Leonid Arkayev : interview with Elena Vaitsekhovskaya

Picture by Alexander Vilf, courtesy of Sports Express

Legendary coach Leonid Arkayev talks about his personal gymnastics history, the success of the Soviet team and Simone Biles in this summary of a Sport Express interview.  He also shares his opinion of the current Russian gymnastics regime.

There are coaches whose stories you don't need to tell at great length, because the very name has become a brand. All you need to do is to open the file, and read that for 32 years, Arkayev headed first the men's gymnastics team, and then the female.  63 times his athletes became world champions.  31 times they won at the Olympics.

We haven't taken silver and bronze into account, but I found the figure: Arkayev's boys and girls made it onto the podium more than 70 times.

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- One of the USSR national swimming team once told me that the Soviet system of training was very effective, but it was accompanied by a large number of "victims" - those who did not reach the goal, could not stand the stress, suffered from nervous tension.

-  Well there was no other way. Now we have so-called democracy - and it's all over. We always had to be ready to fight - to be aggressive and win.

- You're talking now about the team?

- Not only, also the ones on the fringes of the team who were trying to be selected.  People can't only work on the basis of 'I want', they also need to know what that means on a day to day basis.

- When you were 33, had just started coaching the national team, did you guess what sacrifices it would require from you?

- Yes. My own sports experience was pretty bad. According to their data, I was always good enough for gym. But I did not achieve anything; did not understand the seriousness of it. I loved the camaraderie.  But also, I never set myself the goal of becoming world champion or Olympic champion, I managed to reach the team and left it at that.

It took a long time before I asked myself, "Am I worse than others?"

- And was there anything worse?

- Not really, nothing. We all had excellent training conditions, a good coach. But that time is past.

That was when I began to realise that progress is made every day in sports.  Not just in one day, every day. The athlete should always be involved in this work, and only then will there be results.

- As it turned out, when you led the Soviet team, you realised those ambitions that you failed to realise as an athlete?

- Yes.  You know why good athletes rarely make good coaches? Because they have already satisfied their ambitions. They reached the peak of perfection and they realize it.

Sport continuously moves forward. We must always look for something new. I myself am still learning.  Even the vocabulary has changed.  Often, I'll hear a youngster use a word - well, I have to try to keep up and understand 'their language'.

- Which of the gymnastic generations, with whom you've worked, was the most difficult?

- The last. When the country began to fall apart. The team began to lose discipline, and I myself felt tired of being forced daily to be 'Cerberus' (see note below), to continue to keep up the discipline.

- So you knew that you were behaving like Cerberus?

- What? Of Course. But my heart was not in it. I have always thought that some things need to be more rigid and strict, and always tried to manage things accordingly. Now, when we look into the past, everyone is starting to realize that all this strictness was a prerequisite. Because it gave results.

- Did you feel comfortable to be in a situation where you had to hate and fear, around the clock?

- I did not care for this; I did my job, and did it fair and square. I had my favourites, but I barked, even at them.

- Could I have some names?

- Nikolai Andrianov, for example. I loved him - he was fantastically talented, could win everything. Sometimes, the judges made mistakes - for example, at the World Championships in Varna in 1974, I asked Kolya to do the triple dismount from high bar. He did so, and sat down on the mat, but remained in second place.  For many years, he led me as a coach, even in terms of innovation. If he saw someone training something new, he would immediately begin to try it himself.

At the Olympic Games in Montreal Andrianov greatly surprised me. On the pommels, Nikolai was up first.  The judge, Akitomo Kaneko, was then a coach on the Japanese national team.  When Nikolai began, I went into a cold sweat; the gymnast was performing a routine with many complex combinations 

But Kolya, as it turned out, had worked out all the details: he began his routine while all the other athletes were still warming up on the other apparatus, including the Japanese.  Kaneko's attention was certainly a bit distracted and Andrianov managed to do all of his difficulty.  This meant that the score would be high.

And so it happened. Kolya's score was 9.65 and he won.

- You have always said that the main medal in gymnastics was for the team. Why?

- Because the team - it's six people. To prepare six, the system must be working. If the system is working - there will be a result.  If the team gets a result, individuals will be present, and in the individual events you can count on high places.

It is clear that gymnastics is now becoming more and more specialized and all-rounders are finding it more and more difficult to compete with those who prepare only one apparatus. But look at the American Simon Biles - she is a beautiful all arounder, with her completely crazy floor exercise and vault. And the margin of error she has is such that she is easily capable of making up for her weaker pieces, and of making event finals.

In addition, the coach must understand: the main task is not to pull the leader further and further away from those who are weaker. Those in the lead can't be seen as a threat, but must be used to create maximum motivation to those behind.

