According to the rules, these days she had to prepare for the World Championships - the last in her career. Instead, 38-year-old Olga Zavyalova, the last active athlete from the great generation of the 90s, came to the editorial office of Soviet Sport. To talk about a conflict with ex-girlfriend on the national team, now the president of the federation Elena Vyalbe, about twenty years of career in the elite and about the fear of the outcome, when “the skis are standing by the stove, the month ends in March”...
Zavyalova won her last big victory four years ago - in the duathlon at the World Championships in Sapporo, Japan. Then there was the birth of the second daughter, Alexandra. Return to sports, participation in the 2010 Games in Vancouver...
But we have no longer seen the invincible Zavyalova of 2007.
We built a straight line in “Soviet Sport”, like Olga’s victorious duathlon. The first part, the classic one – questions from readers. Rapid change of skis - blitz. The second part, in free style - questions from journalists from our editorial office. And the finish is like the finish of her career. Where there was everything except the most coveted Olympic award.
– Question from Natalia Ilyukhina: what else would you like to do in skiing?
“Nothing,” Olga snaps. – I am a free man now. I only run races that I want to participate in. But I no longer have goals in sports.
– Did you dream about the World Championships in Oslo, where did you qualify fairly?
– My husband and I decided back in the summer: if we manage to get to the World Championships, that’s good. It won’t work out - God bless him. It would have been disappointing if after Vancouver I had stayed on the national team, specially preparing for the World Championships, but Vyalbe had not taken me. And so... I took the refusal from Oslo calmly. I was hurt by Vyalbe’s words addressed to me - they say, I won’t even consider Zavyalova - but not by the fact that they didn’t take me to Norway.
– Why train at all if you no longer set sports goals for yourself?
– I think about my health. I simply could not sit at home idly when I spent 20 years of my life almost entirely in training camps. The body itself asks for training.
– Ivan Isaev invites you to compare four presidents of the Russian Ski Racing Federation – Boris Bystrov, Anatoly Akentyev, Vladimir Loginov and Elena Vyalbe.
“That’s a tricky question,” Zavyalova smiles. – I don’t particularly remember Bystrov. In 1996, I was young and didn’t think about leadership at all. I’ll tell you one episode about Akentyev. 1997, World Championships in Trondheim, Norway. The same one where Vyalbe won five gold medals and trouble happened with the disqualification of Lyubov Egorova. The then senior coach of the women's team, Alexander Grushin, promised to put me in one final race - the 30 km classic. I won control training against my competitor Sveta Nageikina. But the day before the start, Larisa Lazutina told me that I was not running. Neither Akentyev nor Grushin even approached. Nageikina ended up running the race on my skis!
– Interesting: back in 1997 you dreamed of participating in the marathon at the World Championships, but in 2010 we didn’t even have participants for the Olympic marathon in Vancouver - no one wanted to run...
– Yes, now try to find a young woman who wants to run 30 km... There are no such people! By the way, then in Trondheim I approached the management to ask why they didn’t put me on 30 km, although I deserved it. They answered me: “You’re still young, you’ll have time to run around.” Like this: they used to give way to authorities, and I couldn’t get through among those monsters. And now that I’ve made it through, I’ve suddenly become too old. And I’m also not suitable, I don’t qualify for my age...
– Returning to the reader’s question, what can you say about the third on the list of FLGR presidents – Vladimir Loginov?
– Loginov sat in his place. He knew how to behave correctly with his superiors, knew the people in the regions, and did not particularly interfere in the selection of the squad for the main competitions. But at the Vancouver Olympics, he called the athletes “wasted material.” Because of these words, we wrote a letter to the President of Russia. I just ran out of patience.
– The current head of the federation is Elena Vyalbe...
– As the president of the federation, I hardly know her. But I want to give Elena advice. You must be able to communicate with people on equal terms and with respect. The hype with my participation at the World Championships could have been avoided if Lena had simply approached me like a human being, and not given offensive interviews.
– Question from Evgeny Petrov from Krasnoyarsk: share the recipe for sports longevity - how to stay in shape so that at the age of 38 you can beat everyone in Russia?
“To do this, you need to really love ski racing,” says Zavyalova after a pause. – I’m so used to getting ready that it’s difficult to adapt to home life. After the Olympics in Vancouver, I stayed at home for five months, taking care of the children, working in the garden, and cooking. And then I caught myself thinking: “That’s it, I’m tired, I want to train!”
– Antonina Anikina, the wife of 1956 Olympic champion Nikolai Anikin, is wondering: what would you do differently if you knew in advance how the head of the federation would behave towards you?
– I would have trained even more and won the 30 km race at the Russian Championship. And not because I really want to go to Norway. But because I want to prove to Elena: veterans must be respected. CHANGE OF SKIS. BLITZ
“THE PROSECUTORS GAVE WILDFLOWERS”
– Which of the two world championship gold medals is more valuable to you – 2003 or 2007?
