymnasts) what went on when they weren’t even there. I know that the origin of Komova’s “vegetable” comment lies in the aftermath of 2011 Worlds, when she was attacked on social media by fans saying that she was lazy and a coward for not throwing the Amanar. She was pretty angry about that, and I can understand why. I haven’t heard of her using the term again recently, but if that did happen it makes sense. She is probably sick of fans thinking that they know everything and that they can tell her how to train.
I totally lost it at the “useless vegetable” part, but was happy to read its explanation in these comments.
Still loving the podcast, but I think it would garner more attention if you also had a YouTube since that’s where a number of gym fans are; I know it might seem weird to have an audio-only thing as a video but I can say it has successful examples (well, I can only think of one) like Everfree Radio which is made up by fans of My Little Pony (sorry, had to put that one out there): http://youtu.be/HdP5TeOwg14
(Tara Strong is a well-known voice actress; if you don’t know who she is then there are only greater chances you have heard her voice on TV if you haven’t clicked yet)
The best part of the broadcast apart from the humor from time to time is that you guys are actually interviewing key people in today’s world of artistic gymnastics, (not that interviewing people from past generations is a bad thing, but I hope you understand), which are well, what people of today most care about, especially since it also reaches out to their fans, which sounds awesome, right?
It might not be much but I’ve been sharing the site URL in my more recent casual uploads on YouTube so that my modest amount of subscribers at least have a chance to check this podcast out!
Cheers!