Leonid Arkayev press allegations - a translation

Liubov Baladzhaeva has provided a good translation of the article from the Saransk and Mordovan Times.  Text in square brackets are Liubov's personal comments.  

Leonid Arkayev was fired from the gymnastics center in Saransk that was named after him. It is not clear what was the real reason (or the host of reasons), but the authors speculate that the main issues were conflict over the state-owned apartment given to Arkayev and the lack of results from the athletes he trained. However, when the journalist went to investigate the situation she encountered rumors that Arkayev had a special interest in the female gymnasts. The author claims she was able to talk to some of the victims whose names she can’t reveal. First, the article talks about two issues with Arkayev as a coach that weren’t related to sexual harassment allegations. His former colleague, a gymnastics coach called Irina in this article (not sure if it’s her real name) talked about working with him. According to her, Arkayev’s reputation precede him and she knew he was a very tough boss when she agreed to the job, but she thought that, at least, he’d get good results from his gymnasts. However, when she came to Saransk, turned out that the athletes and staff were completely miserable, the atmosphere was depressing and there was no proper coaching system. Irina claims she was never given any specific tasks or work schedule, she basically could do whatever she wanted and she had no idea what the goals are for any of the gymnasts. She also says that Arkayev was quick to change his opinions: one day he could call her the best choreographer in the world and the next day to say that she’s not needed. She also couldn’t work with the same athletes regularly and consistently, because Arkayev constantly shuttled kids between the coaches and the whole process felt to her like a complete chaos. She also says he had a very quick temper and if someone made a mistake, he yelled not only at the gymnast, but also at everyone around, even if they had nothing to do with that mistake. She believes that Arkayev’s leaving is very beneficial for the training center. Another issue was problematic training technique. His former gymnast, Svetlana, says that at the Round Lake Arkayev used to get older gymnasts who already had a proper technique and had their personal coaches to train with, so Arkayev only needed to organize the whole process, he didn’t actually train anyone. Here, in Saransk, he had to train kids from the beginning, and, Svetlana claims, he didn’t really know how to do it, the technique he was teaching was wrong and lead to injuries. She said that other coaches who saw her doing elements were really surprised at the way she did them, because it was incorrect and could lead to major injuries. She also says that in Saransk Arkayev repeatedly took talented gymnasts from their coaches, trained them for a while, and with all the pressure he ruined them physically and psychologically, so they either stopped training at all or returned to their old coaches. She also says that in Russian gymnastics there’s a lot of politics regarding who can go to the Round Lake and train on the national team. Often the coaches of some athletes on the national team can sabotage their potential competitors so that they would never get to the Round Lake. Usually, in that situation the personal trainer of the “sabotaged” gymnasts should take care of the situation and pull his or her connections to get the gymnast on the national team, but Arkayev didn’t care and never defended his gymnasts.

And the most important accusation – sexual harassment. Apparently, there were lots of rumors about Arkayev touching gymnasts inappropriately or trying to have sex with them, but the gymnasts themselves never came forward or contacted authorities. [*which is not surprising as Russia is still heavy on victim-blaming and coming forward could seriously ruin their reputation and future gymnastics career, so I can absolutely believe that it happened for years and people knew but no one did anything, as I’ve witnessed similar situations multiple times when I still lived in Russia*]. One of the gymnasts said that an older gymnasts warned girls to never be alone with Arkayev or go to his apartment, because he would harass them [the Russian word “pristavat” can mean to attempt sex, to touch inappropriately or to harass verbally, or all three, so it’s not clear what was meant in this situation, but the main point is that any advances would be of sexual nature and they would be uninvited and unwelcome]. At first, the girls didn’t believe their older friend, but then they experienced it for themselves. Inappropriate touching even happened at the gym. In addition, the gymnasts regularly went to a sauna for rehab, where Arkayev came into the sauna, full of underaged girls, and performed full body massages, insisting that it’s a legitimate relaxation technique. One of the girls asked her friends to never leave her alone with Arkayev because she was afraid of him attempting to do something. They started going to sauna only with other girls, but they never talked to adults or authorities about it, because they were afraid no one would believe them and that this would end their gymnastics career. Arkayev also often invited female gymnasts to his apartment and cooked for them. However, he attempted to have sex with them only when the girls turned 18 [I guess, as to avoid the statutory rape charges. Rape of adults is very hard to prove, he would just claim it was consensual, but if he really had sex with kids, it wouldn’t matter if there was consent, because Russia has statutory rape laws]. One of the gymnasts describes how he invited her to his apartment to watch gymnastics videos but then tried to take of her top and make her lie on the bed. She refused and he never attempted anything with her again, but their coach-gymnast relationship also deteriorated. The last allegation was that he sold sports titles. The journalist also tried to get a comment from Arkayev regarding the allegations, but he refused to comment.

Liubov adds :

I tried to find more information, but no one picked up the story for now.

Often the police starts investigations after articles like that appear, if the cases involve minors, so we might get more information in future.

Further reading on this blog:

The press allegations
Leonid Arkayev - short profile after he was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame
Leonid Arkayev interview with Elena Vaitsekhovskaya from December 2014