- Many Russian fans were sure that you left the sport immediately after the Olympic Games in Rio. But you have announced your retirement only now. What have you been doing these four and a half years?
- I tried to let go of the situation, wait for the solution to fully mature.
It would, of course, be wiser to leave immediately after the Games, but I didn't succeed.
This is generally difficult to do after you win an Olympic medal.
So I decided to give myself two years to deal with everything: with injuries, with training.
I was treated for a long time, underwent various rehabilitation courses, but I realized that my condition no longer allows me to return to the level at which I was used to performing.
Therefore, two years after Rio began to prepare herself for the fact that she should finally end her career.
But you yourself know how difficult it can be to do it.
This is the end of life, in fact.
- I know how painful it is to leave the sport at 22. But I have no idea how it feels when you are strongly over 30.
- To be honest, I was wildly afraid to make a decision.
After all, I have been involved in sports since childhood, since I remember myself as a very little girl.
My dad started coaching me at the age of five and it so happened that even as an adult, I had no idea what it was like to live outside of sports.
For professional athletes, sport often becomes not only a meaning, but also a way of life, and everyone is afraid to get out of this cocoon.
So I was scared.
I constantly asked myself the question: "What's next?"
Least of all I would like to start looking for an answer to this question after the sport is in the past, so I constantly racked my brains, scrolling in my thoughts a variety of options for the next life.
- So you can bring yourself to a nervous breakdown.
- To tell the truth, when I first thought about ending my career, I was hysterical.
Such a natural panic attack.
Fortunately, I was smart enough to understand that it just needs to be worked on.
Accept the thought of imminent departure, get used to it.
In the process of all these reflections, I came to the conclusion that everything that happens to me is absolutely normal.
Any athlete from the very beginning should understand, as it seems to me, that sport is just a part of his life, a temporary occupation.
You cannot run, swim, or jump up to 60, and it would be good to be aware of this from the very beginning.
- Yes, but not everyone succeeds ...
- In this regard, the last two years have served me excellently: I really managed to prepare myself to make a decision consciously and completely calmly.
There were no longer any doubts, I was not drawn back, and most importantly, I do not regret absolutely anything that happened in my life.
- I, like you, grew up in a sports family and I know very well how difficult and sometimes unbearable life can be when your father or mother is your coach ...
- You very honestly noticed that.
In my case, there were still more advantages than disadvantages, although certain difficulties, of course, did happen.
The main problem for both sides in such cases is always that the boundaries are blurred.
At first you tell yourself that dad is a coach in the gym, and dad is at home, but gradually you realize that training continues even when you are sitting at the table and having lunch.
I know that many athletes who found themselves in such a position began to confront very strongly with their relatives, up to a complete breakdown of any relationship.
I was lucky: my father and I have always had a very close inner bond, and I am glad that he has been coaching me all these years.
I mean, I trained - I’m never used to talking about it in the past tense.
We didn't even need to talk - dad always knew what I was thinking.
It is also important that in our mini-team there were not two of us, but three.
I mean my jumping coach Boyan Marinovic.
- Have you thought about following in your father's footsteps and becoming a coach after sports?
- Honestly, I'm not ready for this.
I have been inside the process for so many years, have gone through so many things that I simply do not find the courage to go this way again.
I would like to step aside, take a breath.
Probably, with my experience I could teach someone something.
Perhaps I could even succeed.
But no.
At the same time, I do not completely rule out the option that someday I want to train.
If, for example, I have a daughter as talented as I was.
- That is, children are still included in your life plans?
- I would really like to create a real family.
Perhaps this is my most passionate desire at the moment.
- Was it your deliberate choice to stay alone for so many years, or were the circumstances so?
- Both.
I was so focused on sports that I did not notice anyone or anything around.
Many times I fell in love with someone, but still all this remained in the background.
It is easier for men in this regard: if they want to have a family and children, they do not have to skip workouts, and in general somehow change their lives.
Everything is much more complicated with us.