“The second one, 2007,” Zavyalova answers without hesitation. “When I crossed the finish line of the duathlon first, there was only one thought in my head. “Here it is, I proved it to you!” I proved that, despite not being included in the victorious Olympic relay in Turin, despite the fact that Grushin then kicked me out of the Saturn club for lack of prospects, I was written off early...
– That victory of yours in Sapporo was the last in the career of the senior coach of the women’s team, Olympic champion Alexei Prokurorov, who six months later died under the wheels of a drunk driver...
“His death in 2008 was a shock. Lesha was a special coach, unlike anyone else. For example, he could pick wildflowers during training and then give them as a gift. He never forgot about birthdays, holidays... He understood what it was like to be an athlete, and tried to make our lives at least a little brighter.
– Did they call him “you”?
- No, on “you”. I couldn’t say “you”. We trained together for so many years.
– Who is the best coach in your career?
– Andrei Boyarinov, under whom I won gold at the 2003 World Championships.
– Could you become a coach yourself?
– I still can’t answer this question for myself. I just want to go to a training camp with some team and try. I’m ready to start with children, I’m interested in this too. FREE STYLE. QUESTIONS FROM THE EDITOR
"BJORGEN HELP PHARMACEUTICALS"
– Will you watch the World Cup on TV or will it hurt?
“No, it doesn’t hurt one bit,” Zavyalova shakes her head and takes a sip of tea. “I don’t even remember when it hurt me to watch skiing.” Probably only the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, which I didn’t get to at the last moment.
– How will the Russian women perform in the 30 km race for which you have qualified?
– It’s good if someone gets into the top ten. Norwegian Marit Bjorgen and Justyna Kowalczyk from Poland will most likely fight for victory.
– What do you think about Bjorgen’s invincibility? Is this a unique natural talent or the result of using anti-asthma drugs?
– I believe that her latest results were achieved due to anti-asthmatic drugs. When Bjorgen used milder medications before, it was possible to fight her. I won’t say for sure, I don’t know, but I just see how Kowalczyk works in training. And I don’t understand where Bjorgen suddenly got such a gigantic gap from everyone else. I read in the newspapers that the Norwegian woman was allowed to use stronger drugs before the Olympics. The conclusion suggests itself.
– You started in a great team, where Larisa Lazutina, Olga Danilova, the same Vyalbe shone, you even found Raisa Smetanina...
– I remember my thoughts when I first joined the national team as a young girl. “Well, at least someone could tell me something!” – Zavyalova laughs. “I was very little, but none of our friends came to me.” Although there are a lot of subtleties and secrets in the training process. Larisa Lazutina gave me the only advice then: “Olya, don’t strain yourself during control training. You only need to strain yourself in competitions.” I remembered this advice for the rest of my life.
– Aren’t you offended that some of the athletes who went to the World Championships in Norway instead of you will clearly not be competing for medals there?
“Yes, I understand that I could perform in Oslo no worse than many,” Zavyalova’s voice sounds metallic. - But why? Why should I, at 38 years old, take 20th place at the World Championships? It's a shame. It’s a shame that now there was no selection system at all, no rating, no scoring. The composition for the World Championship was determined entirely at the discretion of the federation president Vyalbe.
– Is it true that during the generation of Vyalbe, Lazutina, Danilova they trained many times more than now?
- Certainly. With Grushin we did more than nine thousand kilometers a year. We trained without any days off at all, went on killer cross-hikes for five to six hours... And this year I only did about four thousand kilometers. I have never had a harder time in my life than in those seven years with Grushin. I was just surviving. And at the same time, Grushin constantly said: “You’re not training well, you need to work more.” The older I got, the longer it took to recover from wild amounts of training. On the one hand, we have laid an excellent foundation. But my body couldn’t cope, and in fact the coach destroyed me every year...
– Remember your most grueling training day?
“I remember it like it is now,” Zavyalova smiles out of the corners of her eyes. – The last day of the training camp in Raubichi, around 1993. I am 20 years old. I go out to imitation training, and together with Tanya Podmazo, the same girl, we rush after Lazutina, Danilova, Gavrylyuk... The circle in Raubichi is very difficult. I had to endure it for four hours,” Zavyalova pauses, as if that pain had returned. – We sang songs. We laughed, we became hysterical. Everything happened, but we endured it.
– Why is the scale of performers now getting smaller? Today's female racers have already taught us to rejoice at getting into the top ten...
– There are no nuggets, because there are no conditions. I heard that biathlete Nikolai Kruglov, who became the Deputy Minister of Sports in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, is clutching his head: no money, no sports facilities, no equipment... And then we wonder why young talents don’t appear...
– Do you still have the feeling that you managed to realize yourself in sports?
“I’m missing an Olympic medal in my collection,” Zavyalova sighs. – And in general, over 18 years in the national team there could have been much more awards. But what should I do if I found myself in a sport with a great generation of rivals? And then suddenly she became too old. I probably realized 70 percent of my potential in skiing. In fact, not so little. WAR OF WORDS
VYALBE VS ZAVYALOVA
“Soviet Sport” recalls the chronology of the conflict between the president of the Russian Ski Federation, three-time Olympic champion Elena Vyalbe and Olga Zavyalova.
