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Valentina Rodionenko: Now the focus is the personal coach

Lupita translates a brand new interview with Russian head coach, Valentina Rodionenko.  This is taken from the Ministry of Sport website.
February 8th 2013

For summer sports a new Olympic quad has started. If generally, after the Olympics, the best athletes can relax a little bit, important competitions are on the Russian gymnastics team’s agenda. Valentina Rodionenko, head coach of the Russian team, told the RTSP-Press correspondents about the changes in gymnastics and the challenges ahead for the team.

-        What is specific to this post-Olympic season?

-        The beginning of a new Olympic quad is always a slowdown time. It’s a good moment to include new athletes into the team. This is what happens in all countries and in our country. Yet, at this year’s European championships our best gymnasts will perform because the competition will be held in Russia. Mustafina, Afanasyeva and other leaders are training for the European Championships. We want young Shelgunova to join them. It’s important to test the young gymnasts at big competitions. Grishina lacked experience at the Olympics and failed to perform well. She said she didn’t know what she was doing. Still, she had won a few minor competitions and she was ready physically.

-        Is Shelgunova a strong gymnast?

-        Evgenia Shelgunova was a member of the junior team. She won the European Junior Championships. We hope that she can compete against our best gymnasts.

-        Who will compete at the Universiade in Kazan?

-        At the Universiade our best team will compete. We haven’t decided yet, but Mustafina, Afanasyeva, Nabieva, Paseka, Kramarenko, Dementieva are training for the Universiade. Our aim is to win the team competition.

-        What is the aim of our men’s team?

-        Our men’s team is very good and ambitious. But it will be very difficult for them to win at the Universiade. The Japanese and the Chinese will send strong teams. But our men will fight. They are already training as if they had to compete tomorrow. The team has very strong gymnasts.

The situation is better for the reserve team than among the girls. In men’s gymnastics there are eight strong teams. Any of them can compete for the podium at the Olympics. In women’s gymnastics there are only four elite teams.

-        Are you happy with Nikolai Kuksenkov’s arrival to the team?

-        Nikolai works very seriously. He has joined the team and is like one of the other gymnasts. For us it’s important to cover two of our weak events – high bar and pommel horse. We are waiting for the resolution of his nationality. If he gets it, we hope that he can compete for Russia at the European Championships.

-        Which conclusions did you draw after the Olympics? Which mistakes do you want to avoid in the new quad?

-          We drew the indispensable conclusions. The best Russian coaches came back from abroad and they changed the working system. We now focus on personal coaches. We want them to work as they wish to work.  Everything depends on the personal coaches and we have to help them.

-          Which novelties await gymnasts this year?

-          At the European championships they will perform with a new and more difficult programme. The CoP has changed. Now more attention will be paid to artistry and to good execution. In this aspect the Russian team is strong, but in acrobatics the new rules make things difficult for us as we lack the power the Americans have. How will we win? We’ll combine excellent execution and difficulty.

-        The Rio Olympics are still far away from now, but can we define the members of the team?

-        The core of the team will be the same. All the gymnasts are still very young. In four years they’ll have more experience. I think that only two or three new gymnasts will join the team.

-        What is more important to be successful – talent or work?

-        Work comes first, I’m fully convinced. We have had many talent girls who were not ready to work hard. And we had medium girls who thanks to their hard work reached such results that talented girls could never have dreamed of.  No talented lazy girl will ever reach good results. Mustafina is a talent. She possesses an excellent combination of talent and the capacity not to train a lot but to reach results. Тhis doesn’t happen often. She is very gifted. She has such character that she cannot train, compete and perform her routine better than if she had trained. At the Olympics Aliya proved her character and her talent. She was not better prepared than the rest, but she performed an impeccable bar routine.

Comments

  1. Thanks for the translation. Oh how Valentina has changed her tune from blaming to now saying nice things. :rolleyes:

    I hope she means it and gives the personal coaches their space.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm afraid I have a different interpretation of what she says, cynic that I am ...

