British WAG (and MAG!) talk

[KorbutFan]

A surprising number of the British posters here have a gymnast on train story. My mother had a lovely chat with a relative of Josef Stalder's on the way to Glasgow worlds. And there's someone else, I want to say @KorbutFan?

Not me I’m afraid. The closest I ever got was receiving an angry PM from Becky Downie over something I once said.

 

[RAFIKI]

Ohhh intriguing

 

[Angelika]

Walking to the arena in Liverpool - my other half says 'hi Claudia'... I say to him 'who was that?' - he says 'Claudia Fragapone'. My work here is done but she is a midget!

 

[rlayt]

I’ve been two feet from famous gymnasts. But I’ve never walked up to them and started talking to them. It would feel weird to do so if I had no reason to or hadn’t been introduced.

 

[Hatsumomo]

My brushes with gymnastics fame was meeting Boginskaya and Gutsu at the gym I trained at as a chitlin. Bogi also did a demo at my elementary school around the same time. This would've been after Barcelona and before Atlanta.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Not me I’m afraid. The closest I ever got was receiving an angry PM from Becky Downie over something I once said.

Please tell me it was because she's got really strong opinions on, like, the Atlanta beam bronze or similar.

 

[KorbutFan]

Unfortunately no. I can’t remember the specifics but I had asked something about her on Gymworld and she evidently didn’t like it. A similar thing happened with Welsh gymnast Lynette Lisle after I had posted I couldn’t see her making the Olympic team.

I seem to have a knack for pissing gymnasts off.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

Unfortunately no. I can’t remember the specifics but I had asked something about her on Gymworld and she evidently didn’t like it. A similar thing happened with Welsh gymnast Lynette Lisle after I had posted I couldn’t see her making the Olympic team.

I seem to have a knack for pissing gymnasts off.

Just goes to show the importance of separate spaces for fans. So much of the gymternet has been about people trying to have parasocial relationships with the athletes, this side too often gets neglected. We're all better off if we can have places they're not in, and vice versa.

 

[RAFIKI]

That’s one of the reasons I only ever lurked on TBGN back in the day.

 

[MaryClare]

That’s one of the reasons I only ever lurked on TBGN back in the day.

TBGN was from a different era. The gymnternet, let alone the British section of it was so tiny that it was inevitable that athletes and fans would encounter each other, often without fans being aware. Once the gymnternet grew and athletes began to have an official social media presence, the dynamics changed.

 

[irichluck21]

I "met" Moceanu, Pod and Bogi at the 2006 American Cup in Philly.
I was with two buddies and one of them went to the bathroom and came back and was like "don't turn around!" Of course I did and all three were literally two rows in back of us. I joked with Bogi and was like "you should be out there competing" and she immediately said "NO WAY".

 

[RedBirdie]

Once upon a time, I sat in a backwoods bar with Bogi while she told me about her experience at the 1990 GWG. And how angry she was at hockey player Sergei Fedorov defecting because that meant all the Soviet athletes were basically on lockdown so no one else could walk out a hotel kitchen's back door to defect.

 

[makam]

One of my friends apparently hosted Bogi (she gets around!) for a workshop at the gym she worked at. My friend, 10 years or whatever later, still couldn't say Svetlana. She kept trying to swap the v and l. It was pretty pathetic.

 

[rlayt]

Bogi seems like she’d be the most fun for a bar conversation.

 

[OnlyBeansOnToast]

I spent 3 years not talking to Natalia Ilienko on the Piccadilly line

Surely you mean Natalia Ilienko spent three years not talking to you on the Piccadilly Line?

 

[MaryClare]

Surely you mean Natalia Ilienko spent three years not talking to you on the Piccadilly Line?

Well we’d chat at work no problem. Just not on the way home

 

[rlayt]

Any confirmation on the death of Monica Phelps?

 

[Angelika]

Any confirmation on the death of Monica Phelps?

She is originally from the city I live in (Sunderland, NE England) and I don't recall anything on the local news. Karen Leighton has put something in the GB Gymnasts Archive but I can't find the original - just a Twitter screen shot:

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

As the end of the year approaches, are people up for finally locking this one and making a British gymnastics 2025 thread? If we do an annual one it might be easier to follow and navigate.

 

[RAFIKI]

Yes, a deadline might finally prompt me to write the GB Olympics in review post I’ve been thinking about for months.