"Sergey is capable of more": Sorin on the capabilities of Ustyugov, the coolness of Bolshunov and the character of Stepanova

- The current season, in which Russian athletes were isolated from the world, at first seemed to many to be lost, but watching the skiers, I would say that it opened up some new opportunities. Agree?

" First of all, it opened up certain opportunities for us within the country. It is clear that there was no choice, but just in this connection we had to largely rebuild our own training. Both summer and snow. We had to adapt to the slower Russian snow, for example. Look for places of average mountain training, and with this we still have big problems. Plus, the task of motivating athletes has not gone away.

On the other hand, we were able to view more athletes. Previously, all the leaders seemed to fall out of the internal competitive process, since in December they left for the stages of the World Cup. Now my whole group, and this is ten people, from the beginning to the end of the season is together. Accordingly, there is a big difference - to lead the season and prepare for the competition two or three leaders, or the whole team.

But surely you could afford to work after the Olympic Games only with a select few, and not with a large brigade?

- Ten people is not really a lot. Moreover, during the season, there are inevitably some injuries, diseases that do not allow absolutely everyone to work at the same high level. And in terms of composition, our group is quite diverse: there are athletes who show themselves mainly in the sprint, there are universals.

- This year you have repeatedly stressed that you strive to develop your wards in such a way that they are all universals. Why is this necessary – despite the fact that the program of ski competitions is so extensive that everyone can find their niche in it?

- That's what you need to be a generalist for. You need to be able to run and sprint, and distance racing, and skate, and classics. This immediately increases the range of choice of these very niches. The same Veronika Stepanova, pulling up the classics, dramatically increases her own chances in skiathlon, in classic relays. Therefore, I consider it right to develop the athlete as much as possible in all directions, to improve the weaknesses as much as possible, as long as age allows. Moreover, versatility does not exclude the fact that every athlete can have some favorite distance.

- How is Jessica Diggins' skating?

- Yes. At the same time, you will agree, Diggins looks quite good in the sprint. Moreover, not only in skating, where she won team Olympic gold in 2018, but also in the classic. To go into pure specialization, choosing for yourself only a sprint, only a "horse" or only distance racing, you can only at the end of your career, when you already have to reckon with the capabilities of the body.

— Is that why you are not trying to train Gleb Retivykh as a generalist?

- Starting to work with him, I first of all set the task of raising high-speed endurance. So that Gleb could withstand all four sprint races without losing his maximum speed qualities. Plus, I kept sprint relays in mind. Now there is an interesting trend. And our Russian start "Champion Heights", which was held in Malinovka, and partly the world championship showed that in sprint relays not only universals, but even distance run sometimes better than pure sprinters.

- How do you explain that?

- If earlier sprint relays were more lined up according to tactics, now from the first stage people go, as they say, "for all the money". Sprinters with such work begin to fall faster.

For example, in Malinovka, the sprint relay was won by a bunch of Alexander Bolshunov - Alexander Terentyev, while Terentyev was cut down in the last segment so that he lost five or six seconds. That's a lot in the sprint relay. And the third place in Malinovka was taken by generally pure distance distance workers - Ilya Poroshkin and Ilya Semikov.

Is it a challenge to train a sprinter?

- Not quite clear to me, let's put it that way. Perhaps I just don't have the experience of working with clean sprinters that Yuri Kaminsky once had.

- By the way, Kaminsky still considers it a mistake to eliminate the sprint group within the Russian team. And he is still offended by Elena Vyalbe for this.

- I can't say anything about that. Such a group, I know, exists in Finland, but so far Finnish sprinters have not shown anything outstanding when it comes to medals at the World Championships and the Olympic Games. Throwing such efforts to prepare an athlete for one race at the same Olympics, of course, is possible, but the risk of miscalculation in tactics and leaving a person without anything at all is too great. I have a clean sprinter Denis Filimonov in my group. He's great at running speed skating sprints, he's been on the podium a few times during the season, but at the same world championships, sprints have run classics. And to develop Denis in terms of endurance, to make him more versatile, at least in style, I do not manage despite the fact that I have been struggling with this task for many years.

— Did the Olympic gold medals of Niki Stepanova and Tatiana Sorina add to your coaching confidence?

- On the one hand, yes. But on the other hand, my status has changed. Starting this season, I became the head coach of the national team, while before the Games in Beijing I was responsible for the youth team. Accordingly, now there is a different responsibility. Especially when such an outstanding specialist as Yuri Borodavko works nearby, who has so many champions that there are not enough fingers to count. There is no self-confidence, in a word. We have fulfilled certain tasks, but there is room for growth and improvement.