February 1st. Zavyalova takes second place in the 30 km freestyle race at the Russian Championships in Demino and fulfills the conditions for qualifying for the World Championships.
February 3. Vyalbe, in response to the question about the prospects for Zavyalova’s participation in the World Championship, states: “Both the Moscow region and Olga herself may be offended at me, but I will not consider her candidacy. Our task is to provide an opportunity for young people to express themselves.”
February 4. Zavyalova becomes tenth in the duathlon at the World Cup in Demino, showing the second result among all Russian racers.
Vyalbe announces the lineup for the World Championships, in which Zavyalova is not present.
Zavyalova convenes a press conference in Demino, where she declares that she does not agree with the form of Vyalbe’s statements and leaves the big sport.
* * * SCHEDULE OF SKI RACING AT THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPMENTS IN OSLO
February 24.
Sprint, free style. Men, women. (TV: 15.15 – “Eurosport”, qualifications. 16.45 – “Russia 2”, “Eurosport”, finals.)
February 26.
Duathlon 15 km, women. (TV: 13.00 – “Eurosport”, live broadcast, 13.40 – “Russia 2”.)
March 2.
Team sprint, classic style. Men, women. (TV: 14.15 – “Eurosport”, qualification. 16.10 – “Eurosport”, finals.)
March 6.
50 km, free style, mass start. Men. (TV: 14.55 – “Eurosport”.)
PERSONAL MATTER
Olga ZAVYALOVA
Born on August 24, 1972 in the Leningrad region.
He plays for the Moscow region, the Istina club.
Winner of six world championship medals: 2 gold (2003, 2007), 1 silver (2007) and 3 bronze (2003). Participant in three Olympic Games (2002, 2006, 2010). Best individual place at the Olympics – 7th (2006). 22-time World Cup medalist (1994–2007).
Married, daughters Anna and Alexandra.
Elena Vyalbe (Trubitsyna) was born on April 20, 1968 in the city of Magadan. With a population of just over 300 thousand people, it is located on the shores of the icy Sea of Okhotsk. This is the center of the naturally harsh Kolyma region. From the very early childhood little Lena watched with interest the skiers who were training on the track that passed near her house. She herself started skiing as soon as she started walking, and at the age of 8 she began serious training.
Successes and victories came quite quickly. At the age of 11, Viktor Tkachenko took Elena to the Magadan region cross-country skiing team, and together with him they reached the main roster of the USSR adult cross-country skiing team. Viktor Maksimovich was her mentor from the 5th grade until she was 20 years old.
Elena learned her first real taste of a big victory early - at the championship of the Central Council of the VSS "Trud". Then Vyalbe won against skiers who were much older in age and took 2nd place. At the age of 14, when the young athlete was awarded the title of Master of Sports, her future was determined. Nature generously endowed Elena with a strong character, athletic talent, and the ability to work. Complete dedication and commitment to the job became the key to success.
She won her first individual gold medal in Italy at the 1987 Junior World Championships. In the same year, Elena marries Estonian skier Urmas Vyalbe and her son France is born, then returns to the ski slopes. Or rather, it flies there like lightning, which no one expected on the ski horizon.
The 1989 World Championships in Lahti brought together all the strongest skiers on the planet. The women's “company” was led by Olympic champions: Finns Matikainen and Kirvesniemi and ours Smetanina and Tikhonova. But no one could resist Elena in the 10 and 30 km freestyle races.
She was 21 years old. At the next World Championships in Italy, Elena confirmed her winning class not only as a “skate” style skier, but also won the 15 km race in the classical style. That’s when they started talking about Vyalba as a “Magadan nugget.”
It seemed that at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Albertville in 1992, she would certainly take more than one “gold”... But fate decreed otherwise. She was destined to receive four bronze awards. True, there was a “golden” Russian relay race, where she ran the first stage.
Her second Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994 was even more unlucky. Two weeks before the start, she fell ill and was practically unable to compete on equal terms with the leading female skiers in the world. The only gold award went to her again in the relay race.
Elena Vyalbe's horoscope is Aries, and these are people who strive to be first and are ready to do anything for this. The peak of her career came in 1997, when she won all the gold medals at the World Championships. Five gold awards out of five possible! It was just her championship.
In the history of Russian skiing, the memory of the 1998 Olympics in Nagano (Japan) will forever remain, when athletes from Russia won gold in the 4x5 kilometer relay race. During the first and second stages, the fight for 1st place was between Russian and Norwegian skiers; at the third stage, Elena Vyalbe took the baton, passing the baton to Larisa Lazutina with a gap of 23 seconds over her opponent. This is how Elena Vyalbe ended her sports career brilliantly.
1995 World Championships in Thunder Bay (Canada)
Currently lives in the Moscow region. Actively participates in the sports life of the Moscow region. Since June 17, 2010 he has been the President of the Russian Ski Racing Federation.
