“When I remember, I immediately have a lump in my throat and I want to cry”: Kuklina - about skipping the Games, media activity and harmony in the family

After the third consecutive victory of Larisa Kuklina, two of which she won in Minsk at the Commonwealth Cup, I asked the biathlete for an interview.

"Let's after the mass start?"

she suggested.

And gave another amazing race with perfect shooting on the lines.

Actually, this was dictated by the first question.

- When you won the pursuit race in Minsk, they said that they planned to win, but did not dare to say it out loud.

Can you now call the last four races ideal?

- I am satisfied with the result, but some doubt about the skiing still does not leave me.

- What exactly is confusing?

Do you lack speed, endurance, the ability to withstand a certain layout over a distance?

“It’s probably all there together.

Before each start, we discuss with Yuri Mikhailovich (Kaminsky. -

) the technical plan of the race, build a model for passing the distance.

And every time, things don't go according to plan.

If we take the skiing, the net time of the distance, of course, I would like to somewhat reduce the loss relative to other athletes.

- In a recent interview, the head coach of the women's team Artyom Istomin said that he is still trying to understand why you refused to work under him.

He even admitted that you had doubts about his professionalism and competence.

I understand that you are constantly asked this question, but still: why didn’t Kuklina stay in Istomin’s group?

- With the change of coach, everything turned out spontaneously.

When I was offered to train in Istomin's group, I agreed immediately, without any doubt.

Especially when I found out that Vitaly Noritsyn would be our shooting coach.

For me, this specialist is still one of the best with whom I had a chance to work in the course of my career.

It was he, I think, who revealed me as an athlete after a two-year break associated with the birth of my daughter.

I also completely trusted Artyom Evgenievich in the preparation.

In general, I think that this is a prerequisite for the result - one hundred percent trust the one with whom you work.

In the spring, the coaches and I agreed that I would not go to the August training camp, which was planned by Istomin's group in Sochi, because this height did not suit me.

I have been to Sochi more than 25 times, and only once this work had a positive effect.

Accordingly, it was decided that I would conduct the collection separately, at the Seminsky Pass.

- With the Kaminsky group?

- I learned that Yuri Mikhailovich and his athletes would be there only when I arrived.

But I was glad that I would have someone to turn to if help was needed, especially since my husband could not go with me to that collection.

I had some shooting training with the men's team, the coaches working with Kaminsky generally helped me a lot in terms of shooting, but at the end of the training camp I got sick with the coronavirus - because of this I could not go to the Commonwealth Cup in Sochi.

That's when I thought: perhaps this is the very moment when you should change something in your own life, try something fundamentally new, if the previous preparation did not give the desired result?

After all, my husband also strained that I plow, plow, but there is no effect and no.

“I was much more surprised by something else.

You once said that a good coach in your understanding is a person who, first of all, is able to understand an athlete in a purely everyday way.

But at the same time, go to a specialist, whom some of his wards reproached for lack of attention.

The fact that he is generally not too inclined to communicate with athletes outside of training.

I gave you a task - do it!

It turns out that this is not entirely true?

- Just at the Seminsky Pass, I several times witnessed how Kaminsky begins training with a group.

It made an incredible impression on me at the time.

She even told her husband when she called home: “Imagine, every training session begins with questions.

He talks to them!

- In what sense?

- In direct.

Before each training session, Yuri Mikhailovich without fail asked each of the ten athletes how he felt.

One of the guys once replied that he did not get enough sleep.

It is clear, after all, that everyone reacts to acclimatization in their own way.

Kaminsky immediately reacted: “Okay, you are not doing general work today.”

He approached another athlete: “How are you?

Everything is fine?

So we're working according to plan."

And just like that, in front of my eyes, five people went to do one job, two to another, and only three people did the training according to the plan that was originally written.

I was really amazed that such an outstanding coach so subtly approaches the condition of an athlete at each training session and immediately corrects all the nuances.

- I know that as a junior you had quite serious health problems.

Whose fault was it: the coach, the athlete, or the system as a whole?

“Here, most likely, I will take most of the blame on myself.

Because from a great desire to have a good result, I turned a blind eye to many things.

I did not pay attention to any ailments, plowed with thoughts that more is better.

And the coaches did not interfere.

I think all the problems came from this.

- What is more difficult for you, by the way: work in the national team or self-training?

