"There was a lot of pain ... Moral, physical": synchronized swimmer Shurochkina about hard training, long hair and excess weight

- When you win the Olympics for the first time, it usually takes a very long time to believe in it.

Did you have that feeling at the Games in Brazil?

- I remember very well how I stood on the pedestal, and I had not only tears, but no emotions at all, as if everything inside was burnt out.

Everything was thrown out, apparently, during the preparation for the Games.

The first conscious feeling appeared only the next morning.

It was a very bright and joyful feeling of some absolutely incredible inner freedom: you don't need to go to training, you don't need to limit yourself in anything.

And only a week later, it finally dawned on me that I had won the most important start in my life - I became an Olympic champion.

- Has this realization somehow changed you internally?

- The fact of the matter is that no.

Unless she became a little more self-confident.

Still, such a victory makes you think that you managed to do something that you were striving for, but so many people could not do it.

I remember that I came home from Brazil, my dad immediately took the medal from me, put it in the safe, locked the room where the safe was, and said: "I will cherish this award like the apple of my eye."

- How was the second victory perceived?

- Quite differently.

Preparations for the Tokyo Games were generally much more difficult than when we were preparing for Rio.

There was a lot of pain.

Moral, physical.

And when I stood on the pedestal, tears really shed.

They poured almost immediately after we finished the performance, but I somehow held on, I understood that now all of us would be shown in close-up, and I ought to smile: after all, there are champions.

But on the pedestal, tears flowed again.

Then I watched the video and even thought: what a happiness that the camera was not pointed at me.

- A lot of pain - what are you talking about?

- We had very tough training.

And our coach is tough.

In the sense that there is a certain strategy for preparing an athlete for the Games at a psychological level.

So that he was ready for absolutely everything and did not flinch at the most crucial moment.

I can honestly say that at this stage of preparation, there are no "carrots" anymore.

Only the whip.

But it really works.

Especially in a group.

- Doesn't such toughness on the part of the coach offend you?

- Of course, of course.

But at the same time it pushes you forward.

Because I want to prove not only to the coach, but above all to myself that you are worth something.

In fact, Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya is an amazing person.

If we do everything well, she will never praise.

He will always find something to find fault with and who to make a comment.

But when you do something bad, on the contrary, begins to celebrate what happened.

In short, you never know how she will react.

It definitely doesn’t get boring.

- It is enough to look at your Instagram to understand that you are a very strong and completely self-sufficient person.

It seems to me that it should be very difficult for a person with such a character in a group sport.

After all, the group is essentially the same army.

- You're right, it's hard, and not only for me.

All our girls have very complex and strong characters, but at the same time we need to find a common language.

Seek mutual understanding, sacrifice something, let some things go deafening, or, conversely, insist on your own, but at the same time not offend anyone.

This is such a continuous work, like in a large family.

I myself am a creative person by nature, so constant and very strong concentration on sports is a big load for me.

It’s even strange: with my absent-mindedness, forgetfulness and a tendency to soar in the clouds, I play almost the most responsible role in the group.

- How do you yourself explain such a paradox?

- I thought a lot on this topic and found an explanation for myself.

After all, a person is never sent something that he cannot do.

And since the universe has ordered this in relation to me, it means that I must make every effort to bear this cross with dignity.

So that she could be proud of herself later.

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Publication from Maria Shurochkina (@mashuniashura)

- The person performing all the supports is a kind of soloist for whom the whole group works in one way or another.

Does it add responsibility?

- Yes, and a lot.

If someone makes a mistake below under the water, pushing me out in support, no one will ever know about it.

Everyone will only see my mistake.

- What can be done wrong below?

- Hands can fall off - there is also a whole system of interactions.

The slightest inaccuracy in the grips is enough, and the "raft" that pushes me tilts, and I fly away not up, but to the side.

Or the leg may slip and the height is immediately lost.

But outwardly - this is again my mistake.

- Based on the actions of other athletes at the time of the throw, are you able to calculate the probability of an error in advance?

- As a rule, no.

Unless something really out of the ordinary will happen.

I usually concentrate very much on my own actions.

When support does not work, Tatyana Nikolaevna usually immediately beckons me to the side and asks: "Shurochkina, what was wrong below?"

And I can't always answer.

- Remember the most difficult moment of your speech?

- European Championship in Budapest, which was before the Olympics.

At that time, the day before the start of the competition, one of the athletes who was standing on the grid got sick, and we had to put in a spare - Veronica Kalinina.

The "grid" is the base from which I jump.

In other words, the hands that I have become accustomed to over the years and which are familiar to me thoroughly.

And suddenly they change in a situation where it is impossible even to carry out an extra workout in order to get used to new sensations.

But we did it.

In Tokyo, Veronica was again a substitute, and it seems terribly unfair to me that she did not receive a medal on a par with us.

- You performed for the first time at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona.

How long did it take to get to the team?

- I wouldn't say.

Some of the girls and I came to the national team after the Games in London, and I immediately got into the main squad, because I did support.

Then, by the way, I very clearly understood how much I owed my mother the fact that from the very childhood she set me up for acrobatics.

At that time I did not understand why I needed this at all, but at my mother's insistence I went to the gym together with the divers into the water, and all this bore fruit.

Probably, it was also affected by the fact that I was a very pliable child: they told me to do something, so I need to do it.

And only then it dawned on me that, in comparison with other girls, I have a certain trump card.