- I would say that it is generally not easy for professional athletes to start a family: sport teaches too much to be selfish, proactive, to make decisions quickly, without too much regard for others, and these are not the best qualities for family life ...
- It seems to me that when the time comes and a person begins to feel the need for a family, any of us is ready to be patient, white and fluffy.
I didn't think so 10 or 20 years ago.
Now it seems to me that the medals and fame that accompany success are amazing, but they are not the essence of life.
It is much more important to meet a person next to whom I would like to grow old.
- Since we started talking about medals: what feeling at the Games in Beijing was the strongest - satisfaction from a great result, or the feeling that life was scattered into pieces?
- Definitely the second.
It is much easier to lose the World Cup.
And the Games are a completely different story, if only due to the fact that they are held every four years.
This is a long time for sports, anything can happen.
As, in fact, happened to me when, due to injury, I could not go to the 2012 Games in London.
When I lifted 2.05 m in Beijing and lost to Tie Ellebo in the number of attempts, the thought that our final was the most outstanding in the history of women's high jump was little consolation, nothing at all.
After a while, when the emotions subsided, I realized that I shouldn't have any reason to be upset at all.
It was a really grandiose performance, a grandiose tournament, and it is a great honor for an athlete to be a part of it and win a silver medal.
But the night that I went through after the defeat was definitely the hardest in my life.
- Many athletes who survived the Olympic defeat claimed that it helped them to extend their careers, find new motivation. Who knows how your sports life would have turned out if you had won gold in 2008?
- I don't think I would want to leave the sport.
After I became world champion in Osaka in 2007, my career has always been more about results than medals.
Not that I was chasing records, but I was sure that if I reached the level of consistently high results, the Olympic gold medal would not go away from me.
In 2009 I won the world championship for the second time, and perhaps that performance in Berlin was one of the greatest victories of my life.
I had no idea that defending the title would be so difficult.
But I did it.
At that time, I had such big plans in my head.
But big sport is always on the edge.
It's crazy how much you are willing to give to get to the top, and how quickly you can find yourself out of the game altogether.
- You are probably often asked about the world record of Stefka Kostadinova, which has been standing for 34 years, but I’ll ask about something else. What is one centimeter? The one that you did not have enough to catch up with the greatest record holder in history?
- I didn't think about it, to be honest.
When I began to jump at this level - 2.05, 2.06, 2.07, 2.08, everyone I met began to repeat: “Come on, Blanca, you are ready, already very close, here it is, a record, on a platter, extend your hand left".
And then the injury happened.
Then the second, the third.
And I gradually began to realize that my 2.08 will remain the limit.
But I have not had any regrets about this and I have not.
Although people still ask why then in Zagreb (August 31, 2009.
- RT
) I made no attempt to raise the altitude to 2.10.
My jump was absolutely crazy.
- Maybe it was really worth not to start dancing in the sector, spending emotions, but to make one more attempt?
- It's easy in words.
When you set your personal best, it's not easy to beat it in one performance.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to explain, but for me at that moment it didn’t matter at all whether my 2.08 would be officially credited or not.
The main thing was that I overcame this height, felt internally that I could.
The record is generally an interesting thing.
Too many things have to converge on one point.
You need to be ready, but not tired.
Therefore, the same world championships or the Olympics, where you have to qualify, and then step by step pass different heights, this is not the most suitable environment for records.
In Zagreb, everything was much simpler: I made only five attempts.
Regarding your question about one centimeter, my dad always said about this: “If you show your fingers, it's very little.
But sometimes the whole pyramid of your life lies under this centimeter. "
- Olympic champion Anna Chicherova, who won in London, called you the most charismatic and brilliant athlete of those years that passed from Beijing to Rio. Could you say that about any of your rivals?
- Oh my God!
Did Anna really say that?
I'm flattered, really.
I had absolutely outstanding rivals, and Chicherova was certainly one of them.
But I can hardly single out one.
Each of the athletes with whom I had a chance to compete in the sector was a strong personality, very bright.
