“Outside the pool, they almost didn’t talk”: Sidorenko - about friendship with Fesenko, Phelps’s rivalry with Lochte and his career

When friends leave, the last thing I want to write about is their medals.

The swimmers of the era to which Alexander Sidorenko belonged had more than these medals - the record for the number of Olympic victories at the 1980 Games has not been broken so far and is unlikely to ever be, but it always seemed to me that from that stellar company, which included the greatest athletes of those times, led by three-time Olympic champion Vladimir Salnikov, Sidorenko was not very lucky in terms of sports.

He was incredibly strong at a distance of 200 m medley, but it was for an unknown reason that it was decided to exclude her from the Olympic program for the duration of the Games in Moscow and Los Angeles.

At home, Sidorenko won the combined 400 m, and for many years the myth revolved around his victorious swim that Alexander received his Olympic gold not without the help of his friend Sergey Fesenko, who became the champion on the very first day of the Olympic tournament, winning the 200-meter butterfly, and in the final finished second in the 400m medley. 

Sidorenko and I talked shortly before the Tokyo Olympics, however, then the interview did not work out - we did not get our hands on it.

But the text itself has survived.

And I don't even want to edit it now...

- Two-time Olympic champion Denis Pankratov, in his video interview with Fesenko, expressed the version that in that Olympic swim Sergey could deliberately give way to you at the finish line.

I know you saw the interview.

Strongly hurt?

- I was hurt by the fact that Sergei did not seem to mind the fact that he himself lost the gold.

I just lived in Fesenko's house in Kiev while he was with children in America.

Even then he left a note to him, leaving: “Thank you, Seryoga, for 40 years I had no idea that you, it turns out, gave me an Olympic medal.”

He did not answer me anything - then somehow the topic was lowered on the brakes.

We also spoke with Pankratov.

It was strange for me: he seems to be a professional.

If Fesenko asked questions about the Olympic swim, then, probably, he should have asked from whom exactly the swimmer Sidorenko took the European record twice on the eve of those Games, improving his results?

Who did this record belong to at the time of the Games?

How many times did Sidorenko beat Fesenko before the Olympics?

Which of them was higher in the world ranking, finally.

It turned out that Denis simply did not know this ...

- They didn’t really want to take you to the team in 1976, or am I mistaken?

- When the Olympics in Montreal ended, a new generation of athletes began to be called up to the reserve of the national team, and I was also invited to watch - as a stayer and complexist.

I then swam the "one and a half" freestyle, 400 and 200 meters complex, took second or third place among young men.

But the testing was almost non-existent.

With physical conditions, everything was in order, but in terms of flexibility I was given a unit.

I couldn't reach my toes without bending my knees, nor could I roll my arms.

As a child, I had no time to practice flexibility.

My personal trainer Viktor Vangelyev and I did not practice flexibility here in Mariupol - we only swam.

- And then you got to Vera Smelova?

Yes, very lucky with that.

In sports, 60 percent of success is a smart coach.

When I got to Grigorievna, I specialized mainly in the 200 meters.

My muscles were sprint.

Explosive, but could not work for a long time.

Until now, I can’t imagine how I fulfilled the standard of the master of sports on the “one and a half”.

At long distances, my arms and shoulder joints constantly got tired.

200 complex went easily.

I set all my records there, and in general I loved this distance very much.

But it turned out that life forced the 400 to swim, where at first I was considered by Fesenko, as it were, as an understudy.

At what point did the balance of power change?

— It was difficult.

I needed to overcome myself psychologically first.

Understand what I can.

We then talked a lot on this topic with Smelova, and she reassured me.

She said that with a strong desire, nothing is impossible, and that I can trust her.

It was a very big support from her side.

Well, then, I just set out to find ways to beat Fesenko and become world leaders.

And everything began to work out.

- The complex has long been considered such a type of swimming, where even average athletes have a chance to win if they master all four swimming styles at an even level.

- In our time, it was enough to have two strong ways to be in prizes at the European and World Championships.

Fesenko had strong butterfly and freestyle, I have breaststroke and backstroke.

Not for nothing that I was the champion of the Union and was a reserve at a distance of 100 m on the back.

At the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, he won this distance in 1979 with a USSR record.

- Were you a substitute at the 1980 Olympics?

- No, I was planned to be a substitute in relay races.

So that, for example, he could swim in the morning swim, and Vitya Kuznetsov rested.

Although my result was better than that of Volodya Dolgov, who won a bronze medal at that Olympics and a silver medal in the relay race in the morning swim.

