So PSA had these on sale, and with a $50 rebate from Beretta, $200 before tax/shipping/ transfer fee, was too good of a deal not to get another carry option. 8 rd model, only one mag supplied with my version.
I did research a bit and watch some videos before buying. I already knew the trigger is junk, right out of the box. Confirmed it when I picked it up today at FFL. Can't believe how long the pull is, how far back the wall is, and that the shot breaks so far back, the trigger is practically touching the pistol frame.
I own Canik, Sig Sauer, SAR, Taurus, Ruger and PSA Daggers, and this Beretta has the worst trigger by far. Canik of course has the best.
Other than the fact mags are expensive, if you can even find them, what ekse should I know about my first Beretta?
Is it upgradeable with any after market trigger?
Replacement available for the plastic recoil rod, I already see bending?

Wanted my own M4 since forever, but always too cheap to buy one. An ACOG landed on my lap recently on sale, and I figured that was a sign. Wanted to build one for less than $1000, and this was the result! It's not colt, but it feels like one! It also keeps the 16" barrel because I didn't feel like spending $200 to take 1.5" off.
4 metal GI mags from surplus bin - $40
Leaper drop in Quad rail ebay sale cardboard box find - $22
Armalite lower assembly missing some parts - $100 + $50 transfer
Armalite Upper Assembly minus some parts - $387
Unnamed amazon M4-like A2 pistol grip - $12
Pawn shop Knights rail and foregrip roll - $40
Streamlight - $120
Amazon broom handle - $14 (The knights roll I bought after this came with an actual KAC foregrip, so oh well... still included this because money spent)
Buffer spring - $30
Pin - $6
Maytec rear irons - $95
Carolina Laserworks custom UID tag - $11
Trijicon ACOG 4x32 RDO - $1200
Total cost before ACOG - $927
After ACOG - $2127 haha
Still, not bad to assemble a functional firearm for under $1000, and then the acog was a bonus! It shoots really well! It's not an exact period correct M4, but that's intentional. Now I just need to throw it down a few rocky hills, give it a sand bath or 2, and let it bounce around on the floor of my car for a while and we'll be right at peak 2006 used and abused look haha