Perhaps this is not always visible from the outside, especially when a person is not inclined to draw attention to himself when communicating with the outside world, but it seems to me that this should be done.
The publicity and recognition of athletes is something that is really necessary for our sport, and for any other too: the result alone is not always enough to draw attention to you.
And even more so to become a star.
- So that's why you started dancing in the sector!
- No, not at all, for the first time everything came out spontaneously, but in the end, you see, it turned out to be a good PR move.
People are much more interested in watching sports when they see emotions they understand.
- Sometimes it is very difficult during a competition not to wish an opponent bad luck. Do you know this feeling?
- From the very beginning of my career, I very clearly understood that it is foolish to wish someone bad luck just because he is your rival.
And how in general can you wish this to people who, trying to show results as much as I myself, train in the same way for many hours a day, monitor their diet, denying themselves many things, cry when it becomes unbearably hard ...
And besides, I never wanted my opponents to fail.
On the contrary, I wanted them to show everything they were capable of, and I became the best.
This has been my most powerful motivation over the years.
- What kind of relationship do you have with Tia Ellebo and Ruth Beithia, whom you lost in Beijing and Rio?
- None.
I was generally not inclined to form friendships with those with whom I compete.
We talked normally, hugged each other, congratulating each other on this or that success, but this is definitely not the kind of relationship when you can dial a phone number and ask how a person is doing.
- What creates more stress - when Olympic gold is on the line, or a million dollars?
- It is impossible to compare - too different things.
- It just seemed to me that you can do it, because you lost both gold - in Beijing and Rio, and $ 1 million - in the IAAF Golden League in 2008 ...
- Surprisingly, that case did not remain in my memory as something that I would regret.
If it suddenly occurs to me to make a list of my life failures, the loss of a million dollars there will definitely not be listed under any item.
It was definitely more difficult to compete at the Olympics, and the defeat was perceived as much more tragic.
After Beijing, there was such a devastation that now I probably don't really remember what and how happened in Brussels.
Money itself has never been an incentive for me, but as for the competition, I took two meters, and it was more than a good result against the background of everything that I had to go through.
In some sense, I am generally a fatalist: I think that if something happened to you, it means that it should have happened.
- What role does money play in your life now?
- I am glad that I have my own home, a car that I like, I am glad that I can travel the world without worrying too much about how much it costs, and in general it is nice to realize that you can live without thinking every hour about , where and how to earn bread.
- Have you ever wanted to go to live or study abroad?
- When I was younger, I was offered a scholarship at one of the American universities, but I did not even consider the option of leaving.
What for?
At home in Split, I felt absolutely comfortable, as well as among the people with whom I worked, we were a great team, so there was no thought to change anything.
- Didn't it even bother you that you don't have any sparring in training?
- I never aspired to him.
My father developed for me a whole system of all kinds of exercises, in each of which I had a separate personal best.
Therefore, at every training session, I had the opportunity to surpass some of these records.
This, in fact, was my main motivation - to be better than yesterday.
I didn't need any sparring for this.
- Returning to Kostadinova's record: do you think it is eternal?
- Of course not.
I fully admit that this young Ukrainian girl (Yaroslava Maguchikh.
- RT
), who, at the age of 19, jumps 2.06
, will be able to beat him
.
- Why not Maria Lasitskene?
- Well, of course, I'm not discounting her either.
It's just that the Ukrainian is fresh, and this in our sport can be quite important.
But I would definitely like to see how these two compete.
- One of the great athletes of the past once said that American Bob Beamon, with his incredible world record set at the Games in Mexico City, killed an entire generation of long jumpers.
- Do you think it deprived them of motivation?
- Definitely. What's the point of going out of your way when you know that the record is out of reach?
- There are just victories.
At the world championships, at the Olympic Games, where record results are not at all a prerequisite.
- How was it at the Games in Rio in 2016, where the Spaniard didn't need to raise the bar even to two meters to win?
- Quite right.
- What feelings does the high jumper experience at the moment of the jump?
- In what sense?