Brass also went well.

I even qualified in this style at the 1984 Games as the second number.

But, when he found out that they would not be, he refused the race and handed it over to Robertas Zulpe.

Even officially announced it.

Then I already figured out: if I had performed at Friendship-84, I could have become the second after Dima Volkov.

And in his complex remained the third.

These are the moments in my life.

- Your gold medals in the complex were generally the last to be won, first by Soviet, then by Russian swimmers.

What is specific?

Is it just that Michael Phelps appeared in world swimming?

- First, Tamas Darny appeared - just by his example, it became clear that you can’t get off with two strong disciplines.

Now I look at the layouts of Phelps, other American swimmers, and I see that they lost two or three seconds from every hundred.

This is probably already a certain technology.

I started the first hundred with a butterfly in 59 seconds, these guys swam 56. I swam 1.04-1.05 on my back - they swam 1.02.

So far, Phelps' records stand in the complex.

And I don't know if they will be killed.

- But there is no feeling that Phelps simply discouraged the whole world from wanting to swim the complex?

- You didn’t beat Ryan Lochte, did you?

Every time I looked at them, I thought that both of them were very lucky to have each other.

Like us with Seryoga Fesenko.

Lucky to be in the same bunch at one time.

- I wanted to ask many times: have you competed in life?

I mean purely human relations.

- How to say.

When other swimmers also trained in Smelova's brigade, everything somehow smoothed out.

Six people, two lanes.

We live, dance, watch movies, organize some kind of evenings ... But when Sergey realized that I was his main competitor, we somehow parted ways, even settled in different rooms at the training camp.

Workouts started sometimes at the same time, and sometimes even with a difference of 10 minutes, so as not to coincide with the exercises.

True, this happened very rarely, when the psychological situation was already heating up too much.

And to communicate ... communicated, as needed by the team.

We discussed classes, asked the coaches about something together.

It was such an almost professional communication, they supported each other.

But outside the pool almost did not speak.

— I know you don't work in water polo anymore.

And how did it get there?

- Played, at one time, in the championship of Russia.

Many friends of water polo players have remained since then.

I really lived that life while I headed the club in Mariupol.

But then the mess began in the Donbass ... I was left without a job, then the players.

He registered everyone at the labor exchange so that they would receive at least unemployment benefits.

He himself was already considered a senior citizen.

For some time he played the fool, did not work anywhere.

And then Fesenko, once again leaving for America to join his sons, asked me to replace him for three months in Boryspil.

Work at a swimming school and take care of the house at the same time.

Lena and I discussed everything and decided it was worth a try.

For about three years I worked in fits and starts, for three or four months, then I got a job officially.

Sergei retired, I took his place.

That's when I began to follow swimming professionally.

Both children's and international.

And it turns out, again plunged into his former life.

- After all, after sports, you performed in veteran swimming tournaments for some time, didn’t you?

- Also thanks to Sergey.

He carried away.

Recorded in his club, they say, come on, come on!

I even started exercising.

But I quickly ran into the fact that it was hard for me to go into the water.

I won the championships of the continent and the world in veterans, and somehow it became completely uninteresting.

Last started in 1997.

And I thought: why do I need it?

- And why didn’t you swim in due time before the 1988 Olympics?

- I was offered.

The head coach was Vladimir Kachkurkin, he asked me to stay, despite the fact that I swam badly at the 1986 World Championships.

True, he won the championship of the USSR.

But after Los Angeles, when the Olympics did not happen, I returned to Vangelyev in Mariupol, and trained at home, not in the national team.

He left only for competitions, and joined the national team only after the qualifying championship of the Union.

And still remained the first number at a distance of 200 meters complex.

Kachkurkin really wanted to connect me to the brigade of Oleg Tsvetov, where Vadik Yaroshchuk swam.

When we formed a temporary training tandem, it was for the benefit of Vadik.

He was alone with Tsvetov, no sparring.

But my wife and I thought that it would take two years before Seoul… I could no longer force myself to train in Mariupol in such a way as to show a decent result.

And leaving for 300 days a year for training camps is not the right age.

Moreover, Lena and I really wanted a child.

- What now?

- Now I'm back at home, in Mariupol.

Another unemployed pensioner.

When I turned 60 and needed to apply for a pension, they offered to choose which one was more profitable to receive.

It turned out that he was higher not by length of service, as a former athlete, but by age.

- The status of the unemployed does not press?

You know sometimes it's good...