(This is a lose adaptation of a very long thread I posted on the bird site. It's meant as a summary so there are things in here that are overly broad but I mostly want to help artistic fans know what is going on in Rhythmic with Paris on the horizon.)
So you only watch Rhythmic Gymnastics every 4 years and OMG Paris is in a few months and you have no idea what your watching except dropping things is bad and wasn't this sport like super corrupt?
Let's start with the basics. In the ye olden times all female gymnasts used to do exercises with portable and non portable apparatus. So a balance beam would be non portable and things like clubs, or balls would be portable. What we know of as artistic gymnasts competed in team portable apparatus. This video is from the 1952 Olympics and at the .10 mark you can see the Hungarian team which includes the great Ágnes Keleti (HUN)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtZ9t_9O-b0
One of my favorite facts about Auntie Ágnes is that not only is she the oldest living Olympic champion at 103, a holocaust survivor and number 3 on the all time women's Olympic medal list... she's also a reigning Olympic champion as her team was the last to win gold on Team PA before the event was discontinued. A lot of things were changing in gymnastics in the 1950s, women stopped doing Rings, the uneven bars started evolving from just being a set of pbars set to different heights, and they stopped doing exercises with portable apparatus. It was in this period that the sport that we now know of as Rhythmic Gymnastics split off and embraced ways to make themselves different from Artistic Gymnastics. What I want to emphasize here is that Rhythmic is just as "old school" as Artistic.
It might be useful to point out here that in a lot of languages call MAG/WAG "Sport Gymnastics" (Russian) or "Apparatus Gymnastics" (many other European languages). In these contexts RG is often called "Artistic Gymnastics" because the sport emphasizes artistry so much more. The idea here is that this is a discipline that emphasizes more musicality, dance, formal ballet, and as a consequence they ban things like saltos. I'm mostly talking to people who are familiar with artistic gymnastics so think of this as "dance elements taken to 11".
Broadly a RG wants to keep the apparatus moving at all times as they perform elements, to avoid dropping it but also to avoid holding onto it with an obvious death grip. The ball should for instance sit in the hand, not be squeezed to keep hold. Here is a basic guide to ball handling by a British RGI (Individual Rhythmic Gymnast) and just understanding that basic foundation of handling really goes a long way to explain just how difficult the sport is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3MSLaVO-MM&t=246s
They throw the apparatus but your eye should stay on the gymnast not the flying apparatus as they do dance between the throw and the catch. If they catch the apparatus when they can't see it that's extra difficulty. Sometimes really terrible television camera crews will follow the apparatus in the air instead of the gymnast and this is very much worse than when they do face close ups on beam. All of the elements are what is happening UNDER the apparatus during the throw.
One of the things I find incredible about rhythmic gymnasts is just how smart they need to be in order to do their sport. We're talking a special and physical awareness that is second to none because they need that catch to appear natural and effortless. A hand should meet the apparatus you shouldn't stick your arm up and wait for it to arrive. You should be in the right place to catch it without having to move unnaturally out of your choreography or you will get a trajectory deduction. As a good casual rule of thumb, if you are seeing them trying hard to do something, something is wrong.
In fact, the ability of the gymnast to precisely control those throws means that when they do ribbon at the elite level they turn the air handling off in the arena so as not to influence the 6 meters of flying silk (that's almost 20 feet in freedom units). This adds a new level of awe when you realize that during ribbon qualification at last year's world's in Valencia, Spain it was 35 C (or 95 F). Please think about that later when I show you ribbon routines. And how toasty it will certainly be for athletes in Paris.
