Don’t mess with Alina Gymnast and rumored Putin paramour Alina Kabaeva has returned to the public spotlight as a sports czar — BBC Russia

More than two decades after her Olympic gold medal, Alina Kabaeva remains one of Russia’s most celebrated gymnasts. However, since retiring from sports, her fame has been attributed less to her past exploits in competition and more to her alleged relationship with Vladimir Putin. Rumors of their marriage surfaced as early as 2008, even though Putin was still officially married at the time. Investigative journalists have reported evidence that Kabaeva is the mother of the Russian president’s two alleged sons, born in 2015 and 2019. Neither Putin nor Kabaeva has ever acknowledged their relationship. A new investigation by BBC Russia examines how Kabaeva’s public profile has changed in recent years. Meduza summarizes the outlet’s findings.

In 2007, Kabaeva joined Russia’s State Duma as a lawmaker. Seven years later, she was made chair of the board of directors at National Media Group, which oversaw Netflix’s operations in Russia until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Despite these roles, Kabaeva largely avoided publicity. On rare occasions when she spoke to the media, it usually concerned her rhythmic gymnastics festival, “Alina.” 

Kabaeva’s visibility began to change in 2022 when she announced the creation of an international association of rhythmic gymnastics teams called “Sky Grace” and opened a school under the same name. Before this, Kabaeva had rarely taken on coaching roles.

The school has two notable features.

First, its launch has made Kabaeva a significantly more public figure. The school frequently posts videos of training sessions where she advises students. Made to seem like random behind-the-scenes footage, these videos are meticulously curated. A sports journalist who’s frequently covered Kabaeva events told BBC Russia: “No photo or video featuring Alina Kabaeva appears online without her knowledge and approval. […] Alina approves everything, down to the angle of the shot, the lighting, and whether her makeup needs any work.”

Second, Sky Grace has been granted unrivaled privileges among Russia’s sports schools. Kabaeva’s creation is authorized to set its own competition calendar, organize tournaments under its own rules (sidestepping the regulations established for rhythmic gymnastics in Russia and internationally), and award sports titles independently to students and coaches. For a brief time, Russia’s rhythmic gymnastics programs were even required to coordinate with Sky Grace when amending their own competition rules. (Officials soon rolled this back, and Kabaeva’s school now merely enjoys the right to participate in rule development.)

“Sky Grace is essentially a separate sport. It has its own rules, with more complex routines. Dedicated tournaments are held under these rules, and sports titles are awarded for this ‘sport.’ In effect, Kabaeva managed to get her own invented sport recognized alongside rhythmic gymnastics, and they now exist together on all official records,” a sports journalist who covers gymnastics told BBC Russia.

And there’s more. Last summer, Sky Grace students competed at the BRICS Games against gymnasts from national teams, including a team representing Russia. In other words, Kabaeva’s school effectively participated as if it were a separate country. At the BRIC Games, Kabaeva reportedly clashed with Irina Viner, the coach who led her to two Olympic medals.

Viner is known not only for her protégés’ successes but also for her rigid discipline with students. In the 2000s, she became head of Russia’s national team and later took over Russia’s Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. Viner dominated the sport in Russia for many years. She’s also a card-carrying member of the country’s super-elite, having been married to billionaire Alisher Usmanov for three decades. Viner has acted as an official campaign proxy for Vladimir Putin during elections. She supports the invasion of Ukraine and has criticized Russian athletes for competing under neutral status since February 2022. Viner has also praised Kabaeva and her school.

At the BRICS Games, the individual competition came down to two Russian gymnasts: 19-year-old Lala Kramarenko and 17-year-old Maria Borisova. Both had trained under Viner since childhood, but Borisova switched to Kabaeva a few months before the Games. (Videos from Sky Grace’s Telegram channel suggest that Kabaeva may be more gentle with her students than Viner.) In the end, Kramarenko won, and Borisova finished second.

Later, Sport-Express — a subsidiary of Kabaeva’s National Media Group — republished an anonymous Telegram post alleging that the head judge of the gymnastics tournament at the BRICS Games complained about Viner. The anonymous post claimed that judges affiliated with Viner’s federation inflated scores for her gymnasts and lowered competitors’ scores. In an alleged exchange about scoring, Viner supposedly told the head judge, “Young lady, just because Sky Grace invited you doesn’t mean you have to do everything for them.” Another anonymous spectator claimed that Viner and Kabaeva argued about their athletes’ scores.

Since the BRICS Games, Viner’s status in Russian sports has weakened. Last fall, the Sports Ministry replaced the All-Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation, which Viner had led for more than 15 years, with a single Russian Gymnastics Federation, dissolving the country’s separate federations for individual gymnastics disciplines. In the new organization’s presidium, Olga Kapranova (one of Viner’s former students) now represents rhythmic gymnastics. Additionally, President Putin removed Viner from Russia’s Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports, replacing her with Sky Grace executive director Marina Specht.

Viner retains her position as head coach of Russia’s national rhythmic gymnastics team, but the sports journalist who spoke to BBC Russia says recent events are a “complete defeat”: 

“Kabaeva outplayed [Viner] in every way imaginable,” the journalist added.