“Dad said Yulia needs to be reassured”: Timoshinin - about his daughter’s entrances into the water, incidents in the pool and high diving judging

Of the sports dynasties of the world, this is one of the most famous.

Eight honored masters of sports, five honored coaches.

If we count down from the youngest representative of the family, four-time European champion Yulia Timoshinina, it is worth remembering that one of her great-grandfathers was a five-time national champion in rowing, and the second participated in the Olympics twice as a water polo player.

However, in order to build a champion family tree, there is Wikipedia.

And Vladimir Timoshinin, two-time European champion and part-time Yulia’s father and coach, and I are sitting under the towers in the old Moscow pool, where his four-year-old mother, Natalia Kuznetsova, vice-champion of the Olympics in Mexico City, once brought him.

Since then, they've known each other.

“At the age of four, I only learned to swim,” my interlocutor recalls nostalgically.

- My father threw me from the side into the water.

He himself stood nearby, if anything.

Next to the main jump bath there was another pool, not too deep, in which I learned to swim.

And immediately began to jump.

- I can directly imagine the caption under such a picture: a two-time Olympic champion in rowing teaches a future participant in two Olympics in diving to swim.

Although to think about it, such a number of stellar relatives is a heavy slab that lies on a child almost from birth.

How did you manage not to hate sports, but to live a long, bright life in it, and even bring your daughter to heights?

- To be honest, I didn’t really feel it, I was calm about everything.

It seems to me that our Julia feels the burden of responsibility to a much greater extent.

- To be honest, do you consider your own career successful?

- Well, for a solid "four", so to speak.

What do you most often regret?

- About what did not work out with the Olympics in Barcelona.

My first Games were in Seoul, in 1988, but I was very young there, I took eighth place.

In 1991, I won the European Championship, but Georgy Chogovadze knocked me out of the Olympic team.

True, at the Games themselves, he became the 16th ...

Was it embarrassing to see?

- I didn’t even watch those competitions, there was a reluctance.

- For some reason, I remember how in 1991 at the World Championships in Perth, everyone was expecting a medal from you, perhaps even a gold one, and you were the last in the final.

What got in the way?

“Maybe I hung the medal around my neck too early, maybe I didn’t have enough experience somewhere, but, most likely, I wanted to win too much.

And burned out.

Then he flunked the entire free program, starting with the first jump.

Tatyana Maksimovna Pertrukhina, my coach, was simply shocked.

She has always been a maximalist, she also demanded absolute dedication from all of us.

I remember once reading a statement by one of the great hockey coaches: "Demand the impossible - you will get the maximum."

Here, Petrukhina had about the same approach.

- I would say that she was able to recreate in those days a kind of prototype of Chinese diving in a single group.

- It is difficult for me to compare with the Chinese, because in those days they simply did not exist.

But we jumped a lot.

I remember that at one time I was very impressed by Sergey Nemtsanov, who in the same pool, from the same tower, jumped a hundred times each of the four jumps of the compulsory program.

Two jumps in the morning, two in the evening.

For some reason, I remembered how Sergey stood head down in a handstand on the edge of the tower and swearing non-stop.

We also jumped a lot then.

They counted the jumps as a slipper, moved it along the tiles after each attempt.

At least 100 jumps per workout worked.

- In 2000, at the Games in Sydney, Dmitry Sautin became the Olympic champion in synchronized diving, speaking with Igor Lukashin, with whom you performed quite successfully in 1999.

And if things were different...

— Could I go to Sydney and perform there?

No.

At the World Cup at the beginning of the Olympic year, Lukashin and I won a license, but at that time it was not at all considered some kind of heroism, as it is now.

It was completely normal, no one even thought that some of the Russian couples might not get into the "eight" in sync.

But at the Games there was a rule: only those athletes who were selected in the individual category can perform in synchronized jumps.

Sautin was then considered the first number of the team, this was not even discussed, and Lukashin received a second vacancy, as a World Cup medalist - he was third on the tower in the individual.

I mean, I had no chance at all.