The apparatus are Hoop, Ball, Clubs, Ribbon, and Rope. Wait... what? Rope?! Yes. So they used to rotate between the 5 apparatus but Rope has fallen out of favor largely because it's difficult to read on TV, though many purists think it's the most difficult apparatus.
It's still competed among juniors and here is 2019 Junior Rope Apparatus World Champion Anastasia Simakova (RUS) (now GER)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-G47KnUCZY
Another useful thing to know about the apparatus is that the clubs can be connected together or disconnected and this will frequently happen during the course of routines. My favorite weird fact about rhythmic is that if the clubs go out of bounds while connected it counts as one apparatus, but if you yeet the clubs out of bounds while they are separated it's two for double the penalty. No really... I will never not find this funny for some reason.
https://preview.redd.it/205fhweiyvzc1.png?width=438&format=png&auto=webp&s=3c1693c4f044588989d107a5effa90dcd02a718f
As a note, Ribbon always scores lower than the other apparatus, and you don't just risk dropping it but knots or even tangling yourself up in the ribbon in a kind of sparkly auto-bondage happen more frequently than you might think.
RG scoring is fairly complicated but in brief: Difficulty, Execution, and Artistry scores which are combined together to create a total. Execution and Artistry are out of a 10.0. Think of Execution the same way you would in AG, somewhere in the 8s is good. You start to look for something fairly major wrong when you have an E in the low 7s, and anything below 7 for an Olympic contender was a car crash. Like .44 in this video where major Olympic contender Stiliana Nikolova (BUL) trips on the spare apparatus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbx4R4M3akk&t=44s
Difficulty is open ended and is broken up into DA (difficulty of apparatus handling) and DB (body difficulty). If you want a better summary than I could ever give you (if a little outdated because of updates), here is the 2022-24 code in 15 minutes from Clematis on youtube. It was made for a RG point of view but I think if you are used to the WAG code you can probably follow along well enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxIlbaiPJWY
Some gymnasts (like Nikolova and Darja Varfolomeev (GER)) build their routines on extremely high difficulty while others like Ekaterina Vedeneeva (SLO) and Daria Atamanov (ISR) concentrate on lower difficulty more securely done.
Rhythmic Group Gymnastics (RGG) is performed with 5 gymnasts together doing complex interacting choreography and exchanges. The apparatus for RGG changes every few years but always one routine is done with 5 of the same apparatus, and another with a mix of 2. The Paris quad RGG is 5 Hoops, and 3 Ribbons/2 Balls. People who want chaos wish for 10 Clubs but that's not in the cards for the next quad either.
If you aren't used to watching Rhythmic I promise you are probably better at spotting when things go wrong than you think. You may not know what it is, but "wait that's not right" comes quickly. Because the IOC hates fun, there are only two medal events at the Olympics, the All Around in RGI and the All Around in RGG. At world championships there is the All Around for both individuals and groups, but there are also apparatus finals. Because there are no apparatus medals at the Olympics we sometimes wont get to see the real masters of a given apparatus. Imagine if you never got to see Sanne Wever's beam because to get to the Olympics she had to be one of the top 24 All Arounders in the world.
Which is really an important thing to point out. There are only 24 individual rhythmic gymnasts at the Olympics. That is a TINY fraction of the competitive field. Relative to international competition there will be many highly competitive RGIs left home compared to WAGs. I want to dwell on that point for a moment so I'm going to apply the RGI Olympic qualifying procedure to the Artistic field. Rhythmic worlds Olympic QFers were all non-nominative, meaning the place is awarded to the country not the gymnast by name.
If WAG Olympic QF looked like RGI:

