Interview with Viktoria Komova - video link - VTB website resource

Viktoria Komova at last week's press day.  Courtesy of the RGF

R Sport has a new interview (published this evening)with Viktoria Komova - it provides a link to a new resource including video (see below).

The headline makes much of the loss at the Tokyo World Championships, but the interview isn't really about this. Key points made in the interview are :

1 Vika watched the Russian Championships online, like so many of the rest of us did!

2 Her injury is healed to the extent that her bars and beam are back to strength, although she needs another month to restore her Amanar vault (so I guess we won't see it at Europeans).

3 The most difficult part of recovery is fitness - she says she can get through three apparatus, but the fourth is very difficult, she gets very tired and finds herself making mistakes.

4 She loves gymnastics and performing. They do get paid a salary for what they do, but even so she simply loves her work.

5 Losing in Tokyo was very hard and painful for her. She just wanted to run away, hide and be alone. Her parents, coach, and friends' messages on V Kontakt (Russian Facebook) helped her to feel better. If she had had more time to prepare for the Championships, things might have been better ... but what has happened, has happened. The defeat will give her more adrenaline to go up and try to win next time ...

6 A mental trick her coach has taught her, to help deal with nerves, is to imagine it's just her and the apparatus in the arena - to insulate herself from all the noise and things going on around her. She prefers competition to training.

7 Her mother tends not to see her during competitions. She has a special teddy bear with scarf mascot for good luck, which the other girls on the team gave to her on the eve of her departure for the Youth Olympics in Singapore. The atmosphere at junior competitions isn't much different to seniors, but the competitors are more experienced.

8 She mentions her friends on V Kontakt with whom she speaks regularly, and also her older brother whom she Skypes but rarely sees in person. Her mother is a judge and is sometimes at the same competitions as her, but doesn't see Vika much for fear of disrupting her work. Sometimes at bedtime she will come to see her to say goodnight and a few encouraging words.

9 She jokes that she has lost the habit of being parented - and couldn't stand being like Anastasia Grishina, whose mother stays with her at Krugloye!

These are just a few of the key points that I've been able to derive with reasonable confidence from a Google translate. If anyone can add anything, please do comment.

The interview links to a whole new website started up by VTB in support of their various sporting sponsorship activities, in particular in this case the gymnasts.
There is a video of part of the interview with Komova there, as well as video of the girls training at the recent press day (including Paseka, Mustafina, Komova, Shelgunova and others). I have yet to explore this fully but there is also a commentary on the press tour of Lake Krugloye, so this looks to be an exciting resource!