- Self-preparation is good because you are completely repelled by well-being.

You have a plan and you are free to modify it as you wish.

It's harder to do it in the national team, because there is a group in which you want to look good.

This is what encourages each other.

But I would not compare with the position of "heavier - lighter."

They are just different things.

- Recalling his first personal victory at the World Cup stage, Anton Babikov said: “I was very young, and it seemed that this victory would be followed by further and equally bright realization of myself in sports terms.

But everything turned out differently.”

A familiar feeling?

- Well, of course.

My first victory in 2019 in Oberhof, although not personal, was perceived in exactly the same way.

It was not just my first stage of the World Cup, but in general the very first start at such major competitions.

- Was it scary?

“I was filled with a sense of pride.

When Vitaly Viktorovich said that I would run in the relay and the coaches completely trust me in this regard, I was so inspired ... When we had already won, there was only one thought: this is it, will I finally be rewarded for all my work?

I still sometimes think: if a year later the coaching staff hadn’t changed in the national team and we continued to work with Noritsyn, a lot of things in my life could have turned out completely differently.

- How many times during this time did the idea appear to finish with biathlon?

- Never.

Because the main goal was the Beijing Olympics.

But when it didn’t work out ... In fact, it’s still difficult for me to talk about this topic.

Because every time I remember this, I immediately have a lump in my throat and I want to cry.

- Where did your extraordinary rate of fire come from, which distinguished you from a junior age?

Who taught?

- Here we must pay tribute to Leonid Guryev and Evgeny Pylev.

I still remember how we worked with them on shooting in the junior team, and sometimes it just doesn’t fit in my head where it all went now.

In terms of the volume of training, in terms of the amount of time spent with weapons now, at a junior age, no one is close to those loads.

Shooting work has become many times less - such a volume in adulthood is simply not needed.

But the base that was once laid by Guryev and Pylev is the key to the shooting that I have now.

- So you want to say that your ability to shoot is the result of only training, and not a natural ability?

- In general, I would not say that something special is given to us in this regard by nature.

There was a time, I ran eight laps in the sprint, so I know what I'm talking about.

It is just like a child learning to walk, learning to hold a spoon correctly.

I think this is how any activity we undertake is arranged.

- You once said that for some time now you have deliberately begun to shoot more slowly.

- With age - yes, a very conscious understanding of the price of a shot comes.

Hence the delay in passing the borders.

As a junior, you are more unconscious about everything, sometimes so completely reckless.

During the competition, you do everything not on experience, but on some kind of courage.

Now, perhaps, in a sense, I am trying to return to that feeling of courage, the feeling of high at the turn, I want not only to catch this state, but also to keep it.

“I was just about to ask: isn’t it tempting to try shooting faster, since you already know how to do it?”

- That's what I'm talking about.

I like to get maximum pleasure from my work, from quickly passing frontiers.

- Many biathletes note the importance of shooting sparring in training.

Could you explain in simple terms why shooters spar?

What does he give?

- I think sparring should be treated with great care.

Here it is necessary to take into account the level of training of those who participate in it.

Shooting in sparring can certainly give you a powerful boost in order to take a step forward in your rate of fire, in psychological confidence, but sometimes it can just break you down.

You have to be ready for this.

In other words, you must consciously come to sparring.

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- Do you like to spar?

- Highly.

It allows me to grow.

I want to feel confident at the turn.

When you shoot a lot in sparring and do it well, there is a feeling of dominance over the opponent.

This is exactly what I sometimes miss during the races.

- I don’t remember which of the biathletes said that the most difficult thing is to shoot in calm.

In this case, everyone shoots more relaxed, without proper concentration - and more mistakes happen.

- This is definitely not my case.

I love when it's comfortable to shoot.

“Good shooters usually experiment a lot with rifles.

They change and adjust the stock to infinity, encrust it, paint the rifles in different colors.

Do you have it?

- Absolutely not.

I like to keep my stock in perfect condition, but I haven't changed it since 2013.

I just bring it up sometimes.

- What does it mean to put the butt in order?

- Tint some details with varnish, because anyway, when moving, they are erased.

There are rubbing, roughness.

- Does the condition of the butt affect, relatively speaking, driving performance or is it purely feminine, so that everything is clean and in order?

- Purely feminine, I think.