• 2022 Worlds BRA, USA, GBR
• 2023 Worlds USA, CAN, BRA, ITA, CHN, CHN, FRA, NED, ALG, GBR, AUS, ITA, ROU, GER
• Continental Spots MEX, EGY, JPN, BEL, NZL
• Reallocated Host Spot KOR
• Plus a universality spot.

Congrats, each of those flags is 1 of your favorites. You only get 1 dutch WAG, who are you picking? You only get 2 Italians. We know what a bloodbath it was the last time the Romanians had to pick 1 WAG to go to the Olympics...
Back to the real world there are some heart breakers. There are 4 Bulgarians in the top 12 All Arounders this year. They have 2 spots in Paris. Other countries like Germany, Italy, and Ukraine will be leaving at least one great gymnast at home.
I'm going to go through the likely Olympic field, as well as some that will not make the Olympics because they deserve their flowers too. These routines are, for the most part, the their top scoring routines from 2024, or if I thought a 2023 Worlds routine is a better representative I've used that. For the top 5 All Arounders this year I'm showing you a routine on each apparatus.

• 😁= Going to be in Paris
• 😊= Likely to be in Paris
• 😑= Their country earned a spot and they could theoretically get named but aren't likely
• 😔= Will not be in Paris

😊 Stiliana Nikolova (BUL)

• Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-xvz7Rk3YM
• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQuolZ6zahg&t
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3JTV6EXFuk
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMjfe6ZxupE

I call Nikolova "Rhythmic Flavia" after her long lost sister Flavia Saraiva in every sense of the word. Incredibly talented. Incredibly beautiful. But also a reputation for errors in finals that hold her back. She qualified in 1st for the AA at 2023 Worlds but came in 4th in the final. Remember what I said about how you can probably spot something wrong with "that doesn't look natural?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLPt-3rifnA&t=119s
By the way, she's 18, just very short which isn't that common for a rhythmic gymnast. Her father was a professional football player and played in the 1986 FIFA World Cup for Bulgaria... continuing my theme of elite gymnasts with international footballer fathers.
😊 Sofia Raffaeli (ITA)

• Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0PRfw3QlDY
• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19WATrZLtv4
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe2uGnou2EU
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBXNG8JjG90