• Aleksandr Bolshunov and Johannes Klebo
• RIA Novosti
• © Alexey Filippov

- The coolest all-round skier in the world is Bolshunov?

- Asking who is better, Bolshunov or Johannes Klebo - this is probably as pointless as trying to compare Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi in football. To me, Bolshunov is more versatile. We take, say, four individual disciplines at the World Championships, and we understand that Alexander will be preferable to three of them, and Klebo is stronger only in the sprint. But if we start talking about the World Cup, especially in its current format with a large number of sprint races and a reduction in distance races, the Norwegian will look more preferable.

- And if we talk about women?

- I said at the beginning of this season that with the departure of Teresa Johaug, the place of the most versatile skier remains vacant. Now the season is actually over, but no one has yet been able to become the undisputed leader of women's ski races. Perhaps in the next two years the situation will change and such a favorite will appear, but even if not, watching the races will only become more interesting.

- In swimming, there are frequent cases when a year and a half before the Olympics, completely new people suddenly cut through and become leaders. Why does this almost never happen in skiing?

- Probably, the specifics of our sport are such that the path to the top in cross-country skiing is long and very difficult. Units manage to break into the lead immediately, on the first attempt. The same Johaug at the age of 19 won her first medal at the World Championships, and the next failed. In 2010, she was also far from the leader of world skiing, although she became the Olympic champion in the relay. And for the next five years, Teresa only gained momentum. Bolshunov started the first season very brightly after junior age, but really opened up, consider, at the age of 26, although before that he played in the world cups for five or six seasons. Probably, it is even to some extent good that an athlete comes to success not momentarily, but through a lot of work.

Of all the performances of your athletes during the season, which was the most unexpected for you?

- Veronika Stepanova won in the classics in Kirovo-Chepetsk, where she won against Natalia Nepryaeva. It is clear that in that race, first of all, Nepryaeva herself allowed herself to be overtaken, but I did not expect such a sharp surge from Stepanova. Although he assumed that inside Russia she would fight for the top three. Another question is that Stepanova's classic move is still far from ideal.

— When I read what Veronica writes in social networks and columns, I can't help feeling that she is constantly trying to teach someone how to live. Journalists, Norwegians, fans. As a coach, have these moral teachings not affected you yet?

- Thankfully, no. In general, I can note that Stepanova has one very good quality that she absorbed while still riding as a child in Kamchatka: the authority of the coach with whom she works is unusually high for her. As for the construction of the training process and in general all the work aimed at achieving results, Nika and I have a complete mutual understanding. Within our team, I never noticed anyone trying to teach life.

- Theoretically, your wife Tatyana could also begin to actively develop social networks, since she temporarily cannot compete.

- Why? It's really not a question of some hypothetical commercial benefit, but of whether an athlete wants to demonstrate his life to the world or not. As for the widespread opinion that popularity in social networks allows you to make money, I personally have certain doubts about this. I do not see in our Russian realities of skiing a pattern between the media and the wallet. There are quite a few absolutely non-media athletes in skiing, who, nevertheless, are all right with sponsors and with earnings. I know that Tanya holds a similar point of view.

- Maybe activity on the Internet is just a means to get the attention that a person lacks in everyday life?

- If we're talking about Veronica, I don't think she lacks attention. Rather. She's not too fond of any public events at all. He will always prefer to stay at home if there is such an opportunity.

- From the words of your wife, I understood that, despite the pregnancy, she is still ready to train almost in the same mode. Do you have to stop?

— Naturally, we control the load. For the first two months, Tatyana studied with the group twice a day, then we switched to one-time training sessions of one and a half to two hours, now we work exclusively according to our well-being. Tanya herself determines how to build work.

- Is the decree a lost time for sports? Or does it allow the athlete to continue to develop some qualities?

- There is definitely no question of developing any qualities. All work is exclusively supportive. At the same time, we agreed in advance: if Tatiana goes on maternity leave, she begins to work more actively on the technique. That is, to think not about how many kilometers she will travel, but about how exactly she will pass them. Accordingly, in the hall we are now doing exercises that are more aimed at technique. To eliminate previous mistakes as much as possible.

- But if we talk about the technique of skiing in general, it will inevitably begin to break from a large increase in weight.

- We are not talking about high speeds, about high intensity, about the technique of competitive movement. It is clear that riding with a belly is not so easy in principle, but certain things can be worked out on a calm course. Many athletes, even in a calm training state, make a lot of mistakes: instead of focusing on their own movements, they put on headphones, turn on players and think about anything but technique.

— Having such a unique coaching experience, you could probably write a manual for working with pregnant athletes.