- Well, for example, when an athlete jumps into the water from a ten-meter platform, he feels absolutely everything during rotation in the air: where is the tower, where is the water, how close the edge of the projectile is, in what position the shoulders, knees, toes.
You can even hear who is saying what on the side ...
- You actually described everything exhaustively.
This is exactly how it is.
I am often asked: what does an athlete think about before starting a run?
Or at the moment of repulsion?
And it can be difficult to explain that you shouldn't think about something at the moment of the jump.
Everything that happens, of course, is fixed in the head, but you always concentrate on something very specific.
For example, on how to control the take-off speed and the height of the hips.
These are the very things that determine the perfect jump in many ways.
And it is very desirable that there is nothing else in the head.
- Writers love to abuse the phrase: "At that moment, the whole life flashed before my eyes." Have you ever experienced something like this?
- You know, when I was a little girl and watched sports on TV, I really wanted to know how people with a gold medal around their necks feel when they listen to their national anthem.
I tried to imagine how I would feel myself, being on the pedestal.
And when it happened in Osaka after my first major victory, it was just the case when everything came to mind at once.
Especially those times when it was really hard.
It was one of the most emotional moments of my life.
I cried like a little child.
I suspected it would touch me deeply, but I didn't think it would.
- But Anna Chicherova once said, when it came to jumping to music, that she would prefer to go for a record accompanied by the national anthem. Does music while jumping help you concentrate, or is it annoying?
- Probably neither one nor the other.
Jumps to music are usually held in a very "chamber" format.
It’s not the music itself that brings more pleasure, but the feeling that the audience is at arm's length.
This greatly electrifies the atmosphere.
When you jump in a large stadium, the sensations are different, more ambitious, or something.
- What's the coolest thing about being a professional athlete and not being one?
- The coolest thing is when you stop performing, stop looking at your own plate with the thought: can I afford to eat this, or not?
Girls who are engaged in high jumps will understand me - you constantly go hungry.
Anyway, when you end your career, there is a tremendous feeling of relief: "I shouldn't."
The athlete always "has to", always feels the pressure that pushes forward.
Sport in this regard is one of the most difficult and amazing areas of human activity, because for the sake of the result, you must give everything to your profession: body, soul, mind.
This is a non-stop work 24/7.
Even when you sleep, you are actually working, because the main task of sleep is to recover before the next workout.
And the best in sports is the people who root for you.
Fans.
They were amazing for me.
When completely unfamiliar fans tell how they felt, how they cried with happiness when I won, this is a very special feeling.
Non-transferable.
- You still communicate a lot with fans on social networks. Is this an inherent need for status, or just like it?
- Actually, I am a very private person, and I never liked drawing attention to myself by posting something on social networks.
Most of the public events during the speeches were a kind of obligation, additional work prescribed in contracts.
I will not say that it was a problem for me, but rather a part of the profession, but I understood how much all these things can distract from the main thing.
Therefore, at some point in her career, she simply turned to specialists who took on part of the responsibilities in this regard.
Now it has become much easier: I don't need to go to workout twice a day, I don't need to sleep in between, I don't need to think about a bunch of things.
I have more free time, including being active on the social network.
But in reality it is still part of the job.
- How do you imagine your life in 10 years?
- I hope that I will still have a family, and, besides, I would like to stay in sports in some capacity - to share my experience with young athletes, perhaps.
- The experience of how to jump high, or achieve a goal?
- Both.
A long career, in addition to narrowly specialized skills, teaches a lot: how to cope with stress, with difficult situations, with external pressure, how to continue to be the best in this state.
Many people have similar problems these days.
Even those who have never played sports in their lives.
It seems to me that my experience in this regard can be very useful and in demand.
- What advice would you give to your younger brother Nikolay, who now plays for PFC CSKA, if he asked about it?
“I don’t remember if I ever told him that, but one of the most important things in life is, in my opinion, to remain a simple person, no matter what the scale of fame and success falls on you.
All this as it comes and goes, and it would be nice, as they say, to stand firmly on the ground.
In every sense of the word.