Sofia Raffaeli is the 2022 World Champion and the 2023 World Silver Medalist. She had a pretty major coaching change last year that was very disruptive and it's my perception that she has been doing a lot of tinkering with her routines.
😊 Daria Atamanov (ISR)

• Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Xba4BEXTw
• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVTKMYVT8yo
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqxs84hSsZQ&t
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6IB5unafh0

Are you starting to get a theme of music pandering to the Paris audience yet?
Atamanov was on a roll in 2022 as the European Champion (which means a LOT in RG), 2 gold medals at the World Games... and then she broke her leg in warmups at 2022 Worlds. She came back to win bronze in the AA at 2023 Worlds.
😊 Darja Varfolomeev (GER)

• Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofQdAoyV2cM
• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZf8ELx0Ujc
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1gI1KkKURU
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZUy2qtLguc

Varfolomeev was born in Siberia but left Russia when she was 12 to immigrate to the country of her grandfather. I've heard that Irina Viner thought Varfolomeev's body wasn't right for rhythmic... well she is the 2022 World Silver medalist and swept every gold at 2023 Worlds. One of the things that is really striking about Varfolomeev is that unlike most Germans she enthusiastically sings the German national anthem on the medal stand every. single. time. Which was a lot in Valencia.
😊 Boryana Kaleyn (BUL)

• Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh0NKOkYJHc
• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytKDdkoBQo
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8mpLYyBaI
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCldC-KVQJU

Remember what I said about how European Champions mean a lot in Rhythmic? Well Kaleyn is the 2023 European Champion. But she's been less successful at worlds relative to her continental success. 4 Worlds medals (1 team gold and 3 silvers) to 13 European Championship medals.
If I was a betting woman I'd say the Olympic medals are going to come from that first 5 gymnasts I introduced. There are others of course but these 5 gymnasts own all the World and European AA medals from this quad.
😊 Takhmina Ikromova (UZB)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chS5Y-8c8do
Ikromova owns the 11th highest All Around score of the year so far... her problem is those 5 big names hold the top 10 between them. Still she's the best rhythmic gymnast in Asia and came in 5th at worlds last year. On a good day she could medal in Paris but she may need help. And the Bulgarians are inclined towards helping others medal way too often for the sanity of their fans.
😑 Elvira Krasnobaeva (BUL)
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lw7_y3Rh50
Remember how limited the Olympic field is? Well this is the 7th best RGI by AA score this year. She almost certainly wont be in Paris because Kaleyn and Nikolova are just better bets.
😁 Elzhana Taniyeva (KAZ) - Asian Champs Quota
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb9gZGdUkZY
😊 Ekaterina Vedeneeva (SLO)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NByCW_nEUws
Bronze medalist with ribbon at 2022 and 2023 Worlds is the beloved veteran finally able to shine later in her career. Think about how WAG fans feel about Georgia Godwin or Ellie Black and mix that with the elegance of an Eythora Thorsdottir. She originally competed for Russia but switched to Slovenia in 2018, in contrast to someone I will mention later Irina Viner did not oppose her transfer. A key difference was that Viner never saw Vedeneeva as a threat to take medals from Russian gymnasts.
😑 Eva Brezalieva (BUL)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mTbBZS2TzQ
Remember how I said 4 of the top 12 All Arounders this year were Bulgarian? Meet number 4. Unfortunately for her they only have 2 spots in Paris.
😊 Alba Bautista (ESP)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyTRgKgyK6c
😊 Viktoriia Onopriienko (UKR)
Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4icRp-FX5Y
Bronze with clubs at 2023 Worlds, this is one of my favorite routines of last year. It also shows what the power of a giant crowd that actually has rhythm clapping unlike some depressing artistic gymnastics crowds. But you may know her from this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCHFWODAGY
😊 Margarita Kolosov (GER)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCwB_3ESnPQ
Remember how I said Germany will have a hard choice, after Varfolomeev they have two very talented gymnasts plagued with inconsistency. Kolosov is likely the one who will win out here (which some may feel is right as she earned the second German spot at worlds however the other athlete wasn't permitted to compete at 2023 Worlds....). I think of Kolosov for her incredibly aggressive towel throwing at the start of her walk out. Every time.
😑 Anastasia Simakova (GER)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OotziO4k34w
Kolosov can't breath easy because running neck and neck with her is her club mate Anastasia Simakova but if inconsistency marks both of them it does Simakova more. She had been a Jr. World Champion for Russia and came to Germany (where her parents had immigrated) in 2022. Simakova's family are from the ethnic German minority in Russia and she told Irina Viner that she was going to Germany to get (a very real) back injury treated. And never came back. The Disney Villain of Gymnastics was displeased and held up her country transfer for a year. A stress point is that she didn't immigrate to a country where it would be easier to make the Olympics. She moved to the one her parents had already immigrated to.
Viner has allowed Russian gymnasts to leave and compete for small unthreatening countries in the past, but generally those have been "B" team gymnasts. Simakova had far too much success and Germany (and her coach Yulia Raskina) were far to outside of Viner's control to allow it.
😊 Fanni Pigniczki (HUN)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsKKiL3kA1Y
The most successful Hungarian rhythmic gymnast ever, she won bronze with the hoop at 2023 Worlds. The Spanish crowd gave her a nickname after the motion one makes while making potato croqueta.
😊 Zohra Aghamirova (AZE)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVP7dSfv44k
😊 Helene Karbanov (FRA)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwD31PfYp-0
The French were very proud of the fact that they qualified both a group and an individual in their own right and didn't need a host spot. Karbanov doesn't quite have the difficulty to contend for medals but her artistry is lovely and enjoyable.
😊 Bárbara Domingos (BRA)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD_oAqQINLQ
Domingos is pretty decisively the best RG in the Americas right now and I expect insanity when Rhythmic Worlds is held in Brazil next year. One of the things I love about this routine is you can clearly see how they can't grip the ball so the handling has to be precise.
😊 Milena Baldassarri (ITA)
Hoop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6beHGGdPq7M
Baldassarri finished 6th in Tokyo and is probably the second Italian but she has a younger potential rival for that spot that is chasing at her heals.
😑 Tara Dragas (ITA)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cto6j-UgN6k
I actually think the fight between the Italians for the second spot should be tighter than the German race but I just can't let go of the sense that it will go to Baldassarri. Dragas is young though and surely a name for the LA quad.
😊 Polina Berezina (ESP)