- You came to the team in 1973, when there were many well-known and experienced specialists.

- My first job was to analyse the situation and to understand, for example, why in men's gymnastics we were losing to the Japanese. We conceded primarily in complexity. To increase our complexity, we needed to begin again; we needed completely different physical preparation. That is where I started.

This caused a lot of conflict; nobody liked the considerably higher workload.  Viktor Chukarin helped me greatly. At that time he trained Vladimir Safronov, so I invited them to the team together. At all the meetings, when coaches began to complain about the volume of work, Chukarin would always support me. And his opinion was not so easy to ignore.

Well, once we got the results, the coaches began to trust me. I was the youngest coach to begin with, then the oldest in the end ...

- When the stars on the team are not only athletes, but also coaches, is working with them more difficult?

- Of course.  I treated the coaches much more severely than the athletes. Notwithstanding any merit; we couldn't allow people to rest on their laurels. The coach is always constantly under scrutiny, and I learned all the time myself, too.

The camp was always 'dry'; there was concrete discipline.

- No one went for a quiet drink?

- The coaches - no. The gymnasts could, but they knew that I would check them out, either at night or in the morning. If they didn't drink you could smell what they had eaten - my nose was as sensitive as a police dog's.

- Don't you think you should stop now, before everyone heaps a ton of criticism, reproaches and accusations on you?

- I will never regret what happened. These things are a matter of fact.  After so many of the national coaches left to work overseas, many new people came to work on the national team, and this gave us some problems.  Yes, these were the best athletes in Russia, but at world level again and again, they have proved uncompetitive.

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- In the last years of your work I had a feeling that if you did not think you were Lord God, then, at least, you were a man who was always right, and whose guidance generally could not and should not be challenged.

- And I still think so. A head coach should never have to doubt what he does.  And certainly should not admit to his doubt to those who work with him.

It wasn't a great life when I became both head coach and President of the Federation. In fact my work with the Federation began not only in 1992, but much sooner.

Two years before the Games in Seoul, Yuri Titov [then head of the Soviet Gymnastics Federation] was removed from his post as head of the department in the Sports Committee [Goskomsport]. I was asked to take over from him, without it even being official, and told that he would take over my job as coach.

To say that I was furious is an understatement. So I immediately went to the minister - it was then Marat Gramov - and essentially made an ultimatum.  

- It was a purely emotional outburst?

- Of course. I paid for it, you might say.

- In what sense?

- At the Games in Seoul, where I was the senior men's team coach, my boys won eight gold medals out of eight. Not counting the five silver. The women's team was led by current head coach of the Russian national team Andrei Rodionenko, but I was responsible for both teams, as the head of gymnastics. And together, rather than receive a second Order of Lenin, I was presented only with an Order of Friendship of Peoples.

In 1992, all the coaches left, and I had to take both teams and do the work of three people.  I was thinking about going to Japan. But while I was thinking, the rest of the coaches left. It was then that it dawned on me that if I left, gymnastics as a sport would cease to exist at all. Because everything was falling apart.

- You are so patriotic?

- I paddled the boat all by myself - just as the leaders of the current team have to. Only unlike them, I clearly understand how and what to do to obtain results.

Why am I so pessimistic about what is happening on the Russian team? Because it no longer strives to be the best. There is not a single event, where our competitor could be considered the strongest.

It is clear that in such a situation we can only rely on our opponents' mistakes. But they have long ceased to err. Now we are trying to catch up with Simon Biles. Her weakest combinations are more complex than our girls' - she is the strongest.  But the current head coach of our team has held office for eight years - there has been ample time to make changes.

Another issue is that it is very difficult to expect something when there is no discipline on the team, but there is money. It's impossible for people to work as hard as necessary when they know that there is a "back door" [way out].

***

- You talk about discipline and hard work, but Svetlana Khorkina managed to combine training with a job acting in the theatre.

- I am quite comfortable with it - I was even invited to the premiere. The quality of her training was not affected: at that time Khorkina even became all around world champion for the third time. As for the rest - well, you understand: there is no result without the "carrot". Even now, in Saransk, I see it every day. I go to the gym - everyone immediately begins to work differently. Both coaches and athletes. Not because I'm evil. But because they know they are under scrutiny. Then, they will never sit on the bench, they will always be on their feet, closer to the apparatus.

A coach must understand: you can not work with only one "whip" and shout all the time, people just get used to it and in the end they do not react.

- I think you will never be able to work abroad. After all, in any country - except maybe China - they don't welcome the position of "putting everything on the line for the result."

- Maybe you're right. But after I was kicked out (figuratively speaking), I worked for a year in Korea. With a good salary, three times the money that I received in Moscow, excellent conditions. I quickly became involved there.

- It was a shame to feel thrown out of Russian gymnastics?

