Russia gymnastics team head quits in spat with Putin’s rumoured partner

The head coach of Russia’s national rhythmic gymnastics team resigned Wednesday after reports of a high-profile spat with Alina Kabaeva, long rumoured to be President Vladimir Putin’s romantic partner.

Irina Viner, the team’s head coach for 24 years and until recently also president of Russia’s rhythmic gymnastics federation, told Russian state media she was quitting to coach “future generations of stars” without giving a reason.

Reports linked her departure to ructions between her and Olympic gold medallist Kabaeva, who has been linked to Putin in reports denied by the Kremlin.

Tensions between Viner and Kabaeva came to a head during the inaugural BRICS Games in 2024, in which 76-year-old Viner and 41-year-old Kabaeva led different rhythmic gymnastics teams, the BBC Russian service reported last month.

Sporting veteran Viner coached Russia’s national team, while Kabaeva headed her own, separate team made up of gymnasts from her private “Sky Grace” academy — competing as a “separate state”, the outlet said.

The organisers did not say why Sky Grace was allowed to compete in this way.

But Kabaeva, a former protege of Viner, is rumoured to be Putin’s partner — The Wall Street Journal reported in 2022 that she is the mother of at least three of his children, citing the US government.

The Russian leader, famously guarded about his private life, has never acknowledged any romantic relationship between him and Kabaeva.

During the BRICS Games, the chief judge Aysel Gasanova from Azerbaijan complained to the Russian sports ministry that judges sent by the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation awarded too many points to Viner’s athletes, BBC Russian said.

Viner became president of the sport’s federation in 2008.

She resigned in October 2024, while serving a two-year ban from international competitions for publicly criticising Olympic judging.

Viner allegedly confronted Gasanova at the BRICS judges’ table, accusing her of collaborating with Kabaeva’s Sky Grace team, and also had a verbal altercation with Kabaeva in the stands, the BBC alleged, quoting an audience member.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Kabaeva commended Viner’s achievements and praised her “talent, wisdom and dedication”, making no reference to the reported conflict.

“We are grateful to her for all the lessons she has given us and for the beauty she has brought to the world of rhythmic gymnastics,” she said in a statement on Sky Grace’s website.

Rhythmic gymnastics, a blend of gymnastics and dance, uses apparatus such as balls and ribbons.

Russia dominated the sport on an international level for years, winning gold in the discipline at every Olympics from 2000 to 2016.