• Ball (2023) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmXTWF44Xxg
• Clubs (Black Panther) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zCL9BUx1_0

This was my personal favorite ball routine of last year, it was choreographed for the University Games in Chengdu but she didn't end up going. She was very careful to make sure she included a mix of real Chinese martial arts movements. I also really like her 2024 Clubs to the music of Black Panther. Though Berezina was born in Russia and her sister works in film there now, she has lived in Spain since she was 4 and has had all her training in Spain. She is a product of the robust Spanish gymnastics system, not the Russian one.
😊 Annaliese Dragan (ROU)
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A5zc1Ts_gM
😁 Wang Zilu (CHN) - Reallocated Host Quota

• Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUE0Tw0VZH0
• Clubs - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYzhxyR8oT8
• Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNA-DYj-9Ek

We all have favorites and Wang Zilu is mine. Full disclosure.
😁 Aliaa Saleh (EGY) - African Championships Quota
Ball - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r40wQHtYQBA
😁 Evita Griskenas (USA) - Pan American Games Quota
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ergCL_3Ow
She is the 2019 Pan American Games AA champion and 2023 Pan American Games silver medalist. She will be the only American rhythmic representation in Paris as the US did not qualify a group.
😔 Alina Harnasko (AIN)
Ribbon - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YWf8A6Xem0
Harnasko is the Tokyo bronze medalist and without question I think the best non Bulgarian FIG authorized RGI who wont be in Paris. She can not qualify as her only path to the Olympics would have been the European Championships and European Gymnastics has maintained their ban. That said, I don't think even if Harnasko had been in Paris she would have medaled. Having watched her over the course of the season (as well as other Belarussians), it's fairly clear to me that the Belarussians haven't maintained the difficulty curve to stay competitive.
That covers the top individuals, there will be another European (not from a previously qualified country) and an Australian in the field. Group isn't my thing and I'm not keeping a running tally of the leading scores for groups so this will be a bit more vibes
Israel (2023 World Champions)
3 Ribbons/2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hVWyjhZzzU
I think at the moment Israel is the most likely to medal in group (if not gold). But Group can go south very quickly as seen with the same group doing the same routine at the Palaio Faliro World Cup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zl0WAhN3CE
Bulgaria (2022 World Champions)
3 Ribbons/2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXYwZmzSLZo
But I hear you saying, why do I think Israel has better odds than Bulgaria? They're stunning. And aren't they the Olympic champions? Well yes, A Buglarian group were the Olympic Champions, but this is a different Bulgarian group. They are much younger and the pressure on them is tremendous and cracks show quite frequently. Most tragically at 2023 Worlds. When your 5 Hoops routine is suddenly a 7 Hoops routine as you yeet the apparatus out of bounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVzWW0ulHFM
Spain
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LxSPZAK_Vo
China
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wd6wpMmFZo
I desperately want the Chinese group to medal in Paris. They're my favs. I'm sorry I can't talk more coherently about groups than I can about individuals.
Italy
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e05ezkvFHGg
Ukraine
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bUW61a17xU
Brazil
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlE2tP6mVRw
This is a very early season competition but it's my favorite mixed apparatus group routine this year and I think showcases how different styles can be integrated into rhythmic. I can't wait to see this routine in Paris.
France
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZu9ZkZNkyQ
Yes, this is the second Moulin Rouge I've shown you. Welcome to the Paris Olympics!
Mexico - Pan American Games Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K36uEWicn8
Egypt - African Championships Quota
3 Ribbons 2 Balls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXCmYIpyAI
Uzbekistan - Asian Championships Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGjMF3VIXjQ
Germany - Either the European Quota OR the Reallocated Host Quota
5 Hoops https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py7M0QKBZ3g
There will another European country which will either be whoever wins the European quota or if Germany wins it then AZE
I have been salty about the fact that Australia gets a free pass to the Olympics despite finishing 23 of 24 Groups at 2023 Worlds but apparently they have a new group this year who I'm assured is not that bad.
Anyway so that's the Olympic field, for the most part, because I'm a structural nerd I'm going to hit on a few other points.
Corruption
The sport has a terrible and long history of corruption, including judges cheating on FIG exams (you can thank rhythmic for why FIG doesn't like holding online exams), bribery, favoritism, and straight up writing the code of points to favor a particular athlete. I will be honest and tell you that the corruption kept me from giving the sport a chance for a long time and I don't blame you if you find it a non starter as well. It's still a problem but I have hope.