- I know from my own experience that it can be quite difficult for professional athletes in the family.

We are active, independent, used to making decisions instantly.

Men are often annoyed by this.

How difficult was it for you in this regard to get used to the role of a wife?

“Actually, it is exactly as you said.

But I was lucky: my husband is a professional athlete himself, I won’t say that I had to somehow adapt to him.

I think that he even likes that I am completely independent, I don’t bother him with requests or some reproaches: do this, do that ... He does his job, I do mine, if I need help, I will ask him about it and I know, that Michael will always help.

In all the 11 years that we have been together, we have never had even a very minor quarrel.

For no reason.

- Are you subscribed to Veronika Stepanova in social networks?

No, but I have heard.

— How, in your opinion, is media activity combined with serious training?

- Judging by the results of Veronica, this does not bother her in any way.

I do not exclude that, on the contrary, she is thus distracted from what is happening in the world, from training, and this relaxes her, and does not strain her.

I can not do that.

Perhaps, the density of the training process is too different between skiers and me: in biathlon, in addition to functional training, a lot of time is devoted to preparing weapons and working with them.

Sometimes I simply don’t have enough time to add a post to the social network, my husband does it for me.

Misha has been helping me in this regard for a long time.

Is social media a necessity or a pleasure these days?

“I think it's both here and there.

Two in one, as they say.

- So you immediately set yourself the goal of turning your own account into a means of additional income?

- No, I didn’t have such a goal, and still, probably, I can’t say that.

This is primarily communication with friends around the world.

So that people can not only communicate, but to some extent share their own lives with each other.

I am not a closed person in this regard.

- Just a question that has been spinning in my head for quite some time.

You are an excellent interlocutor, you talk interestingly about a variety of things, you are free to stay in front of the camera, you are sociable.

Why your interviews can be counted on the fingers?

Are you intentionally avoiding them?

- I'm not often offered to talk about something - this is the first.

Secondly, yes, I had to refuse journalists.

There were times when the interviews came out somewhat altered, because of this, the meaning of what I was talking about changed.

Accordingly, a lot of criticism immediately poured into my address.

Of course, a sense of rejection towards journalists quickly turns on.

Every time in such cases you think: so that I can say something again somewhere ... Then you seem to cool down, agree to talk with someone - and again you step on the same rake.

May I ask you a very personal question?

- Yes.

- A year ago, I was very much hooked by your phrase, said to Timofey Lapshin in his vlog, about the time that you spent in the orphanage.

You voiced it yourself, but kind of briefly.

You still don’t want to remember that period, or are you ready to talk about this topic?

- Once upon a time it seemed to me very ashamed to reveal to someone that there was such a story in my life.

So I just didn't know how to talk about it.

But with age, I began to understand that this is my life, which I definitely should not be ashamed of.

I even thought that it would be right to talk not only about the good times of my life, but also about the difficult ones.

Perhaps my interviews will be read by people whose life has not developed in the simplest way and who experience some kind of self-doubt in connection with this.

Everyone has their own destiny, everyone lives it differently, and it seems to me that it is very important to understand how you will get out of this or that trouble.

Difficulties will break you or harden you, it probably depends only on yourself.

How many years did you spend in the orphanage?

Not long, three or four years.

Then my sister and I were taken under guardianship by my aunt, my dad's sister.

- There is an opinion, and I think it is not news to you, that children from difficult families are more resilient in sports.

They cling to their chances much more actively, not letting anyone else take them away.

- It is, and I don’t think that this applies only to sports activities.

Relevant in everything, no matter what area you take.

Even now, having my family and a child, I sometimes catch myself thinking that sometimes I try to pamper my daughter, I try to provide her with everything that I myself was deprived of in childhood.

That is, I give her some kind of weakness, I try to unnecessarily protect her from any difficulties whatsoever, that is, from everything that once made me strong.

Although, to be honest, I am very glad that such a wonderful daughter is growing up with Mikhail.

Sometimes I notice that she thinks much older than her real age.

- How do you feel about your age?

Does the real match your inner feelings?

- According to my inner feelings, I'm stuck somewhere in the range of 25-27.

- I recall the phrase of the famous actress and TV presenter Evelina Khromchenko, that between 34 and 35 years old she intends to live ten of the most exciting years.

- Great words!

And most importantly - correct.