"The last was Kryukov - he dragged": Kaminsky on leadership in the Russian national team and the role of Babikov

- Is your second year as a senior coach of the men's team easier for you than the previous one, or more difficult?

- In some ways, it is certainly easier.

But at the same time it is more difficult, since no one can write off any mistakes.

All of them will be much more closely scrutinized by the biathlon community, and rightly so.

- There are seven people in your group now: Anton Babikov, Eduard Latypov, Nikita Porshnev, Kirill Streltsov, Mikhail Pervushin, Daniil Serokhvostov and Karim Khalili, who until recently was in Europe, right?

- Khalili has already returned, joined the team and is working on a par with everyone else.

We sent him to Europe due to the fact that he was supposed to perform in Wiesbaden, and then at the Martin Fourcade festival in Annecy.

Matvey Eliseev was originally supposed to go there, but he simply did not have time to fulfill all the quarantine requirements.

Therefore, the French invited Karim to participate in these competitions.

It would be wrong to refuse such an opportunity.

And for him it turned out to be a very good practice.

- Are you satisfied with the way your group is preparing at the current stage?

- Yes.

We had good training camps in Bulgaria, Belmeken, Toksovo, Rybinsk, at the Seminsky pass.

The whole group will participate in the summer Russian championship.

- Competitions that are held on roller skis are a rather traumatic activity.

What are the advantages of participating in such tournaments in the Olympic season?

- In competitive practice.

I always say the best workout is the next start.

And since biathlon involves very fine settings in the compatibility of skiing and shooting, an athlete learns a lot during any competition.

Usually, in summer, biathletes are more loaded with training work than in winter, especially for summer tournaments, few are brought up.

And the difference between summer and winter is still not as great as it was in those days when shooting was combined with regular running.

- Any other load?

- Those who run fast are usually not very good at skiing. This was especially evident after the emergence of the skating course, and the skiers and biathletes themselves became more massive: the "skate" requires very strongly developed muscles of the front surface of the thigh. And in running, excess weight immediately worsens the result. So it turns out that those athletes who have not yet built up muscles have an advantage in such work.

If we talk about the injury risk of summer biathlon, the probability of getting injured there is really higher than on the snow, but we train in the summer on roller skis anyway.

And the summer tracks themselves are usually not too difficult.

In competitions - I agree, the risk of injury increases.

You probably saw the skiing stage of the World Cup on roller skis, where an Italian kamikaze, unexpectedly burst into the group, put ten people on the asphalt, including two of our athletes.

- I saw it.

- Despite such precedents, all the same, after all, everyone is running.

This is already an official sport in which world championships are held, world cups are played.

The view is dynamic, exciting, sponsors respond well to it, not to mention the audience.

That and lo and behold, the question will be raised to include roller skis in the program of the Olympic Games.

- Some of the starts planned for biathletes before the start of the Games in Beijing can be disrupted due to quarantine requirements?

- This is not really a question for me, although we are constantly discussing this with the coaches.

Today, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) is very determined to hold all the competitions that are on the calendar with minimal restrictions.

The main thing is that the athletes themselves do not get sick.

Our entire team is vaccinated, so I don't see any big problems in this regard.

Already, I think, there will not be such an indiscriminate flurry of diseases as a year ago.

- Your group is not going to the first snow in Ramsau this season.

Why?

- We're going to Aldan.

Why look for snow somewhere in Europe when we have it in our country?

Aldan has absolutely everything to have a good training camp.

I myself have taken my athletes there since 2012.

Nikolai Lopukhov and Alexander Grushin went there before me.

It's just that the climate used to be harsher, and it was possible to train in Aldan until the end of October at the most.

Now it is quite possible to ski there in November.

- When you just started your coaching career in biathlon, I asked you a question: does it make sense to create several coaching teams in the national team, as it is done in skiing.

Now these brigades have appeared.

Has it become more comfortable for you as a senior coach to work in this regard?

- Probably not.

It is easier for any coach to work in a single team, where all athletes are constantly in sight.

For example, now we do not intersect with the group of Sergei Bashkirov, so I know about the situation with his athletes only by hearsay.

- Do you feel the competition between the two groups?

- Of course.

It is always felt inside a single team.

- At one time, coaches often complained that a leader did not appear in the men's biathlon after the departure of Anton Shipulin.

Is he in your group now?

- Nominally, judging by the rating, the leader is Latypov, although at the end of last season Khalili was also nearby.

Leader is actually some kind of problem in today's Russian sport.

- Why?

- It seems to me that the current socio-economic conditions, and even moral and ethical conditions, do not provide for the leadership of an individual athlete.

They are more individualistic than before.

Although, perhaps, this is exclusively my point of view, since I have always made very high demands on the concept of "leader".

- Which ones?

- A leader is, first of all, a person who is capable of dragging the whole team with him at a difficult moment.

The last of these leaders in my practice was Nikita Kryukov - he was dragging.

And I knew: no matter how hard it was for Nikita, in a difficult moment for the team, he would give everything, but he would get her out.

Even if it shouldn't.

The result is a small miracle.

Latypov, it seems to me, is also sometimes capable of this.

Just like Matvey Eliseev.

In any case, when we first started working together, I intended to bring him to the level of a real team leader.

But it didn't work: Matvey is too deeply immersed in himself.

I could not get him out of this state.

- Do I understand correctly that Eliseev's immersion in himself became in your relationship that stumbling block, because of which you no longer work together?

- Maybe yes.

Although concrete actions turned out to be decisive.

- And what role does Babikov play in your group?

- For me, Babikov is, first of all, a person who, in any condition, is capable of running the baton.

At the last World Championship in Antholz, it was decided to put Khalili on the baton, but I am still confident that Babikov would have run no worse.

That is, we have, in the person of Anton, an iron relayman who is capable of showing high-quality shooting in any condition.

In the relay, this is important.

Today Babikov is generally in perfect order in terms of work.

From the position of shooting, he is the undisputed leader, drags the guys, makes them compete with himself in the rate of fire, in accuracy.

We constantly carry out both relay races and duel shooting inside the group.

In addition, he shares his experience with young guys.

- Will Anton be able to raise the running speed at the same time?

- Hope so.

It is too early to make any predictions, but the results of all tests show positive dynamics.

- In what period of the preseason can we say with a high probability that the work done by the athletes has "gone"?

- At the end of September-October.

I call this the point of no return.

Although it is absolutely not necessary that the speed will be shown by the athletes already at the summer championship of Russia in Tyumen.

This may happen later.

After all, not everyone is specially brought up for the September competitions.

For us, this is primarily training, checking individual elements of the work done in competitive conditions.

A more complete picture is given by the October ski run.

Everything becomes more or less clear there.

- How big is the credit of trust in ex-world champion Alexander Loginov after his unsuccessful performances last season?

- It's hard for me to answer how reliable Sasha can be right now, because, as I said, we did not meet in the training process.

But the fact that Loginov is an outstanding athlete is not disputed.

His potential is very great.

- When and how will you select for the Olympic Games?

- This selection should be completed by January 15, that is, the last of the World Cup stages, which can affect our decisions, is the stage in Ruhpolding. Basically, we will focus on the January starts and the races that will be at the end of December. But I will not tell you who will start at the first stages of the World Cup. A certain number of athletes will be allowed to start without additional qualifications. Our proposals on this matter will be submitted to the Executive Committee of the coaching council, and in Tyumen, where the coaching council will meet in full, everything must be finally approved.