Aliya Mustafina - 'My family do not worship sports'

Matthew Hicks translates this 28th December interview with Aliya Mustafina, from Novaya Gazeta.

The last year more than compensated for all that Aliya went through in the year leading up to the Olympics in London – a serious injury, surgery and a long recovery. Not surprisingly, Aliya won Sportswoman of 2012 at a post-Olympic Kremlin-hosted ball. Novaya Gazeta interviewed the champion:

NG: Aliya, back in London, responding on the significance of your victory, you spoke that your greatest achievement is yet to come.

AM: I’m simply a sportswoman, a normal person. In the real world, I’m a nobody. In gymnastics, yes Olympic Champion, but in everyday life I’m just another person...like in school studies

NG: Do you study sports?

AM: No, I am at the Gubkin Oil and Gas Institute, in the economics and management department. I’ve always liked exact sciences. At school, physics and mathematics are my favorite subjects. They come easiest to me, probably because I’m most interested in them. Some people say physics in not interesting. But is it not interesting, for example, to understand how the laws of nature work?

NG: Your mom is a physics teacher. Perhaps it’s in the genes?

AM: Maybe. We haven’t even studied physics in my grade, yet my mom is already reading me advanced books on the subject.

NG: The girls on the team say that you can calculate all the results from the competitions in your head. Is that true?

AM: Well, not exactly. Katya Kurbatova was also on the team that won World’s and she is also excellent at math.

NG: Aliya, admit it, you’ve cried more this past year than ever before in your life!

AM: Not any more.

NG: The recovery process after that injury took almost an entire year?

AM: Yes and it tested me greatly. It changed me, externally and internally. I rose to the occasion and began to work in a different way on all events. The old me was like a child. After the injury I became an adult.

NG: That’s gymnastics ...

AM: And it’s also like that in life. I realized that because of my goals I didn’t have a right to give up, no matter how hard things got. The goal was to get to the Olympic Games. And not to just get there, but to help the team win a medal. Then can come the tears.

AG: In all the competitions that you competed in, tell us about how you compete.

AM: I always try not to think about the excess–the main thing is to do your job. How well we each do, that will be the final result. I understood that when we won the world championships. We felt that we could beat anybody. The excitement remained, and I didn’t want to stop there. When I was recovering from surgery, I watched all the competitions. I didn’t panic. Nobody was doing anything that I couldn’t handle. Of course the responsibilities of the Olympics were greater than other meets. The Olympics don’t come along everyday, and not everyone gets there. I cannot say that that responsibility came lightly. In my mind I told myself to simply do my job, and that was all. I worked for 12 years to lay it on the line on the Olympic stage. Six months before the Olympics I was still far from being in gold medal form. It was tough to force myself to work hard, and the doubt that I could make it constantly surrounded me.

AG: Sometimes it seemed as though you’d never make it?

AM: Yes. Sometimes it seemed like I could do no more; like I wanted to give up. But such thoughts came quickly and vanished just as quickly. I understood that I had to suffer to get to the Games. Once I got there things would be easier.

AG: Did your family support you?

AM: We have a normal family and don’t worship sports. But it is understood that sport is important in life – my father was a 1976 Olympic Bronze Medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling – but he didn’t force his goals on me. Only sometimes when I was little would he say, “Come on Aliya, you need to train hard to become world champion.” But I’m not sure whether he just said that or actually meant it. Mom and dad did not sit for hours in the gym, like many parents do when their children start gymnastics. My parents knew that in sport I could learn about all of life’s difficulties. They respect my decisions. Even if I wanted to be done with gymnastics, they know it would be useless to try and discourage me.

AG: The status of being a leader can be great but also has its obligations. The girls on the team are like a family. Has anything changed?

AM: I don’t even think about that. A leader is someone who competes well at all meets. But when we train, we’re all the same. I don’t carry around a big head. When I became world champion two years ago, I wondered if things would change within me. They didn’t. Achieving something earth-shattering didn’t change anything. My pride comes from my soul, from within myself. I say to myself, “there’s the event, now go work.” I became an Olympic Champion, my dream came true, good job, but why should that change me? I don’t have any different friends now than I did before the Games. The ones who supported me before are still here, not complaining.

AG: Well, all the same, Aliya, Olympic Champion, were you born like this or did you work for it?

AM: A lot of desire and hard work got me here. How can you become Olympic Champion if you sit around and do nothing?

AG: It is often said that champions have a character of iron.

AM: Well yes. I compact myself into a fist of iron and compete like that, like I did in Rotterdam and in London on the bars.

AG: You seem like a pretty relaxed, low-key person.

AM: Well, it just looks that way (laughs). Am I outgoing? Probably. More yes than no. But I like to hang out with my friends and have fun and be the center of attention. But I don’t really like being in a big crowd of people.

AG: Will you try for another Olympic cycle?

AM: I really want it. I’ll certainly try...


With many thanks to Matthew for his work!