At a meeting of the executive committee of the Russian Ski Racing Federation (FLGR), a decision was made to remove seven coaches and doctor Oleg Zhukov from working with the national team for involvement in doping scandals. The recently elected president of the FLGR, three-time Olympic champion Elena Vyalbe, insisted on such drastic measures.
When she was an active athlete, Vyalbe was never caught using illegal drugs. Moreover, at the 1997 World Championships in Trondheim, Norway, the Russian skier amazed everyone. After her teammate Lyubov Egorova was disqualified for using the notorious bromantane, Vyalbe picked up the microphone and began to prove to everyone gathered at the ski stadium, including the King of Norway, that Russians can win without doping.
Lyubov Egorova
No one pulled Vyalbe’s tongue then, and her passage, albeit addressed to a six-time Olympic champion and Hero of Russia who had failed in doping, looked at least strange.
After being elected president of the FLGR, Vyalbe first announced a program to combat doping in Russian skiing. “People need to understand that they can’t do these things,” the new boss of Russian skiing told RIA Novosti. “It shouldn’t happen that the athlete doesn’t know what he’s being injected with, that the doctor doesn’t know what drug the coach gave him, and the coach doesn’t say that he didn’t give anything to anyone at all.” Everyone should know the extent of their responsibility.”
After such a decisive passage, Vyalbe, however, said that even with the toughest decisions on her part, heads would not fly. She did not allow the thought that everyone would be dispersed, and only the new president of the federation would remain in the leadership of the Russian team.
Nevertheless, Vyalbe went over individual personalities immediately after her election to the presidency.
First of all, it went to the famous coach Anatoly Chepalov. The new president of the FLGR, without diplomatic equivocation, stated: “We must stop the Chepalov family, which is filing lawsuits with various authorities after Yulia’s disqualification for doping. This is not the first time that Anatoly Chepalov’s students have been caught using illegal drugs, but the coach did not draw any conclusions.”
Anatoly Chepalov
At the same time, curiously, Vyalbe highly appreciated Chepalov’s achievements in the field of ski lubrication and promised to use them in preparing the national team. It is unlikely that those who are interested in cross-country skiing have forgotten the story of four years ago. At the Turin Olympics, Vyalbe was the head coach of the country's national team, and her main critic during the preparation for the Games was none other than Anatoly Chepalov. He generally stated that Vyalbe does not have the right to lead the national team, working in it concurrently with the position of adviser to the governor of the Moscow region on sports.
In Turin, Yulia Chepalova became an Olympic champion, having successfully passed doping control. She was accused of using illegal drugs much later. As well as another skier from Chepalov’s group, Sergei Shiryaev. Is it any wonder that Anatoly Chepalov was blacklisted?
Immediately after being elected president, Vyalbe mentioned that she would not like to see Yuri Borodavko, who until recently was responsible for juniors, in the national team. When the new FLGR president was the head coach of the national team and vice-president of the federation, Borodavko was very supportive of Vyalbe, but then a black cat ran between them.
Yuri Borodavko
The famous specialist was also among those suspended from working with the national team.
Formally, for the doping puncture of Evgeniy Dementyev. Only officially the coaches of the Olympic champion Turin at that moment were Valery Ukhov and Sergey Kryanin. For some reason they were not considered guilty.
FLGR officials, who should have been held accountable in accordance with the verdict of the International Ski Federation (FIS), which fined Russia for doping punctures, were also not punished.
Immediately after Vyalbe was elected president of the FLGR, the famous coach Alexander Grushin noted that it was she who was the first vice-president of the federation during the first high-profile doping scandals with Russian skiers in Salt Lake City. Then she silently left, but did not defend the specialists who were transferred from trainers to lubricants. It was Grushin, when he was the coach of the national team, who led Vyalbe to the Olympic heights, but at the same time, the skier more than once spoke about the bad character of the outstanding specialist.
Grushin was not kicked out of the national team: he has not worked for it for a long time. The whole question is who will replace the trainers and doctors accused of distributing illegal drugs. And under the guise of a campaign for clean sports, won’t they get rid of specialists who are disliked by the FLGR president? After all, Vyalba alone, with all due respect to her principled position on doping, cannot cope with this evil. It is necessary that in Russian skiing, as in biathlon and other cyclic disciplines, they adopt a simple principle: it is better to remain without gold, but not to become involved in another scandal.
14 Feb 2013 12:16 Sergey ZYUZIN "Altai sport"
Master of Sports of International Class Elena Shalina is one of the iconic figures for Altai sports - for many years She was the best skier in the region and was a member of the national team. She did not achieve any grandiose victories on the world stage, but she was not a tourist in the company of our great female racers.
