"Individual successes could be considered random": Polkhovsky about three medals of Russians at the KM biathlon stage in Antholz

- During the season, did you see any prerequisites for the results that the Russian team showed at the World Cup in Antholz?

- First of all, the great work that was done in the preparatory period by both the men's and women's teams affected.

By the beginning of the season, we were not able to come up fully armed due to the lack of intensive developmental work - we, the coaches, understood this.

As well as the fact that you will have to compensate for this shortage, gain speed qualities primarily through starts.

Personally, I explain the somewhat belated set of forms by all athletes precisely by this.

Now the work has finally begun to bring results.

- So, this is not just a coincidence, a kind of magic of Antholz?

- Some isolated successes could be considered random.

We see that there is a fairly powerful rise in the entire team.

Both male and female.

In principle, such a set of forms was practiced back in Soviet times, but now the reality is such that you need to be much quicker and show a certain level of results already at the first starts.

- For the Russian biathlon for years it was typical to prepare the team exclusively for the main start.

Why change something now?

- I'm not saying what needs to be changed, but it is necessary to make certain adjustments.

At least in order not to correct the flaws of the preparatory period during the season, as we had to do.

When there is no speed reserve, shooting invariably begins to suffer, and in the aggregate, all this creates a difficult atmosphere in the team.

- The shooting caused a lot of criticism during this season.

Don't you think it was a kind of professional miscalculation that you involved people with almost no training experience in shooting training?

- Both Alexey Volkov and Maxim Maksimov were quite good shooters when they were athletes, and the main idea when they were appointed was that they might be able to quickly convey some things to the athletes.

This is partly justified.

- In other words, do you plan to make adjustments to the coaching staff and attract some new shooting specialists?

- It's too early to talk about it now.

Time will tell.

Ahead is the world championship, where it would be good to preserve everything that we have now, and at the end of the season the coaching council will assess the work of each specialist and the coaching staff as a whole.

- Mistakes at the final lines, which Svetlana Mironova, Alexander Loginov made at key moments of the races - is this a problem, or is it just a working moment?

- There are some systemic flaws that the coaches are working on.

Personally, I think it's fixable.

- Is it even possible to raise the percentage of successful shooting during the season?

Or is it still a matter of much longer summer training?

- It should be based on the basic work carried out in the preparatory period.

Although the same Mironova improved her performance during the season very much.

I already have a work plan for the next season, aimed precisely at ensuring that athletes can maximize their performance in shooting.

- Do you remember the most powerful shooting progress of any of your players?

- Offhand - hardly.

For such progress, it is not enough just a natural disposition to shoot.

It is necessary for the athlete to invest as much as possible in the work, to really want to change something for the better.

In the rifle unit, everything depends on the head, on your own mood.

How an athlete thinks, how he analyzes mistakes, what he does to correct them.

At one time, we worked a lot on this with Anton Shipulin.

And I consider Anton's flawless shooting in the Sochi Olympic relay to be the result of precisely those joint developments.

- By the way, were you not scared by the protracted series of failures in the first half of the season of the leader of the national team Loginov?

- No.

Sasha and I were constantly in touch, I knew how he trained, what work he did, so I just had to wait for the athlete to get in shape.

That Loginov did by January, despite all the personal problems.

Now I see that he is constantly smiling, in a normal mood, so there is no reason to worry about him beyond measure.

- The senior coach of the women's team Mikhail Shashilov said before the relay: they say, whoever they say to put on this or that stage, we will put it.

Does this mean that the line-up decisions are made above?

- All decisions are made by the coaching staff.

This is the head coach, that is, me, and the head coaches of both teams.

There is no pressure from the RBU on us in this regard.

- Why was Tatyana Akimova so late attracted to the World Cup?

- The beginning of the season for Tanya turned out to be difficult, so there was no reason to call the athlete to the main team.

All these windings for domestic starts, IBU cups, of course, unsettle the athlete, and Tanya had a hard time in this regard, but on the other hand, there are general criteria for selection to the team.

Time will tell whether they are right or wrong.

Now Akimova will go with the main team to the final training camp in Pokljuka and will prepare for the World Championship.

- Was the Antholz relay race with the placement of athletes in stages a dress rehearsal and will remain unchanged, or will experiments with the compositions continue?

- I would call it a breakdown of our main version of both male and female fours, but we still have a fallback.

The European Championship is ahead, and I absolutely do not exclude the possibility that those will be called up to the team: who will perform in the most successful way, plus, we will look at their well-being, who is in what state before this or that start.

Before relay races as well.

- Why did you choose Pokljuka as a place for the final camp?

- Because it was there that we found the optimal conditions for training.

The team will live at the same height where the competition will be held, that is, we will have time to fully adapt, and at the same time we will avoid any unnecessary travel.

All this was discussed for a long time, and the coaches did not express any objections.

- How do you plan to conduct the final stage of preparation?

- As usual.

Let's see what condition the athletes are in, give them the opportunity to recover and then begin to bring the team to performances.