Aliya Mustafina - I'll continue training after the Games

Aliya Mustafina credits her involvement in sport to her family, especially her father, Fargat Mustafin

Well, by now you will all know that the Russian team won a silver medal in the team competition, their best result since 2000.  They were beautiful, but suffered more errors than they would have wanted to, and were rather distressed about this at the end of the competition.  However, silver is a good result for them and I hope they can raise themselves for all around and event finals where there is much to fight for.  The American girls looked really good on this occasion, producing some consistent gymnastics to take first place absolutely convincingly, and I was delighted to see the Romanians take bronze thanks to the hard work of coaches Belu and Bitang and the gymnasts.  You can find the full results here.

Aliya Mustafina has had a particularly hard - but ultimately rewarding - 18 months, recovering from the career threatening injury she incurred at the Berlin European Championships in spring 2011.  She has shone on both occasions she has appeared in London; she is the spiritual centre of this team and I so hope she can do well in the individual finals for which she has qualified.  Now, you can read a few of Aliya's thoughts as she prepared for these Games, translated by Lupita from an original Russian language article that appeared at Russian Gymnastics' sponsors VTB's website.

Aliya Mustafina came to sport because of family circumstances.   Her father, Farhat Mustafin was a bronze medallist in wrestling at the 1976 Olympics, who’s now a coach.  He says that his wife and he didn’t plan to bring up champions. They just wanted their children to be busy doing something.  They thought: “If they practice sport until they’re 12, they’ll be healthy and when they’ll start serious studies, we'll let them leave sport, and they’ll study.  We don’t want the kids to be in the street.  I took the smaller one when she was going to the kindergarten, and her mum took Aliya to an evening training.  When she was nine, Alya went with her sister.  Although Nelka is two years younger, she remembered her way very well”.   Aliya Mustafina, twice World champion, has gone through the glory and pain of elite sport.  Athletes don’t have free time before the Olympics.  Yet Aliya found half an tour to talk with the correspondent of VTB.

 

– You've just finished school and you are leaving for the Olympics.

– Yes, I managed to combine my studies and my training.  Obviously, I’m happy that the exams are over. I’ll have to decide what I’ll study later.  But of course I’ll decide that after the Games.

– What is more difficult right now?  Waiting?  Or would you prefer the Olympics to begin a little later?

 

– No, it’s difficult to wait for the time when we will perform, when we go into the Olympic podium.  The most difficult thing will be in the UK.  We have to work over three weeks, it’s important not to be betrayed by your feet, your muscles, your nerves. 

– What are your current feelings: "Wow, we feel so strong!" or "we’ll soon peak"? 

– No, so far it’s not “WOW”. These last days are essential to polish everything. 

– Аliya, tell me: “How many times did you have to chase away those thoughts during the past weeks: "What did I get involved in all this for?  I could live a quieter life!"

– Тhat never happened to me! On the contrary, I understand that little time is left.  We need to be patient for a while, to compete at the Olympics and later everything will be easier. 

– Is it easier to compete than to make a decision?

– The Olympics are the most difficult competition.

– Once I asked your father: you were an athlete, your wife is a physicist.  In your family you must have cult for sport and physical sciences.  He answered: the cult of the family...

– For me, family is family with no other words to define it.  Мy mum, my dad, my sister. Obviously, my love for sport comes from my dad.  Although he didn’t fix important goals for me.  Sometimes he said; “Come on, Aliya, if you train hard, you’ll become World Champion".  I don’t know if he believed it or not. My mum and my dad never waited for hours in the gym, as other parents did.  I fell instantly in love with gymnastics.  I liked the Swedish bench, trampoline, later bars … When I was small, everything was interesting and I always had fun. А t school my favourite subjects were physics and maths.  They are always easy for me because they are interesting. And I understand many things. 

– This surprises many people. Where does the interest lie? 

– How could physics not be interesting?!  How nature’s laws work!  My mother is a teacher.  Before starting the 7th grade, when I started physics, I began to read the textbook…  Since then, physics is my favourite subject. 

– The girls on the team always said that you are able to count the score you needed. Is it true?

– Of course. It’s pure matsh. And, by the way, I am not the only one.  One shouldn’t think that at Krugloye we don’t see or do anything else.

– We can’t stop life. You spend yours at  Krugloye.

– I feel very comfortable there.  Obviously, I seldom see my family.  After the important competitions, we get a free week, but we are seldom home.  The first thing I do is to go to my school. I meet my friends. We have time to go to the cinema and for a walk.  We spend the whole year at Krugloye, I have friends there and other friends in Moscow. In Moscow my friends are not gymnasts.

– Don’t you get tired of elite sport?  You cried more for a year than in your whole life.  It was an important year for you. Your recovery after injury was very long…

– No, I can’t say that I cried for a whole year.  I’m growing older.

– Experiences build your character. Do you feel the changes yourself?

– External and internal changes.  I have grown taller, put on weight.  And I have begun to work in a different way in each event. My previous gymnastics was more like children’s gymnastics.  After the injury, I began to grow taller. 

– One could say that you suffered from the injury.

– Yes, no doubt.  It was more difficult to work.  Perhaps because I am still not used to my new body???? I became more womanly and this is also something new. 

– Do you feel that you preserved yourself after the injury?

– No, I never felt this.  I worked as normal.  It was useful that I came back immediately to Krugloye.  Five days after the surgery I went to the gym.  I could have waited somewhere else, but I went to the gym with my team-mates, they did their job while I did conditioning and helped them…  Now I want the Olympics to start.  And I want to compete, to fight….  Don’t say that these days are horrible, the last ones. They are useful to polish things. 

– I understand that it’s not the best moment to ask this question, but do you ever think that you will train for another Olympic cycle?

– Yes, I do. In fact, we still have to finish this cycle. And later. Perhaps it will become obvious.

– When you were recovering, competition got stronger in the national team? Can competition be an irritation?

– No, my goal is to help the team. Because, whatever you do, you compete two days only for the team and then begin the individual competitions, performing the best I can. This is the goal.

– Everyone says that you are a perfectionist (a maximalist????).

– I’ll suffer, but I hope everything will turn out OK..

– Alexander Alexandrov used to say that your main quality is confidence. “She is able to concentrate in a competition. Even if the day before she doesn’t hit in the gym, and cries with impotence, she competes and she is able to struggle".

­– You know, after I became World Champion, I  as often asked if something had changed about me.  In fact nothing changed.  Of course I know that Svetlana Khorkina had been World Champion many years before.  It was nice to be compared to her, but Khorhina is Khorkina and I am Mustafina. I want to leave something of my own in gymnastics.