- Now that everything is over for duets, can you tell us about what is left behind the scenes?
- A lot of things are left.
It's just that such things are not voiced.
Four seasons after the Rio Games, we just practiced as usual.
But the last year and a half, and especially the last month before the Games, turned into one endless nightmare.
- I saw how Anton Chupkov “rang” a year ago in swimming, and what a strong decline he began after the Olympics were postponed for a year. But you and your girls should have experienced the same thing.
- I can say with absolute certainty that we were 100% ready for the Olympics that did not take place a year ago. When we received the news that the Games were postponed for a year, and, as you understand, strength does not increase with age, we turned on our brains and began to think about how to rebuild the preparation for the Games. Perhaps we would have had enough of the accumulated reserve, but we could not afford to risk leaving everything as it was. Moreover, they did not have the slightest idea of how the same Chinese are preparing for the Games.
That is why they began to change one of the programs.
I didn't want the girls to stumble in one place, repeating the same production day after day.
It was important to come up with something so as not to sour.
It worked.
In addition to the program, I changed a lot in training, in practicing technique, in the work that we did in the gym.
I constantly came up with something in connection with this.
- At least once you had the thought that you might not reach your goal?
- The main concern was different.
That the Olympics will be canceled.
One of the last hassles on this topic we had a few days before the opening of the Games, when the news came out that Japan was going to discuss this issue again.
Many teams at that time had already stopped in the Olympic village, their preliminary competitions began, and here I already calmed down a little.
I understood that canceling the Games at this stage would have been completely indecent on the part of the organizers.
- What thoughts crossed your mind at the moment when Romashina and Kolesnichenko turned on someone else's music in the preliminary competitions?
- Non-printable. At first I could not believe my ears and even, it seems, swore aloud. At the same time, she noted that the girls sit on the side in a starting position and do not move, which means that they are fully aware of what is happening and are waiting for the judge's signals, as prescribed by the rules. Well, when the preliminary run of the program was over, everything that had accumulated somehow fell on me at once. Pandemic, waiting for the Games, these endless spitting into a test tube, waiting for the test results ...
That is, all this huge tangle, which for the time being sat deep inside, as if exploded and poured out through tears. I hugged my daughter, who was standing next to me, and burst into tears like a small child cries from a strong resentment. I understood that all the worst was over, that everything was going well, but I could not stop. Someone gave me drink, someone massaged my shoulders, someone tried to tell something funny, and I cried, cried and cried. And only after some time, I felt that with the tears wept out, a tremendous relief came.
It was really terrible - every morning to spit in this damn test tube and understand that nothing depends on you.
That your whole life can be crossed out by one positive test.
On the day of the finale, I woke up with some disgusting, sticky fear.
And when at two o'clock in the afternoon they did not call us, which meant that all the tests were normal, I suddenly realized that I was not afraid of anything else at all.
No rivals, no competition, no that some mistake might happen ... All of this could not be compared to the stress of thinking that you might have a positive test.
- After the technical program, you posted a post on social networks with the words that the worst is over.
- Technical elements - push-offs, screws - this is really the most difficult part of the competition. They are difficult to perform even in solo, where there is one athlete. It is doubly difficult to do everything absolutely synchronously in a duet, especially since the judges look closely and find fault with absolutely everything: to blots, to synchronization, to the height of the performance of the elements. In the free program, they evaluate the performances much more loyally. This is generally a big illusion that our girls are not mistaken. In training, mistakes happen all the time - after all, all are living people.
And my task as a coach is to bring athletes to the competition at their peak, with maximum concentration and self-confidence.
This is the most difficult thing in coaching work - to make sure that a huge number of all kinds of components, starting from well-being, on the day of the performance are brought together at the highest point.
Therefore, I am very pleased.
If we compare Romashina and Kolesnichenko with their rivals, their superiority in fairness should have been four to five points.
It's just that the judges have no right to allow such breaks.
- What now? Another sailing regatta or shooting competition?
- It would be nice to return home first. We fly to Moscow the day after the closing of the Games. I would have flown away earlier, but the girls were asked to stay until they finished competing in the group. And then everything was planned: first, shooting, then sail, then fishing. And I would also like to have time to chase mushrooms!