Elena Alekseevna did not get lost even after graduation sports career. Now he works as an inspector-methodologist in the educational and sports department of the Altai Regional Council "Dynamo". And recently, our fellow countrywoman began to be involved in the work of judges at all-Russian and international competitions. Those who have known Elena Alekseevna for a long time are sure that this work is for her. Competent, responsible, disciplined, modest and decent. That is, he has all the qualities of an ideal judge! Maybe there is not enough international experience, but this is a gainful thing. We talked after her return from Sochi, where the Russian Cup competitions and the World Cup stage, timed to coincide with the traditional pre-Olympic week, took place.
We are helpers for skiers
- Elena Alekseevna, how did you get into the elite of the judiciary?
Let's start with the fact that in Barnaul my job is this: to hold competitions in the AKS Dynamo system - a sports festival in 12 sports. I am involved in all judging events, while, of course, my native skiing and biathlon remain my specialization. For judging more high level The head of the regional sports administration, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Alt, helped get out, offering to take part in an all-Siberian seminar in Kemerovo last year. I was very interested. It also turned out that Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchelkanov, who at that time headed the board of sports judges of Russia, is our fellow countryman. Having learned that I was from Altai, I said: “Let’s go to judging. Let's teach! After that, I attended all-Russian seminars in Yoshkar-Ola and Syktyvkar. There they taught how to prepare for competitions and how to conduct them correctly. Passed exams according to the competition rules. In 2012, I managed to work on the panel of judges at test starts in Sochi, where the final stage of the Russian Cup took place. The impressions are unforgettable.
- Was the work difficult?
Complicated! Every day we worked from eight in the morning until nine in the evening. The competitions are held, the athletes go to recover and rest, and we lay out protocols, numbers, bags for clothes, prepare presentations... I work in the secretariat - mainly with papers. I practically don’t see how the athletes run. We are sitting on the first floor, on the second there is a timing group - those who are responsible for timing. There is a lot of all kinds of ultra-modern equipment there. In Sochi the ski town is collapsible. The competitions were held, the buildings were dismantled - and that’s it, an open field! This is a stationary complex for biathletes, very large and well equipped.
- What are the most important requirements for the work of the judiciary?
The most important thing: be invisible. Do not interfere with athletes and do not get into television cameras. The second is to work so that the teams do not have any problems regarding organizational issues. Everyone should know the competition regulations. The necessary information should be provided to participants as quickly as possible.
- What about knowledge of English?
We are learning the language. You must be able to clearly explain to foreigners all the necessary points. We are registered at the Olympic Volunteer Center, where there is a special program for learning English. But I think the time has come for more thorough and in-depth studies.
- In game sports, athletes, to put it mildly, have a cool attitude towards judges.
This is understandable for contact sports. In cross-country skiing and biathlon, judges are assistants to athletes. We are very friendly with them. They often seek advice and clarification.
From what you said, everything is clear, but I will still ask a question that torments some particularly curious Barnaul residents: I suppose Shalina is constantly being dragged along by her teammate Elena Vyalbe, who now heads the Russian Ski Racing Federation?
I called Elena Valerievna on the eve of the seminar in Yoshkar-Ola, where a permanent contingent of judges goes, consisting mainly of specialists from Tyumen, Syktyvkar, and Demino. She helped me make an official call from the federation. And at competitions we have absolutely no time to communicate, I will never sit down with folded arms and say: “I am Vyalbe’s protégé.” Whatever they say, I do, without any ambitions or resentment: I have to fold the bags - I fold them, I have to run back and forth with information - I run. We all help each other, interchangeability has been established. If I had done a bad job somewhere, I would hardly have been called back again. At this level of responsibility, no one needs ballast.
The track in Sochi is very difficult
- I’m sure you skied on the Sochi ski track.
A very difficult track. Big climbs. But they cook it very well. At these competitions the judges consisted of 60 people. We were a little unlucky with the weather. But in those places it is always difficult. It happens that in one area the sun is shining with all its might, but literally nearby the fog is spreading thick and thick. And then it might snow. For biathletes, this is generally a guard.
- In a word, there will be no problems with snow?
It shouldn't. We lived in cottage villages of European level. On one mountain we were taken on large snowmobiles to a canteen, on another - to a stadium. Hotels are currently being built. In my opinion, at the 2014 Olympics, athletes will not need anything.
The athletes will not be in need, but the spectators... During the cross-country skiing show, everyone noticed the absence of fans along the track and the half-empty stadium. There was information that tickets cost more than three thousand rubles. But is this the only reason?
The security system is being debugged. It will be very serious at the Olympic Games. There were a lot of police officers, they checked everything and constantly demanded to show accreditation. Apparently many people have problems with it. We were told that a group of fans from Siberia were unable to enter the stadium due to lack of accreditation. Unfortunately, they did not know that the issue of accreditation could be resolved on the Internet - by submitting an application in advance.
- Besides the competitions, what do you remember from your trip to pre-Olympic Sochi?
- (With a sigh.) Yes, there was no time to be particularly distracted. Work, work and more work. Once we just went out to Adler to look at the sea, but the weather was bad. It was raining in Sochi... Only at the closing ceremony did we relax a little. We watched a good concert at the luxurious Grand Hotel. I was very impressed by the Olympic village. The only thing I didn’t like: all the hotels with foreign names. Why not give them Russian names? The whole world will come to visit us. Well, let foreigners settle in “Moscow” and not in “Mercury”.
