“I do not regret that I didn’t get the wires”: Volkov biathlete on retirement and work as a coach in the Russian team

- A significant part of your sports life, in spite of the brightness of the titles, passed behind the scenes for journalists, and leaving was just as inconspicuous. At what point did you finally decide to end with active performances?

- In principle, from the very beginning of last season I understood that this year is likely to be the last for me. The plans were grandiose, but from the very beginning of preparation everything went a little wrong. But since I began to prepare for the season, I decided that it would be wrong if it turned out to be ragged.

- Can you tell us more about the plans you were building?

- I planned to prepare not as I had done all previous years, but with a more skiing bias and under the guidance of a ski coach. With Andrei Kryuchkov, with whom I had worked for several years before, I continued to communicate very closely, discuss many issues that interest me, make some adjustments to the work, but in general the circumstances were such that the preparatory period turned out to be a little crumpled for a number of reasons. The reasons I would not want to voice.

- Did you prepare, as far as I remember, on your own?

- Yes, not with the team - mostly trained alone. My Ugra sports leaders fully supported all my plans, for which many thanks to them. Funds were allocated, no one intervened in the training process, on the contrary, they helped me in every way in terms of organization.

“But did you have any sparring, as you did with Anton Shipulin?”

- The preseason began with the fact that I went to the Crimea with the CSKA team under the leadership of Nikolai Pankratov. At that gathering were Yura Shopin, Petya Pashchenko, Nikita Surkov, Maxim Tsvetkov - that is, a pretty good company gathered. This gathering was purely retractable, without firing, but we did a good job. Then I traveled to Belarus together with Yuri Shopin, after that I went with the Ugra team to Khanty-Mansiysk, to Kazakhstan ...

“At what point did you feel that something was going wrong?”

- Probably with the first starts.

- When in the fall failed to qualify for the main team of the national team?

- Yes. Why did it happen, I understood: because of the disease, the summer turned out to be a little crumpled, and at the wheel I also got a little sick. Before the Izhevsk rifle, her condition was also not the best, but it was already a kind of consequence of previously untreated colds. It was already necessary to go to the end: how it will turn out, so it will turn out. If, instead of training, I would continue to be treated further, there would definitely be no sense in preparing for performances. And it turned out how it happened.

- A couple of years ago you said in an interview: “I’m constantly sorting out somewhere.” Was the same feeling this year?

- I missed the first selection, and then, by and large, there were no options.

- Why?

- Because in this way the selection rules were spelled out in that year. I can’t say that I was very worried about this: I had already decided that I was running out to the Russian Cups, I would play in the Russian Championship, and I tuned in quite seriously. At that moment, I began to seriously think about the fact that it was already time to end with a sports career.

- When did you officially announce that you are finishing speaking?

- I did not announce it.

“But you probably wanted some kind of solemn farewell, some kind of final public start?”

- All this was going to be done at the Russian championship in Khanty-Mansiysk. Even certain plans were being made. But then the tournament was canceled.

- That is, the coronavirus pandemic and the measures taken in connection with it did not allow to end normally not only the season, but the career as a whole?

- In fact, I do not regret very much that some wires did not work out. Rather, they probably regret those who have not visited these wires.

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Publication by Alexey Volkov (@ vol4ikov) Oct 12, 2019 at 12:49 pm PDT

- How long have you hatched the decision to become a coach? Or just accepted the proposal?

- When I thought about what to do after sports, and I had a lot of ideas on this subject, one of the directions was just coaching. In some way I asked for a team myself. We once spoke with Yevgeny Leonidovich Redkin (Olympic champion and world champion, head of the SBR coaching council. - RT ) about what my future plans are and do I want to try myself as a coach? I replied that I have such thoughts. So he proposed my candidacy to Valery Polkhovsky (vice president of the RRF. - RT ).

- That is, now you have every chance to get approved and become one of the coaches of the national team. How do you feel about it? Going to study or study?

- First of all, probably to teach.

- What?

- I can imagine exactly which of the athletes will be in the squad, I know these guys, because I ran with them over the past years. The guys even then turned to me for some advice, asked something, so there is trust on their part. I never abuse such things, by the way. I always try first to thoroughly understand this or that situation and only then give some practical advice.

- It is assumed that you will work with the reserve?

- So far, such plans. To help the head coach of the team Nikolai Nikolaevich Knyazev. 

- You are not confused by the fact that, having started to work, you may be deprived of any kind of independence?

- I think that Nikolai Nikolayevich and I will have no problems with this. We from one region, have long known each other, worked in the same team back in 2011-2012, when he joined the national team as a coach of the second composition. In other words, some discussions of training plans have happened repeatedly, and we always come to an understanding. Therefore, the situation "I said so, and it will be that way," I do not admit in principle.