      Of course now the personal coaches (eg Alexandrov) are responsible, it will be all their fault if their gymnasts (eg Mustafina) do not win gold at every event.

      Poor Mustafina has a lot of pressure on her - with Komova out of the picture for Europeans all of the expectation will be on her shoulders.

      Of course Valentina obviously thinks (?hopes?) that eventually Mustafina's 'luck' will run out and that her fabled lack of preparation will trip her up.

      How a lazy gymnast could recover from that knee injury without immense work and application, I will never know.

      I wonder what Mustafina and Alexandrov could possibly have said or done, to deserve to be on the receiving end of such venom?

      Delete
    2. You are correct in still being a cynic. She has been that way for years, I also find it hard to believe she change so much in just a few short months. For me it is a little hope that she is being hammered in the press, hence the change, but it is probably just a change in the words.

      I agree - I don't know how she could think Aliya didn't put in immense work especially after coming back from such an injury.

      I also agree, it will be a lot of pressure on Aliya since Komova is out..unless Grishina can finally live up to her potential.

      I don't know what they could have done. It probably goes back to people probably praising Alexandrov for how good the team did in 2010, and she probably didn't like him getting all the praise. She always seem to not like to give him credit when things go well but as soon as it goes bad, he gets all the blame. As for Aliya, she seems such a strong independent girl who sticks up for herself/beliefs and I think Valentina likes to be in control, and she can't do that with her.

      Who knows, I guess we will see how she does this year with her comments.

      Delete
    3. Boy Elizabeth I also took it the way you did. As an American I follow both the American gymnastics (for "hometown" love) and Russian gymnastics (for it's beauty and intrigue) quite thoroughly. I really really was taken aback by that comment from Valentina. First stating that a talented gymnast that doesn't put in effort is lazy, and then intentionally noting that Mustafina is talented and doesn't put in the effort....but don't fear all, she did well on bars...even though she wasn't as prepared as her fellow teammates. Correct me if I'm wrong but she put in more solid routines during the entire Olympic competition than any of her teammates. Am I wrong? I can not believe that the Russian federations allow this to happen with a team coach very blatantly degrading one of it's athletes. If this happened her with our USOC their would be serious repercussions. I really hope the Russian teams new err 'leadership' does not derail the spirit of any of the girls preparing for the next Olympic cycle.

      Delete
    4. I do despair about the evident state of communications amongst the Russian coaches - if it is how I have interpreted it, it's not very professional, and not very likely to lead to good results.

      Of course, things are rarely as symmetrical and reasoned as I like them to be - there may be another interpretation possible, perhaps Rodionenko has resigned herself to the fact that Mustafina and Alexandrov are crazy diamonds who need to be allowed to go their own way?

      There is another perspective too - that the Rodionenkos feel so vulnerable that they already need to begin to account for their failure, or at least to push the responsibility for performance elsewhere in the team. So vulnerable that they need to remove 'their' gymnast (Komova, though coach Elfimov has wisely remained silent) from the possibility of failure, cruelly exposing the 'rival' (Mustafina) to intense pressure at a time when she would probably rather be concentrating on her university studies and travelling the world.

      No wonder the Brazilians are still talking about the possibility of attracting Alexandrov to travel there, in six months' time or so, after Europeans and the Universiade are over.

      And this is also why I would rather see a Euros team without Mustafina.

      Delete
  2. The old hag is being cynical. She's trying to say that Aliya is only gifted without putting in any hard work. Being gifted alone doesn't put Aliya to win four medals in the Olympic. Notice that her favourite gymnasts-Vika and Grishina are not in the team. This looks like Aliya and Dementyeva could be their scapegoat if anything goes wrong..

    ReplyDelete
  3. Man!!!, would she ever give up on shooting her own team? What value does she add to this team other than de-moralizing them?

    Alfi

    ReplyDelete

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