- I remember exactly the same drama on the women's springboard, where Irina Lashko, Vera Ilyina and Yulia Pakhalina competed for two places in the team on an equal footing.

Yes, a similar situation.

Although for me it was definitely not a drama.

I already went to the “thirty”, I was ready for such a turn of events.

And he was ready to end his career.

In 1999, I remember, “Spring Swallows” were held in Elektrostal, at the preliminary competitions I jumped very badly, and decided that in the evening there would be my last start.

But it turned out that I won the tournament, and thanks to this I was selected for all starts for the year ahead.

And the European Championship, and the World Cup.

Sorry for the deeply personal question.

Did you know in 1998, when you went to the World Cup in Australia, that doctors categorically do not recommend this trip to your mother because of the recurrence of oncology?

- Then no one knew anything, only my father, but he did not say anything to either me or Sveta - after all, she also trained with her mother.

On January 23, when the team had just returned from Australia, Yulia and Sveta were born, and only the next day I found out my mother's diagnosis.

Australia then provoked a very sharp exacerbation of the disease.

And nothing could be done.

- From your daughter, were you and Sveta immediately going to raise an extra-class athlete?

- Initially, they just wanted Yulia to go in for sports.

So they took her to the pool.

But she was torn, she was torn.

We just helped her.

- Who carried the coaching work to a greater extent?

- Sveta.

We once had a very tough argument about this at home in the kitchen.

And Svetka won this right for herself.

Well, at the same time I decided for myself that it makes no sense to continue to conflict: one head is good, but two is better.

We didn't have any more fights about it.

- What was the strongest side of Sveta as an athlete?

- Character.

She seems small, quiet outwardly, but it only seems.

Although, when she jumped with me in the same group, I drew attention to her as a girl, and not as an athlete.

In the same pool, it was, by the way.

I was then 19 years old, Svetka was 16, we climbed onto the "top ten", where there was a small shop, and sat there, cooing, getting married on the sly.

Then we jump, one by one, and again onto the bench.

- The most difficult period in your life together?

- When I finished jumping.

“Did you say you were ready for this?”

- I was ready.

But this transition from one life to another was difficult.

In sports, you have training in the foreground, and everything else is kind of in between.

And here suddenly there is a lot of free time, something needs to be done, somehow to live ... There were also difficult times - the end of the 1990s - the beginning of the 2000s.

But a year has passed, and I got involved.

- Daughter by nature went to you or to your wife?

- Probably more in the Light, although we were both quite purposeful.

My legs.

Even, rather, grandmothers.

And in general, in terms of figure, Yulia went more to my mother.

- In terms of the number of highest European titles, Yulia has already surpassed both you and Svetlana.

Is this something to be proud of?

- Well, of course.

But in individual jumps, the daughter has never won.

And want.

- Can you judge not as a father, but as a coach, what does she lack?

- Front entrances.

“It always seemed to me that the front entrances are the easiest thing to do in diving.

Everything is in front of your eyes, just put your hands correctly.

Well, that's what I always thought too.

And we, however, have rear entrances without problems, and something is always missing on the front.

We tried everything with Yulia in this regard, which is possible.

Vertically puts the entrance, but splashes fly - and we can’t do anything about it.

The entrance to the water is such a very thin matter.

If a person is not given by nature, it is impossible to teach.

Just a little tweak.

Although the same Sveta at one time extinguished the front entrances perfectly.

Three and a half turns forward in the tuck has always been considered her signature jump.

She did it last and almost always - on the "nine".

- Not for the first time I have already paid attention to the fact that during the competition you always sit on the side, and not Svetlana.

Why?

I don't even know if it's worth telling.

After Yulia remained 31st at the World Championships in Gwangju in 2019, we tried to understand the reason for a long time - why did everything suddenly stop working out in competitions?

And they came to the conclusion that it is easier and calmer for Yulia to tune in to jumps when her mother is not on the side.

Now we adhere to just such a scheme: Sveta does a warm-up, then leaves, and I remain on the side.

Perhaps the whole point is that internally I am a much calmer person than my wife, and not only in sports, but also in life.

And an athlete always feels such things.

