Snooping Around Aliya's Life

In the U.S. it's the Thanksgiving holiday and, among other things, I am very thankful for all the social media accounts that have given new life to being a gymfan. I know a lot of you aren't on Periscope- and I totally get it, because I never used the app before certain gymnasts forced me to download it- so I thought I'd bring periscope to those of you who don't or can't watch. Aliya's been on periscope a lot and the best thing is that she actually answers her fans. So here are some interesting tidbits you might not have otherwise known about The Queen.

1) She wants to have children, and if she has a boy he will be a hockey player. If she has a girl she'll be in rhythmic gymnastics (interesting choice of the successful RG program over AG, huh?)

2) She admits to being a little tired of gymnastics because it's dominated over 15 years of her life.

3) She's as perplexed and bothered by her injuries as we are (says she doesn't understand how it happens) and thinks injuries are the worst thing about gymnastics.

4) She's fascinated with RG; Irina Viner is "really awesome" and all the girls at Novogorsk are sweet and cool. She also trained with the ribbon when she spent time there over the summer! Apparently, she was critiqued on her pivots but told she has good balance.

5) She eats what she wants, in moderation, regardless of whether it's junk food or home cooked.

6) She will never attempt a triple twisting yurchenko because she is very messy with three twists; she says she will do two. (Note: I know after Baku, Starkin said they might upgrade her vault, mentioning a possible amanar or something else, so maybe the new plan is to stick to the dty because of her injury).

7) She chose her own FX music this quad, and she loves her music for Rio after listening to it hundreds of times.

8) She says she feels positive about the Americans:"They are all good girls, everyone that I know." As a person, Simone Biles is "crazy fun" and Aly Raisman is very kind.

9) Dream destinations for Aliya are: Los Angeles, Dubai, the Maldives, and Hawaii (Note: these answers were given on different days but they were all responding to similar questions like 'what is your fave city' or 'where would you like to travel',etc. Dubai is where she really wants to visit, though.)

10) In response to a fan asking 'what do you like about yourself?' she says: "There is part of my mom's character in me. I like that."

11) She is known around RL as a nail art guru and the girls on the team like for her to do their nails and sometimes when they do their nails themselves, one of them will be silly and ask her if their work measures up to her standards.

Bonus: Better people (a.k.a less lazy) than myself are already transcribing the Glasgow Press Conference and I will publish the translation when I come across one. But one thing that I learned during the press conference is that Tokyo 2020 is seemingly not in her sights. When asked about the prospect, she replied, " I don't believe in predicting dreams." The issue was raised a few more times throughout the broadcast and each time her answers were ambiguous ('it's very hard to do what i've done already, again' and ' it will be very difficult to get to that stage'). So Rio will probably be her swan song. The girls don't really seem to know what they want to do after Rio, professionally, either. Only Paseka knew what she wanted: her dream is to become a coach/business woman and open a club, with the larger goal of one day sending gymnasts to Round Lake and having pupils on the National Team. Wonderful!

Here are the accounts of who's on Periscope:

www.periscope.tv/mahax1995, 

www.periscope.tv/musaliya, 

www.periscope.tv/artik_, 

www.periscope.tv/dashkoy, 

www.periscope.tv/tsg1999