Video interviews with Valentina Rodionenko and Nikolai Kuksenkov - translations

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Video interview with Valentina Rodionenko and Nikolai Kuksenkov
Translation by Liubov Baladzhaeva
Interview took place before the IOC decision to allow clean Russian athletes to participate in the Games, but after the publication of the McLaren report and WADA's recommendation of a blanket ban.

Valentina Rodionenko: right now the gymnasts are training with even more motivation, despite the doping scandal, and they really want to go to Rio. If they’re banned, four years of training would be for nothing. Four years of their life were spent on preparation and they didn’t do anything else. 

But we’re going to fight, because Russian people only get stronger facing hardship.

 

Meldonium isn’t a performance enhancing drug, it’s used for recovery only, it shouldn’t even be considered doping and banned. No one really tested if it enhances performance, but it got banned nevertheless. There are changes on the doping list all the time, you blink and another substance gets banned, no one really knows what doping is anymore, there should be proper studies before anything gets banned, to make sure that it’s really a performance enhancing drug (PED).

Gymnasts don’t even need to use PEDs, it’s of no use to us, because you need precision and not adrenaline rush.

When asked by the reporter: why WADA started these investigations only now?

Valentina: well, I hope you understand why. It’s all politics.

Then she talks that the investigations and the possible ban are all a continuation of the economic and political sanctions imposed on Russian because of the situation with Crimea and Ukraine. She says that when they went to Berne for Euros, they felt adversity from Europeans because of this situation. And she thinks it’s not fair, because it has nothing to do with the sport, but athletes suffer because of politics.

When asked about how to change the current situation in sport and to restore Russian image: she thinks that Russia should be more diplomatic, to have more sports professionals from Russia in international federations, so that they would also take part in making decisions. Sport is hurt by the fact that often people who are responsible for it don’t really know anything about it. Nowadays in Russia everyone thinks they know everything about sports and they don’t consult professionals when making decisions.

Nikolai Kuksenkov

He believes gymnasts won’t be banned, because they’re clean.

He says he was shocked to learn about the Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) decision regarding the track and field team, because he’s really sorry about all the clean athletes who now don’t get to go to Rio and have their dreams and goals completely crushed.

He also thinks it’s all politics and sanctions against Russia, while there are no real grounds to ban Russian athletes.

He believes there’s a chance the gymnasts won’t be judged fairly in Russia, because of the political situation. He says that in this case they will just accept it, because there’s nothing the athletes can do, and they will just try to do their best.

He talks about London Olympics and says that his bronze medal was “taken” from him [I’m not sure whether he talks about the team medal for Ukraine or his all-around medal] and that was a clear example of unfair judging, so now he doesn’t believe in fair judging anymore.

Report on the Olympic Team's preparations in Moscow/interview with Valentina Rodionenko

Translation by Liubov Baladzhaeva

Valentina Rodionenko: we don’t believe that we’ll be banned from the Olympics, this just can’t happen. Our team never used doping, so it just wouldn’t be fair to ban gymnastics.

Athletes are deprived of many things in life, the gymnasts train twice a day, six days a week, they are going to Round Lake all the time, they live under a lot of pressure. Olympics is their main goal and if they are told they can’t go – that would be very scary for them