By the way, there was also a difficult moment at that World Championship.

I became very ill a month before the competition, I was admitted to the hospital, underwent laparoscopy, that is, there were at best two weeks left for recovery.

- The option to skip the competition was not considered in principle?

- I really didn't want it.

I was preparing for that start so much, I wanted to perform so much that I decided, at least, to try to compete for a place in the team.

I could not get up for support after the operation, but there was a place in the group, which, besides me, was claimed by another girl.

As a result, I won this competition, although it was very painful to work in the water.

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Publication from Maria Shurochkina (@mashuniashura)

- Pokrovskaya said in Tokyo that your whole group is leaving the sport after the Games.

Is it really so?

- I don’t know why Tatyana Nikolaevna decided that.

None of us have announced our retirement yet.

- In other words, does Maria Shurochkina intend to prepare for the third Games?

- While you just want to relax.

Longer.

And I don’t want to think of anything.

What if I find something to do that will make me stop thinking about sports altogether?

Or maybe, during the rest, on the contrary, it turns out that I cannot live without synchronized swimming and without this narcotic feeling of Olympic victories?

For some reason, aren't the girls coming back?

- Does the Olympics really leave a narcotic feeling?

- Yes.

Starting from the moment you get to the Olympic village.

In Rio I was 21, in Tokyo - 26, and the feelings remained the same.

Everything merges together: children's pipe dreams that suddenly came true in a fabulous way, a dining room where there is a lot of delicious food and at every step you are surrounded by stars from all over the world, the anticipation of something incredible.

All this gives rise to such strong emotions that sometimes it is difficult to concentrate on the upcoming performance.

- How does delicious food combine with the need to keep weight firmly?

- With difficulties.

I know from myself: when you completely abstain from sweets for a long time and then break down, three days are enough for the weight gain to become noticeable.

For example, I don't eat bread.

But in the Olympic cafeteria there were such amazing buns with maple syrup ... I ate them only in the morning, one piece at a time, but closer to the start it seemed to me that the weight had grown.

Maybe it just seemed to me.

- Don't the coaches weigh you?

- Tatyana Nikolaevna believes that there is no need to do this.

All adults, everyone understands what they are working for.

- What weight is critical for a synchronized swimmer?

- Each of the athletes determines it herself.

For example, they often tell me that I am too thin, but I have my superstitions connected with a certain weight: at exactly the same weight as now, I was at the Games in Rio, and I consider this weight to be happy for myself.

Not to mention the fact that with weight gain, speed, sharpness and agility in rotations are lost.

It is clear that in some periods you can add, let go of yourself a little.

But there are also those who push me out from under the water.

When we start training at the beginning of the season and are still far from competitive form, it is quite possible to hear in our address: “Well, you, mother, and you have become a cow…”.

- You have not had a defeat since you joined the national team.

Have you ever lost?

- When I was very young and played for MGFSO, we constantly competed with the clubs with the Trud school and always remained in second place.

Both in duets and in groups, no matter how well we performed at the same time.

But one day we won.

And I, as they say, felt the difference.

I understood what it means to be the first.

Although now I sometimes think that the brightness of our victories in synchronized swimming turns out to be muffled, as it were, from the fact that we have not lost to anyone for so many years.

- For the whole world, Russian synchronized swimming is really some kind of invincible special forces, programmed only for gold.

- It happens, by the way, it is very offensive to hear: they say, in synchronized gold no one doubts to such an extent that you can not watch the competition at all.

Although for each successive victory we have to work much harder.

- Do you know the fear of losing?

- Sure.

Personally, I always doubt it.

The group is very complex in that each of us is responsible for the other and at the same time depends on others' actions.

Such a very delicate mechanism: remove the screw and everything will fall apart.

Every day there are some doubts, thoughts that we will never be able to achieve what the coach wants from us.

In this regard, performing in a group is much more difficult than in a duet and, especially, in a solo.

In Tokyo, by the way, we played in the finals after the defeat in rhythmic gymnastics.

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Publication from Maria Shurochkina (@mashuniashura)

- I just wanted to say about it.

Artists, too, have been told for many years that they cannot lose.

- But it turned out quite differently.

I was really lucky: before the start I didn’t sit on my phone, didn’t know anybody’s results, and was focused only on my tasks.

The girls later admitted that they went to the start with the thought: God forbid, at least some mistake happens.

Indeed, in this case, they can treat us in the same way as it happened with the gymnasts.

We are no less tired of the world with our victories.

- What do you want most when the season is over?

Have a haircut?

- Oh, how did you guess?

- In my memory, synchronized swimmers have been talking about this ever since they started winning.

- You really get tired of long hair. First you gelatin them for hours, then you wash them off for hours. Now I generally want to somehow radically change my image. Get away from synchronized swimming as much as possible, even externally. Well, internally too. I want to try to get a theater education, go to special courses. Moreover, now there is an opportunity for this. It's a little scary that with the transition to a new sphere for myself, I seem to become nothing. All my merit will cease to matter.

- This is just normal.

Moreover, it is very good that you understand this already now.

In my memory, none of the athletes have managed to avoid the period of adaptation to a “different” life, so you just need to be ready for it.

Calmly go through a difficult period and not be too complex if something does not work out.

Unlike synchronized swimming, in your new life you will always have the right to make mistakes.

- Thanks.

I will remember your words.