- Yes.  For 12 years I was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Gymnastics Union, for two Olympic cycles I was in the executive committee of the FIG (International Gymnastics Federation). I sincerely believed that the Gymnastics Federation would continue to put forward my candidacy in international organizations, at least for the sake of decency. But everything was done behind my back - I learned about it from the foreign members of the FIG at a competition. Well, when I was already in Moscow and was not invited to the Olympic meeting everything became clear to me.

Well, the offence has quickly passed. It's a relief that this stage of life is over.

***

- My father once admitted that at the Moscow Olympics they broke all of the rules of sport in order to become three-time Olympic champion in the relay.  Did you ever have to violate the principle of sport for any reason?

- Never. This was a very important question for me. Everyone from the outset clearly understood their task.

One day, just before the world championships, Valeri Liukin injured his leg. I was going to replace him, had considered a replacement, and then Valeri said: 'I can compete.'  'Well', - I answered. - 'if that's the case do a flick-double somersault on the mat'. 

It is a big ask - the angular velocity is such that the load on the leg immediately increases several times. Valeri did everything, so then I said that he was on the team. And at the World Championships Liukin finished his performance on the high bar and did a triple somersault dismount. He landed in pain. When I saw this, I immediately embraced Valery and carried him off the platform.

- Has any one of them ever told you to your face, that you ruined his life?

- No, never. I always tried to foresee all possible situations. I always tried to explain why people needed to do this or that work.  Vitaly Scherbo remembers shouting in training: "This is a dungeon, a concentration camp!"  But Scherbo is now a six-time Olympic champion. And recently he said, "only now I am beginning to understand coaching and how much you actually did for me."

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- Who are the gymnasts you admire now?

- Biles. I would say she is ahead, not just by one step, but by two. Of the men - Epke Zonderland. His work on the high bar surprises me every time I see it. .

- What can you say about Kohei Uchimura?

- Such a talented athlete is only born once in a hundred years. But there is another point: Uchimura for several years, by and large, has not had stiff competition. When there is such competition, the Japanese begin to "break down". It is the same with the Chinese. We, too, have a wonderful all-rounder - David Belyavski. We only need to add one difficulty to each of his apparatus and he will begin to fight Uchimura.

Our coaches, unfortunately, can not understand: we shouldn't chase, we should lead. The coaches don't have any idea about this strategy, so they are not able at the right time to bring athletes to peak form - in the way that Sasha Aleksandrov led Aliya Mustafina to the Games in London. But then he was considered to be guilty of something ...

- Bringing an athlete to peak form - is it a difficult task?

- Very much. Today, nobody remembers that my team had to perform for a hundred days out of each year. Each team camp began with two days of competition. We knew that this would make sure that the gymnasts would work hard while they were at home. And we would end camp with another competition - to make it clear that people had gained momentum in the meantime. National championships were always timed to be exactly six weeks before the main competitions - it was planned that way, not on a whim, and this decision took into account all our previous experience, and was subject to adjustment. Therefore, we performed well.

- Does it warm your soul that the gymnastics school in Saransk is named after you?

- I calmly observe what is written on the facade. What is more important is that you can open the gymnastics encyclopedia and count our athletes' medals. For each of them - from 1973 to 2004 - I was in one way or another involved.

- Do you feel your age?

- No. But you know, I'm terribly afraid of the moment when I do begin to feel it. I used to run in the mornings, but that became a little bit much. So now I do 'Tibetan gymnastics' - this form of gymnastics is based on breathing exercises.  Ventilation of the body is the key to good heart function.

- And for your joints?

- Twice a day, I do a special workout. If I spend time at the gym, coaching the young children, I need four times instead of two.

- Do you still think that all the medals won were worth it?

- Even Olympic medals are not an end in themselves. Rather - a symbol of the fact that you managed to overcome yourself. That's another way of looking at life, at last. Why on earth did you give yourself up to learn another foreign language? That's all - it's the same as a medal. It's just another challenge.

- So in the end by cultivating champions, we grew some elite society?

- Definitely. Well, of course, if a person does not take themselves seriously and blames everything around them for things that don't work, it's never good.

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NOTE (source) : Cerberus  is a multi-headed (usually three-headed) dog, or "hellhound" with a serpent's tail, a mane of snakes, and lion's claws.  He guards the entrance of the underworld to prevent the dead from escaping and the living from entering. Cerberus is featured in many works of ancient Greek and Roman literature and in works of both ancient and modern art and architecture, although the depiction of Cerberus differs across various renditions. The most notable difference is the number of his heads: Most sources describe or depict three heads; others show Cerberus with two or even just one; a smaller number of sources show a variable number, sometimes as many as fifty or even a hundred.