- There are no general patterns here: each pregnancy, even in the same athlete, can proceed differently. But I can give some advice. The main thing, it seems to me, here is that a person himself must determine the level of load: to understand what he is able to do and what he is not. No coach here will write an optimal plan.

— Before the Olympics, you repeatedly noted that Tatiana, with her maximalism in her work, has to be stopped in training. That she is constantly trying to jump above her head, to go beyond her own capabilities. Up to what age is it permissible to go beyond the limits without fear of consequences?

- That's a tough question. For this, probably, it is necessary that there is a coach nearby. In general, in the entire world sport, there is now a tendency that in the "athlete-coach" bundle, the athlete becomes the main one. In other words, a certain professional level seems to imply that a person begins to understand his body very well and better feel the line beyond which it is better not to go. The higher the class of the athlete, the more clearly all this looms.

If we talk about age, this is also a very individual question. Someone is able to fully open up at the age of 20, and someone begins to manifest himself as much as possible only closer to 30.

- Tatiana - is this the second option?

- Her body is designed in such a way that the possibilities really began to manifest themselves quite late. Working with her before the Games in Beijing, I was internally sure that in terms of work Tanya I have a Terminator. That no load can break it. But subsequent events showed that we still crossed a line that should not have been crossed in training. Tanya did not "get up", she did not have any health consequences, but we did not manage to reach the peak that I had planned.

- If the suspension from international competitions lasts for the next season, do you, as a coach, have an understanding of where to go, what to do and how to motivate the wards?

- In the summer, in any case, we will prepare to return to the World Cup. Accordingly, we will hope to the last that we will still go there. We have a year ahead of us, there will be no World Cup in it, which means that we need to be ready to run the whole season at a high level, albeit without going to any particular peak.

- Tatyana said that you are now actively looking for a nanny to be able to take children with you to the training camp.

- In fact, we are quite serious about the next season in the sense that at least until November we go to all the training camps and competitions as a family, but so that organizationally it does not interfere with the work. Therefore, we are already very carefully approaching all issues, including financial ones. These are accommodation, meals, nannies, visits of grandparents. So that at the training camp, wherever they are held, children minimally influence the training process, but at the same time everyone would feel at home. With this scheme, it is not necessary to return home between gatherings – you can just move from place to place.

— A serious project.

- In principle, this is all real. I used to close the organizational part quite well, and we earned money at the Olympics, we can afford to rent comfortable housing.

— What do you want to see in the performance of your athletes at the Russian Championships in Tyumen? In other words, are there any goals for this start?

- There are certainly goals, because not all my athletes during the season showed the result that I expected. Therefore, with some, we approach the national championship more than responsibly. But I'll be honest: it's very difficult to run the Russian Championship at the end of March with the feeling that this is the main start of the season. It is difficult to motivate athletes to fight, it is difficult to keep the accumulated level of concentration.

— Has anything changed in terms of the timing of these competitions?

- No, it's just that before all the strongest focused on other competitions, not on internal ones. The national championship was a kind of dock for them: if you run well, well done! It doesn't matter if you run , it also seems like nothing to worry about. Morally, few of the leaders invested in this start. It's not that easy at all when you had peak form in February.

This situation, by the way, played into the hands of many athletes. The same Tanya two years ago became the champion of the country, won four gold medals, and this greatly added to her confidence. By the way, she prepared for that start to the maximum - after the World Cup she even stayed at the training camp in Italy.

- I understand that the issue has already been erased to the hilt, but I'll ask anyway. I understand the motives of Sergey Ustyugov, who wanted to train individually. In the same way, I understand perfectly well what motivated you in not keeping an athlete in the group. But at least to a small extent, did this departure become a click on your coaching pride?

- It was not that upsetting, just the potential of Sergey and his real capabilities I know very, very well. They are higher than the results he shows. He's really capable of more, even at his current age — without three weeks at 31. On the other hand, I also understand how difficult it was for Ustyugov to drive himself into the framework of the same training camps. So the chances that Sergey would be able to work in the general group were initially few.

- At least you tried.

- Yes. And now I do not worry about the result at all. In the end, Sergey was not alone. He has Marcus (Kramer - RT), who writes training plans, there is a regional team that organizes training and competitive life no worse than it is done in the national team, there is responsibility for his own result.

The way he prepared for Championship Heights suggests that he is very good at handling the tasks at hand. I will not say that Sergey's result was outstanding, but it was high. Ustyugov ran all six disciplines and looked very decent at the final distance of 50 km. It was clear that he was serious. As well as the championship of Russia. You saw for yourself what he did in the sprint classic on the opening day and how close he was to gold in the skiathlon.

- And if suddenly Ustyugov again asks you to take him to the group?

- That's what I don't think about at all. I know for sure that I will not come and ask.