There is no getting around that Rhythmic is essentially an Eastern European sport and Russia has dominated for many years in part because of the immense amount of money they spend not just at home but in other federations. One might say that Irina Viner bought herself a sport. Not that it wasn't for sale before Viner.
To give a sense of the amount of money involved let's talk about palaces to Rhythmic Gymnastics. Literal Palaces.
This is the Irina Viner-Usmanova Gymnastics Palace in Moscow.
This is the National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan, built in large part for the first lady/vice president of the country whose favorite sport is... you guest it.
National Gymnastics Arena in Baku, Azerbaijan
Just the mention of Baku is enough to send some rhythmic fans into PTSD flashbacks for completely unjustifiable scoring (and terrible camera work and and and ...) . The fact that the arena was built for Rhythmic though, will explain to Artistic fans why the arena can't put both a beam and a set of parallel bars on it's floor space at the same time at the Baku World Cup.
The sport also has a vicious history of coaching abuse and eating disorders that I wont defend and I don't think has really been addressed. But the elephant in the room of all of this corruption and abuse is Irina Viner, the president of the Russian Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. Irina Viner was married to Oligarch Alisher Usmanov, at one point Russia's richest man. He's currently the president of the European Fencing Federation which explains how they've massively botched handling Russian athletes.
Her Wikipedia Article.
They divorced for financial reasons after Usmanov was subject to many many many sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. His mega yacht is stranded in Germany.
Anyway, Irina Viner dresses like a Disney Villain and acts like one too. After she viciously attacked the judges at the Tokyo Olympics she was banned for 2 years starting from the day after Russia's international ban ends.
https://preview.redd.it/0l3weeymcwzc1.jpg?width=866&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=960f12a402c0975dba57b994c64a50c826f91fe4
She has at different points told gymnasts that she'll kill them if they try to retire, and pulled Russian support from her own hand picked president of the Rhythmic Technical Committee because she didn't fall in line in Tokyo. The carrot to performing for Viner though is a promise of a marriage to an obscenely wealthy Russian man at the end of your career. Or you know... becoming the mother of Putin's children. Khorkina's face in this picture...
https://preview.redd.it/2vv649gscwzc1.jpg?width=2200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5514a3ffe55d47e28834bb3156ed49941b56f7d1
So they're banned and they've dominated the sport for so long surely they're doing amazing things at their domestic competitions now. Well... for values of amazing. Viner has decided to create her own personal code of points which the Russians are now competing to. It emphasizes elements that in previous FIG CoPs caused massive numbers of injuries. Massive scores despite obvious errors and their gymnasts are breaking down physically. They've also brought up a non-apparatus routine setting called Free Hands which is normally competed by juniors... but hey if Irina likes it she's playing in her own sandbox now.
Would the Russians be competitive if they were in Paris? Sure. Probably. But maybe not? It's hard to tell when they're playing in lala land and have routines composed for an entirely different code of points. No Russians have applied for FIG AIN status.
But here is the best part.... Rhythmic Gymnastics is taking the time they have without the Russians and without Viner and they're fixing as much as they can as fast as they can. The age for juniors was raised last year (something Irina very much did not want) and the 2025-28 Code of Points takes a hatchet to a lot of the difficulty stacking (very broad over simplification) that has been written into previous codes to favor particular Russian gymnasts. They're basically unwinding what she did to the CoP either directly or through her influence.
And right now Rhythmic is more competitive than it's ever been. A wide variety of countries are winning medals, and the RGI All Around in Paris looks to be the most unpredictable that it has ever been and much more unpredictable than the artistic all arounds.
The biggest looming issue for Rhythmic though is the IOC's clear dislike of single gendered sports. With the introduction of men to artistic swimming it's hard to think that Rhythmic will stay in the Olympics for very long if they don't find some way to include men.
There are two competing styles of men's rhythmic but neither has a mass of athletes. The first is Japanese Men's Rhythmic which includes things you normally would see in Artistic. Some argue that it's basically a different sport.
Japanese Men's Rhythmic Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D48ZPoY2e2Y
The second style is Spanish Men's Rhythmic which more closely echoes the women's discipline.
Spanish Men's Rhythmic Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BckY1Glglrg
Men's rhythmic faces a lot of resistance rooted in homophobia and I don't know how it's going to resolve. But the IOC is pretty much an unmovable object and they have been systematically forcing gendered integration on single gender sports.
If you want to learn more here is a great video from a few years ago about the state of Men's Rhythmic and showing a lot of examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNhLauzoYOk
I'll leave you off with one last routine.
😑 Taisiia Onofriichuk (UKR)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndz58tmfBVQ
Onofriichuk will almost certainly not be in Paris but I feel like her exhausting ribbon is a good way to end this marathon of a thread.

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