Happy quarantine-ing to my fellow Europeans! Please send your home workouts in, preferably including jars of Nutella. Or send in suggestions if you want some specific content on the website now that the competition calendar has cleared out for the next month. But really, send the Nutella over.

Coronapocalypse

• Things have been moving and changing very fast, so I have started a separate page to keep track of the many cancellations, postponements and alterations to the training conditions of teams across the world due to the coronavirus. Make sure you check it regularly as it is updated frequently.
• Spoiler alert: it’s mayhem.

Russia vs. WADA Update (or Lack Thereof)

• This feels like this happened 84 years ago… Remember WADA’s decision in December 2019 of banning the Russian Federation from all major sporting events for the next four years? Well, that still has not started. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) has appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), and… now we wait. The CAS announced that the closed-door hearing would not be held until the end of April. This is fun, four months out from the Olympics.

Before the World Went Up in Flames

• Italy‘s senior team worked with Stephan Miermont once more… before the country went on full lockdown and nobody could train anymore.
• We received some more information on Spain‘s new technical team, again before the country went on full lockdown. The team is working on an inclusive choreography with sign language into the technical routine. “I have been thinking about something that impacts for a long time,” said coach Mayuko Fujiki. “We have to get something Spanish, but with a Japanese touch.”
• Anastasia Ermakova went back to Canada to create a new technical team routine.
• Portugal‘s senior and junior duets received the guidance of Olga Pylypchuk to improve their technique and choreography.
• Serbia‘s duet of Jelena Kontic and Nevena Dimitrijevic should be heading to Moscow to work with Olga Brusnikina.

Got Skills?

• Russia is probably one of the very few countries left at this point that can train in somewhat normal conditions (except, you know, for that minor WADA inconvenience). The national team held a private gala a few weeks ago at its training center in Round Lake, and Varvara Subbotina made an appearance in the technical solo. Europeans 2020? Yes please (well, if corona doesn’t have any other plans).
• Linda Cerruti, who is on stuck at home, shared her quarantine workout where she uses gigantic jars of Nutella as weights. Now, that’s my kind of exercise.

Baby Alert

• Ona Carbonell is pregnant! Congratulations to her.

PSA

We are all in this together. Stay strong, stay healthy, the storm will pass. Stay home, limit your travels as much as possible, and be mindful of your own actions for other people around you, for the older generations, and for others who may not have the same luxury as us of being in good health to face this. Take care, respect the rules, cherish the time spent at home, control what you can control, and then we can all win this together and be back to our “normal” lives soon.

Article by Christina Marmet