Marina Nazarova - 'None of our girls come from rich families'

Marina Nazarova (left) personal coach to Ksenia Afanasyeva, is photographed here with the Russian Olympic team, coaches and guests at a recent press tour of the National Training Centre, Lake Krugloye

Marina Nazarova is coach to Russian Olympic team captain in artistic gymnastics, Ksenia Afanasyeva.  Lupita has translated this article which appeared in Sports Express on the 16th July.

Marina, what does it mean to be one of the main coaches?

- First, a huge responsibility. For the country, the team, the performance, the gymnasts. On the podium I’ll have to be sensitive to how all the girls are feeling. On the podium the important thing is not to interfere ...

- How can you do that?

- To say a few things, to distract them, if you see fear in their eyes; to find special words.  They don’t go to the podium programmed to perform.  You have to do the right thing at the right time: know when you can say something, if it’s necessary, and when it’s better to keep silent.

- The presence of one own’s gymnasts on the team is necessary if you are to be the coach who will be on the podium?

- No. In Beijing my two Ksyushas – Afanasyeva and Semenova - were first and second on the team.  Probably this is why I was the coach on the podium.

It was so sad after the Olympics … I knew that the girls were ready.  In the team competition they really deserved bronze.  Yet… this is gymnastics. Nobody is granted from falls.

Later I realized that even with the two falls we had on beam, the girls could have come third. But there was a kind of a chain reaction: Anna Pavlova fell, make a huge error on floor, losing more than a point in a combination, and in the end we lost 0.9.

* * *

- I was very surprised by Grebenkova’s fall. She was famous for her stability on beam.

- Before the Olympics she was really the most confident of our gymnasts. Probably here the coaches are to blame.  We didn’t take into account that Mila Grebenkova had never been in a situation where you cannot make mistakes. Before Beijing, the best four scores out of five counted.  In Beijing, it was three out of three.  Grebenkova had never competed under those rules.  The psychological situation had changed.  Mila couldn’t cope with it.

Ksyusha Semenova was fourth in the all-around. In gymnastics a lot depends on the first performance – the qualifying competition. Not all the judges know gymnastics well.  Some of them have only just learned the rules and passed the “Brevet” exam.  Generally, they lack judging experience and knowledge about gymnastics. The gymnast’s score becomes for them a kind of orientation for the following competitions, independent of how the gymnasts perform.  Semenova was improving her performances at every competition, but she got scores only a bit higher than those she had got previously.

- For what goal are you know coaching Afanasyeva?

- First, for the team competition.  This will be the most important for us at the London Olympics. Кsyusha is useful in two events – beam and floor. Moreover, if in beam Afanasyeva will help the team as much as she can, in floor we would like to fight to be in the final.  Ksyusha is the current World Champion in this event. She’ll compete in the all-around, but we have three younger gymnasts with a stronger programme.

 

- I have the feeling that you suffered a lot because Afanasyeva was always in Semenova’s shade. Is it true?

- Partially, yes.  Still, you have to agree that Semenova looked stronger in all competitions.  She was stronger psychologically, and she had the will to win, that Afanasyeva didn’t have at the time.  Now the second Ksyusha has a new sense of responsibility.  She’s the eldest in the team, she can take care of the others and she deals with her own competitions in a different way.  The important thing for her is not to have doubts on the podium.  All the coaches work towards that because she doesn’t listen to me in those situations.

- Why?

- It’s her character. “I know everything, I can do everything, I’ll try this. If I make a mistake, it’s my mistake”. 

- Was the relationship with Semenova easier?

- Yes, she always listened to me.

* * *

- Do you feel fear sometimes when you watch the gymnasts’ performances?

- No, I’m used to it. The girls repeat the routines so many times before competing on the podium, everything is polished ...  Moreover, before the Olympics we don’t introduce anything new. 

- And what about Zasypkina’s case? I heard that she was sent too early to training and she was not ready to perform an element.

- No, it didn’t happen like that.  From the Worlds Championships in Ghent, Maria went to Krugloye because she had to go to a tournament in France. I was free for a few days to see my nine month old child.  Then I came back.  It happened the following day.  She didn’t hit her head on the floor, as they wrote in the press.  It was a simple vault into the pit. The landing seemed normal, and suddenly she had broken her neck...

We were lucky because she had a successful surgery.  Nevertheless, for a few months I could not go to the gym.  Yet in January Masha came to see me and said: “I only want to train with you”.  I couldn’t say no.  I knew how much she wanted to come back to gymnastics and prepare for the Olympics. Unfortunately, Zasypkina began to fear elements. It was impossible to continue training.

-Do you agree that gymnastics has become more dangerous?

- I wouldn’t say so. Nobody does the hyper difficult elements immediately. First the gymnast needs conditioning and psychological work. He or she repeats the element hundreds of times.

* * *

- Do you sometimes watch gymnastics like an ordinary spectator?

- When I watch a competition, I follow our rivals: the composition of their routines, where we can be better than them. Did Semenova win bars in Stuttgart? She was competing against Liukin and Tweddle.

- Tweddle is still competing and I remember that our gymnasts were strictly controlled when they had weight problems.

- Yes, at first look Tweddle is not a gymnastics girl, but she does everything. In our country we always thought that a gymnast should be beautiful. The face? Of the whole team. Compared to the Soviet period, the routines of the gymnasts have become much more difficult, the rules have changed. I cannot say that we don’t pay attention to weight, but if a gymnast performs all her routines, nobody will tell her anything. Our girls are still the most beautiful.

- I would say that Nastia Liukin incarnated the best of Soviet gymnastics and of Russian gymnastics. By the way, did you think that she would compete again in London?

- She resumed training too late. Аnd she had not only to recover her previous programme, but to add some difficulty in order to compete against the best gymnasts. I had to deal with the same problems when Semenova was recovering after an injury. Кsyusha started to grow taller, we could recover her previous level, but it was impossible to upgrade her routines and she had to quit.

- Semenova is now working with you.

- She works very well.

* * *

  

- Did the results of the recent US trials scare you?

-The vault, yes.  The Americans have upgraded this event strongly. In the other events there was nothing unexpected.

- I know that in May our team’s performance was considered disappointing by many.

- I would not draw any conclusions from those performances. First, Komova and Mustafina performed a downgraded programme.  Second, Afanasyeva didn’t compete in Brussels.  Those three gymnasts are the core of the Olympic team.

- What are we lacking to win the Americans?

- The US has a deeper reserve.  People are afraid of the complexity and the possibility of injuries…  And kids are different now.  Their computer and internet are much more interesting for them.

- A gymnast should be born with a champion’s character?

- I think so... And there’s something else: our gymnasts don’t come from rich families.

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