- What other competitions do you expect to work at this season?
We were invited to Tyumen for the Biathlon World Cup. But I have a lot of work in Barnaul. Thank God, Deputy Chairman of AKS Dynamo Alexey Alekseevich Minin meets halfway and lets me go to important competitions.
- Judges also need to be in good sports shape...
I ski a little on the weekends. But I don’t feel much desire to train regularly. Probably, I ran into it at the time.
I believe in Kuzyukova
- How high are the chances of our fellow countrymen getting to the Winter Games?
I have all my hopes for Olga Kuzyukova. She has all the necessary qualities, and most importantly, character. I talked to her coach. He respectfully said: “This is a “shepherd”!” Sports anger is a necessary quality for real leaders. The impression is that, if necessary, they will tear their rival to shreds. I remember what kind of staring contest the leaders of my time played with their competitors, morally destroying (with a smile). I didn’t have this and maybe that’s why I didn’t reach the main peaks.
- How does the current generation of the national team compare to competitors?
The Norwegian female squad that arrived in Sochi was not as strong as the male squad. Justyna Kowalczyk from Poland was out of shape. She even admitted that it was only here that she realized that she was a person like everyone else. Even the iron-clad Peter Northug admitted the difficulty of the Sochi routes.
- What does the athlete’s experience suggest: will our native walls help us?
It's all in the athlete's feet! You need to prepare very seriously. For men, the sprint team trains separately from the distance athletes. But what did the sprints show? The distancers won - Yapparov and Vylegzhanin! They do very large volumes. Sprinters work less, it seems like they don’t need large volumes. But the Sochi stages showed: sprinters also need to be able to endure. There were no Roosters at all. He himself is large and heavy, and on such tracks it was doubly difficult for him.
My personal opinion: skiers should be all-rounders. I don’t understand the motives for dividing into sprinters and distance athletes. How did we perform before? Of course, there were no such sprints, but short distances - especially at the end of the season - were constantly run.
- What do you think our collections can count on at the Olympic competitions?
I have more hopes for men. It is difficult to say why things are not going very well for women now. After the galaxy of Vyalbe, Lazutina, Gavrilyuk, Danilova, who had no equal in the world for a long time, a decline began. Coaches say there simply isn't the same caliber of talent as there used to be. However, our former “stars” were not only talented, they also worked very hard. Now there is no clear leader in the women's team. Somewhere one will shoot, somewhere another. But there is no slaughterer.
I think it is necessary to raise skiing throughout Russia, and not just in a few rich regions, like Tyumen, which simply buys up all the more or less talented athletes. We need to educate coaching staff. In Altai we don’t have many qualified ski trainers right now. The recent death of Sergei Zorin has worsened the situation. The girls who studied with him ended up in difficult situation. This is especially true for Yaroslava Cherdantseva.
Stardom and modesty
I have heard that many young sportsmen and women (and not only young ones, as recent events with our collections show) are spoiled by the pursuit of a long ruble. They are trying to squeeze the maximum possible out of the parallel competition. As in “12 chairs” by Ilf and Petrov: “In the morning - money, in the evening - chairs.” But the “chairs” often turn out crooked.
After Sochi I talked with one specialist. In his opinion, one of the problems is that we are starting to inflate stars very quickly. The girl hasn’t done anything outstanding, but glamor publications are already writing extensive materials about her, organizing photo shoots, and calling her famous.
Well, Yulia Chekaleva took second place in the race at the Sochi stage of the World Cup. Many strong rivals were absent, it seems that you need to be more modest, but Yulia begins to broadcast to the whole country and the world: everything is bad, the track is unimportant, the distributors are ugly... Yes, three dozen distributors came from all over Russia! The boys worked like hell. But you saw on TV how heavy the snowfall was. You need to be more modest.
In my time, when the team began new season, our great coach Alexander Alekseevich Grushin said: “Forget about regalia and medals. The starts will show who is who.” And indeed, the great skiers did not star at every corner, but worked hard. And now the main interest of many is where they pay more, where they will give you a bigger apartment? They run from one region to another. They forget about their coaches, their small homeland...
- Our conversation is taking place on an interesting day - there is exactly a year left before the start of the Olympics. Feeling excited?
Very strong. We were so worried at the World Cup stage - we didn’t even have normal sleep! God forbid we do something wrong... I would like to believe that we will hold the Olympics at the highest level.
The architect of Olympic success on why she was pleased by the lack of gold in Pyeongchang and how other regions are jealous of Tatarstan
The real discovery of the recent Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang was the Russian ski team, whose representatives won 8 awards. This success is a huge credit to the President of the Russian Ski Racing Federation, Elena Vyalbe, who flew to Kazan for just a few hours to take part in the celebration of her charges Andrei Larkov and Anna Nechaevskaya, along with other Olympians of Tatarstan. Vyalbe spoke with BUSINESS Online about the results of the Olympic Games and more.