- Watching what is happening in the Russian biathlon now, do you have the feeling that both the coaches and the athletes have reached a dead end, from which there is no way out?

- There is always a way out. Just in any conflict you need to listen to all parties.

- I’m not even talking about conflicts, but about the result. Sometimes it’s time to think that someone cursed our Russian biathlon. Whatever coach comes to the team - there is no result, which athlete does not get to the start - he stops running and shooting.

- Since I was never included in the leadership of the team, I don’t know the whole essence of the situation.

I can only watch what is happening from the side, and to talk about something does not even make sense. Therefore, I am waiting for our sporting life to return to normal, and together we will come to at least some kind of result.

- If you were offered to enter the coaching staff of the main team, would you agree?

- Yes.

- Wouldn’t you be afraid? After all, even this season has shown that anyone can suddenly be made almost the main culprit of failures, as happened with the same Vitaly Noritsyn ...

- Personally, it seems to me, I would not lose anything by making such a decision, because I initially decided for myself: I go to the team to share knowledge. No one will take this knowledge from me. Well, if they turn out to be unclaimed, this is also an experience, albeit rather bitter.

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Publication by Alexey Volkov (@ vol4ikov) Sep 25, 2016 at 7:29 am PDT

- Now, looking back, don’t you think that you made a mistake, leaving together with Anton Shipulin to self-training in fact as a sparring partner? Was leaving a reason why many plans remained unfulfilled?

- I’m not sure that I’m ready to consider my seven gold medals of the European Championships and the relay gold of the World Cup unrealized plans. Plus a personal medal in the individual World Cup. Plus - the overall IBU Cup standings, although I never planned to win it. Well, yes, with some things it did not work out, but I still think that those years were the best training years that I have ever had. Allowed to gain as much knowledge as the team should work. It seems to me that such a project has not been implemented in many places: when there are three athletes, three coaches, and everyone works at the maximum.

- Personally, it seems absurd to me that neither Kryuchkov nor Andrei Gerbulov are involved in any way in training the country's strongest biathletes.

- I think so too. And what to do?

- After the decision to disqualify Yevgeny Ustyugov, you, like the other participants in the victorious Russian relay race, were deprived of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Gold Medal. Is this sad story over, or will there be any appeals, courts?

- The appeal has already been prepared, the only question is how soon the court can go through in connection with the quarantine situation in the world.

- That is, do you intend to fight to the last?

- Yes of course.

- How strong was the news about the deprivation of a relay race for Russia?

- In the light of all the ongoing and constant pressure on our country, which has taken place over the past years, I expected this. That the story is not finished, and that at any moment certain sanctions can affect everyone. That is, psychologically, after the removal, or rather, the non-invitation of many Russian athletes to the Olympics in Korea, I was ready for any turn of events. In 2018, he was very worried, now, let’s say so, he has accumulated wisdom.

- Have you already managed to be puzzled with plans for the upcoming season?

- From the first day, as soon as I found out that a proposal had been put forward to appoint me a reserve coach, I began to prepare for this. Already there is an approximate understanding of how the work should be structured, if due to coronavirus fees will begin only in July, what are the nuances if there are no trips abroad, that is, I try to work out all such trifles in my mind. What an athlete can do at home if he does not have access to the gym or to the shooting range.

- How exactly can a biathlete maintain a state of physical and functional readiness while in isolation? Is it possible, relatively speaking, to replace professional simulators with improvised means and how to work on shooting? In other words, what would you do if you remained an active athlete?

- There are many exercises with shooting. If you have pneumatics at home, you can do a lot of work with it. It’s not even necessary to shoot, just a blank exercise machine. In terms of exercise, you can do a lot of work with your own weight.

For example, I have a bicycle with a machine at home. This machine is easy to hang. A treadmill can be at home. That is, if you want, you can find a lot of variations for training. For those who live in their own house, even if the plot is only ten acres, you can make a path around and around the perimeter and run a hundred meters - this is also a way out of the situation. This is much better than sitting around doing nothing and complaining about the situation.

- I know that relatives of all biathletes, without exception, are always waiting for the moment when a person ends his career and finally ceases to be absent for six months. By signing up for coaching, you are actually returning to your previous schedule. How does your wife feel about this, given that the second child has not yet turned six months old?

“We learn all the news from the Internet, so we initially read about my potential appointment online.” At first, both sat in mild shock, not knowing what to say to each other.

“And what did they say in the end?”

- On the one hand, Zhenechka, of course, wants to support me, since I consider coaching to be a new life goal, on the other hand, she certainly hoped that I would be home more often. But at least when I get home, I will no longer need to do two workouts a day.

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Publication by Alexey Volkov (@ vol4ikov) Jul 8, 2019 at 9:21 am PDT