- You said at the beginning of the conversation that Yulia was always much more pressured by this whole family championship history.

- After unsuccessful performances - certainly.

Even our grandfather, the deceased (two-time Olympic champion Alexander Timoshinin.

) paid attention to this.

He constantly said that somehow Yulia needed to be reassured, taken away from these thoughts.

He, too, was always very sick of her, worried.

- My dad once saw me hit the water while jumping from the tower, and said: "Never again!".

And indeed he never came to my competitions again.

Julia fought before your eyes?

- Never hit hard.

Once, when I was just collecting the program from the tower and went to do three turns back from the handstand, I did three and a half and entered the water with my feet.

We, with Sveta, sitting on the side, almost moved out of our chairs.

But Julia was not even afraid: “Oh, I lost count of something.”

I went again and made the jump already normally.

I had more experience in this regard.

He flew on his back, his leg jumped out in the air in rotation.

I remember we were in the Canary Islands, we arrived there for an international tournament, I did a jump from a handstand in training, and both hands buckled in repulsion.

The pool is open, the sun, I closed my eyes, lifted my head.

Light-dark, light-dark, light-dark.

In general, without opening, in a grouping, he entered the water.

I swim out, in the pool there is deathly silence.

I was already training with Vladimir Rulev, he shouted to me from the side and shouted: “I went quickly and did it again!”.

“Good old circus law: if you kill yourself, try again immediately so as not to drive the fear even deeper.”

It was really scary, yes.

The second attempt with fear planted.

In the pool, a standing ovation, everyone comes up, congratulates, hits on the shoulder.

Then one of the Spaniards said: you are crazy, we would put a person in the hospital for three days.

- Do you remember the most terrible jump that you had to go on for the first time?

- I don’t even remember that such jumps happened to me at all.

Tatyana Maksimovna always led us to new jumps for a very long time.

Until I was convinced that the person was 200% ready, there was no talk of any experiments.

There was a period when all my peers were already jumping from the "tens", and I from the "five".

He constantly lost to them because of this.

And then somehow in one training session I collected the entire program from ten meters.

A couple of times I made all the jumps, however, into the air "cushion".

- In my time, all Elektrostal athletes jumped new jumps in clothes so that the impact on the water, if it happens, was not too strong.

- All St. Petersburg people jumped in the same way in clothes.

Yes, and still some jump.

The “pillow” has one problem: it throws a person very strongly to the side after entering the water.

You just have to be ready for it.

But in general, I think this method is much more effective.

— Don't you regret that in your time there was no high diving?

With your physique, I could be more than successful in this form.

- When I jumped, for some reason I always wanted to jump with a parachute.

And he jumped into the water from a great height only in the Crimea, on Fiolent.

It was 19 meters there, so we jumped - "soldier".

Cool feeling.

You fly about ten meters, and at that moment it suddenly takes your breath away.

The head is used to the fact that there should be water, but it is not.

- What in the current diving can delight you?

— Difficulty, of course.

Before, when we jumped ourselves, artistry and beauty of lines were more appreciated.

I remember the same Marina Babkova jumping from a springboard, I couldn’t take my eyes off: everything is clean, everything is beautiful, her legs are even, her socks are clearly stretched.

Now power comes to the fore.

In this regard, not only diving, the whole world sport has changed.

Sometimes you look at the women's springboard, there are such babes - all turns over the springboard are completed.

- If I offer you, as a spectator, to choose one of the four individual finals, will it be a men's tower, or a women's?

- Male, of course.

In diving, this is the most spectacular.

High diving is also interesting to watch, but every time I find myself that I don’t really understand it.

“An unexpected confession for someone with your track record.

- I'm talking about refereeing.

Normal competitions I judge without problems.

And here ... It is clear that the main task is to enter the water vertically and extinguish the entrance.

And if you almost reached or crossed, how much is charged for this?

That is, I probably could not judge the hi-daving.

— Is the work of a judge an accompanying occupation or a separate profession?

“It's more like a hobby for me.

I am interested, I enjoy the process.

And in general, I like to watch from the side how others jump.