Elena Vyalbe: “Many regions are jealous of the warm relations that I have with Tatarstan. But I can explain this by the fact that most often you visit those regions where there are growth prospects" Photo: Alexey Filippov, RIA Novosti
“WE HAVE SEVERAL KEY CAMPS WHERE THE NATIONAL AND JUNIOR TEAM TRAIN TOGETHER”
– Elena Valerievna, what is the secret of our skiers’ achievements? This refers to both the World Championships and the Olympics in Pyeongchang, where, one might say, a “kindergarten” competed.
– Well, I wouldn’t call our collections “kindergarten.” Everyone who competed at the Olympics got there through a sieve of strict selection. We didn’t grab anyone spontaneously to enter the Olympic competitions, thus closing the gaps. If you look at our application, we did not allow 8 skiers to participate in the competitions; all of these 8 applications ultimately remained unfilled.
Returning to our Olympians, it is worth noting that someone, for example Alexey Chervotkin, has been a member of the national team since last season. But if you still think about the secret of successful performance, then I would look for the answer to this question in the work of the past two Olympic cycles, when members of the youth team (under 23 years old) trained together with the core of the national team.
- That's all?
- No. We also have a very good coaching staff, we are allocated finances, even when something is missing, they meet us halfway to solve the problems that arise. As a result, we take 8 juniors and juniors to training camps with the national team, who make up the closest bench. Moreover, this is not some kind of know-how, it was like that at the time when I joined the USSR junior team and we conducted our training in parallel with members of the national team. And now we have several key gatherings where the entire elite of Russian skiing gathers.
– Did you have any problems?
– Let’s just say we had the Olympics when we had literally everything. This is Sochi 2014. Then all the wishes of the Winter Olympians were fulfilled once or twice. Taking advantage of this, we were then able to pull up our juniors of those years, realizing that in the future there will be no such Olympic cycle, when literally all our wishes will be fulfilled. Therefore, now, when we receive less than before, we may not like it, but there is an internal understanding that this is how it should have happened. Every effort was made to win the home Olympics. Now these funds are smaller, although we have enough to conduct large centralized collections. When everyone is preparing for their competitions: juniors for their championships, youth teams for theirs, the national team for theirs. At the same time, I would like to note that for me, winning at the junior level is not a priority, as the coaches of our teams are well aware of. The main thing is that these teams produce worthy replacement leaders.
“POWERFUL REGIONS ARE COMING TO OUR HELP”
– You have enough money, but you probably need to understand that only in skiing there is such a return, when every invested ruble is returned with a medal from the World Championship or the Olympics. Maybe there is a need to help even more?
– You know, if we talk about our sponsors, they are reliable and trusted, we value them very much. The same general sponsor - Lukoil - is so expensive that if they now offered me three times more finance than they give, but at the same time a short-term contract for a season, I would not exchange Lukoil for anyone. Yes, we can say that we do not have enough extra-budgetary funds, but we had a feeling in advance that such a sweet life, when we were riding like cheese in butter in front of Sochi, would no longer happen. Therefore, the reality that every year we had to cut the budget did not come as a surprise to us; we were prepared for it. But skiing is not only about athletes, training camps, business trips, food, equipment, it also means ointments and paraffins, which also require funds, approximately 20–25 million rubles a year. And now we don’t always have enough money for this. Fortunately, then powerful regions come to the rescue, including Tatarstan or Khanty-Mansiysk. But we must take into account that we have regions where strong athletes are raised, but it’s not that they don’t want to finance them, they just can’t. That's the problem. We are now trying to monetize our success in Korea, but for now...
“It was already clear from the level of the position held by Fardiev that this was a very serious scale and serious prospects for the growth of our skiing in the republic” Photo: BUSINESS Online
– Then there is a fear that in a month or a month and a half after Pyeongchang, everyone will forget about you...
– About me?! What are you talking about? I’m like a tank - how can you forget about this? Meetings like today’s with the local sports leadership, federations, and the media are also important here. In general, I don't like it when athletes spend a lot of time meeting with the press, but now it's simply necessary. When preparations for the new season begin, they will need to be reduced to a minimum so that nothing distracts from work, but now we understand that the Olympic season itself increases interest in our sports, and if we achieve the required result, then interest increases significantly. Also in Sochi, when Viktor An appeared, almost half the country became interested in short track racing.
– According to rumors, when the Tatarstan Ski Federation was headed by a new leadership headed by Ilshat Fardiev, the attitude on your part was wary, even cold...
- Cold? Never! Even when I first arrived in Tatarstan, I remember how we were all waiting for a joint meeting with Ilshat Shaekhovich, with the President of Tatarstan. As a result, we got to know each other, asked questions that interested us, and immediately our communication could be described as warm and businesslike, and not cold at all.
“MOST OFTEN I VISIT REGIONS WHERE THERE IS TRAFFIC”
– When did you personally realize that Tatarstan could become a new point of growth for skiing in Russia?
– Yes, even when the head coach of the Tatarstan national team Eduard Galeev recommended Ilshat Shaekhovich to me as the new president of the republican federation. Already from the level of the position held by Fardiev, it was clear that this was a very serious scale and serious prospects for the growth of our skiing in the republic. When a person has such a significant weight in the republic, when he has finances that can be attracted to develop our sport, this is very important.
I admit that many regions are jealous of the warm relations that I have with Tatarstan, but I can explain this by the fact that most often you visit those regions where there is a certain movement, where there are growth prospects. Moreover, such trips cannot be called idle. This time I flew home at two in the morning, and already at five I was at the airport to fly to Kazan literally for the day, since tomorrow there will be a board of the Ministry of Sports in Moscow, where I must be.
– How could the existing Yalta-Zai base, the base under construction at the Lokomotiv stadium in Yudino, be used in the interests of the national team?
“Unfortunately, these objects are located on the plain, and for progress it is necessary to use the routes in the highlands. Nowadays there is such a tendency that almost no one gets out of the high mountain trails. Nevertheless, I am glad that the same “Yalta-Zai” is quite busy, we hold fairly high-level competitions there, including the Russian junior championship, qualifying competitions for the Universiade, so there is no point in complaining about the inactivity of this facility. In summer there is a good roller ski track, which is also important. I hope that we will set up a strength training room there, which is simply necessary for the training camp of the same junior national team.
– Now the Olympics have passed, all restrictions for Russian skiers have been lifted. What will the national team look like in the new Olympic cycle, given that many of the suspended or temporarily disqualified skiers are quite old?
– I’ll say this: we are not going to discount anyone and will not kick anyone out of the team. As for the trio of skiers who continue to be outside the sport, including your Anastasia Dotsenko, as well as Yulia Ivanova and Yulia Chekaleva, we are waiting for the motivational part of the CAS sports arbitration, after which we will take further steps to protect our athletes. If the International Ski Federation (FIS) returns them the opportunity to compete, then we will have no claims against FIS, but if not, then we will challenge the right of our athletes to professional activities in civil courts.
– When will your headache start to form a new team for participation in the World Cup?
– Well, I would wait until the end of the season, although we will already begin to make some estimates on the formation of the squad based on the results of the Russian Championship. Everything will depend on the athletes themselves.
Photo: Vladimir Astapkovich, RIA Novosti
“DURING THE PREPARATION FOR THE OLYMPICS IN PYEONGCHANG THERE WAS NO FAST AND THE FURIOUS”
– Another fear is that Alexey Chervotkin, Alexander Bolshunov, Denis Spitsov, and other young athletes next year will look like squeezed lemons, since they were forced to prepare for the Olympic season.
– I want to refute these fears, since our youth have very good fundamental preparation. I myself went through the same thing when I studied with my coach Viktor Maksimovich Tkachenko from the age of 11 to recent years his life. When I joined the junior team, thanks to this fundamental preparation, I immediately began to outpace the skiers from the main team. Even now there was no afterburner, since it allows an athlete to be in the best shape for a specific start, and here Bolshunov almost constantly finished among the leaders throughout the entire Olympic season.
– You allegedly said that you were glad that our skiers were left without gold in Pyeongchang.
– Yes, I confirm, these are my words, since hungry soldiers are more motivated than well-fed ones. We must also remember that in the current situation, even fourth places sometimes brought a feeling of satisfaction from the work done, and even more so if the final place brought a medal.
– The film “Icarus”, dedicated to Grigory Rodchenkov, received an Oscar. In this regard, the question is: do you think that after the end of the Winter Olympics the pressure on Russia will end?
“It seems to me that we should not give up and need to talk with our enemies on the legal plane in which our famous biathletes, who, with the help of Mikhail Prokhorov, filed a lawsuit against Rodchenkov, are going to communicate. Only in this way will we be able to prove that everything that Rodchenkov said earlier was interesting only for the filming of films like “Icarus.”
– Your generation of golden skiers was distinguished by the fact that it grew up in places where skiing, it would seem, did not develop. Elena Trubitsyna (Vyalbe) was born in Magadan, Larisa Ptitsyna (Lazutina) is a native of Kondopoga, Anfisa Romanova (Reztsova) came from Gus-Khrustalny. Could it be possible to expand the training area for young athletes, including the same regions as it was under the USSR?
– As for my native Magadan, I will be glad that after many years we again have an athlete of the national junior team level. In general, I believe that good skiers can be born in all areas where there is snow. There, in my opinion, skiing should be a priority. Now a trend has begun to emerge that in the regions they are trying to develop as much as possible more sports, in some up to 80 types are being developed, but there is no success anywhere. It seems to me that it would be worthwhile not to be scattered, but to specifically develop those sports that will bring results. The same Norwegians, for example. Look, you don’t see athletes from this country at the summer Olympics, but in the winter they are one of the leaders in world sports. We have much more opportunities in this regard.
