Andrei Rodionenko - Mustafina, Ablyazin and the judging in Antwerp - Lupita translates

Lupita translates this interview with Andrei Rodionenko.

Aliya Mustafina calculating Anna Rodionova's beam D value in Sunday's beam final

Andrei Rodionenko, standing in the bus that left the arena after Mustafina’s victory on beam, said that the Worlds in Belgium had not been a success.  It’s a good thing when the head coach judges himself uncompromisingly.  I myself don’t think it was a failure.

Some of the disappointments - Aliya not winning gold on bars, or Olympic medalist Ablyazin not making any final - have an interesting subtext. There are things that should rather be understood now. It’s better to correct them now, because repenting after Rio will be too late.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, as you were leaving the arena, you said laconically that “Nelli Kim has behaved aggressively”.  Out of the inquiries submitted, ours was ignored and the American complaint was accepted. Was Nelli Kim behind that, like three years ago in Rotterdam?

-  I would like to avoid blaming people. It leads nowhere. We should look for agreement. Of course, it’s difficult to understand why one country’s protest is taken and why the other is ignored. By the way, during the beam final the Americans submitted not one inquiry, but two! They also tried to challenge Simone Biles’ score! [ed – as well as Kyla Ross]. Yet, I don’t think mutual recriminations are the right way to go. I believe in dialogue in order to suppress the existing flaws or failures (let’s call them this).

- Are these failures?

- Sure.  As far as I am concerned, we need an accurate classification of elements. Like in Mendeleyev’s Periodic Table, or in diving.  Is creating a table with the value of each one of the elements so complicated a task?  Give me this table; give it to the judges, the gymnasts, the coaches, the audience. Complaints, inquiries will disappear. Mustafina has been working on the Shaposhnikova with a 1/1 turn for six months.  But this element has been judged like the Shaposhnikova with ½ turn that she performed in London.  Aliya has improved a lot since then. She put so much effort into that. But this doesn’t give her any bonus. Why?  They answer that we have to perform the element, and later they’ll see, and they’ll include it in the highest category (of elements). In such situations, both gymnasts and coaches work blindly. They master new complex tricks that don’t bring along any result.

- Does risk make sense?

-It’s not interesting without risk. In women’s gymnastics in Belgium, only China and Russia have shown something new. The rest, including the US, haven’t progressed. It’s true that the Americans win. But they don’t surprise. Every year they do the same. On the other hand, China … I think they deserve respect. They have brought a completely new team. Without aiming at medals, China came to test their gymnasts in the conditions of the new Code of Points. Even if the girls were of dubious age …

- Yes, one of them looked 11, no older …

- Yes, she had baby teeth (smiles) ... But they performed new routines. One Chinese gymnast, Lin Shaopan, shared gold with Uchimura. He was so relaxed, smiling, he fell, so what? The results were not important to him. He is a young all-arounder who won at the Chinese Championships. He made mistakes, but nobody considered this a disaster. It’s something normal. This is 2013! This is the first important competition on the road to Rio. Nothing else.

- You are vanquished …

- They want medals right now, more and more medals … Although, by the way, we fulfilled the medal plan we had privately established for ourselves.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, I heard some people blaming the Universiade participation … In Kazan I saw Fabian Hambuechen. He lost to Kuksenkov and said that he was too old for the all around. In Belgium he won a medal.

- Hambuechen only performed well on two events at the Universiade. He was not ready then. But he trained for Antwerp. Fabian’s example is not very good for another reason. The German gymnast has been performing the same routines for a few years. He made practically no mistakes. But, as I said, we have different goals. We want to make progress. I was talking here to the judges. It’s important to understand their approach, their criteria. Not everything is clear. For instance, equipment testing was carried out in a surprising way.  We had not been properly informed and were surprised, including Aliya …

- Can Aliya be surprised by something?

- Of course, she is a human being. Mustafina has her own way of warming up. She doesn’t like to train her routines 100% during warm up.  She preserves herself for the most important moments. She is not used to that. She was called for equipment testing.  Can you imagine?  She is not used to that.  They gave her a score and, later, during the whole competition, the details of her routine were stored in the computer. We were surprised when in the all around Mustafina performed better on beam than in qualifications, and got the same score. From the start the judges had worked it out.  Later they remembered this test routine, which normally everyone ignored, and were unable to put aside their first impressions.  There was something weird about the bars.  In the warm-up gym they were not on the podium, and their ‘behaviour’ is totally different on the floor. Before the finals, Aliya didn’t warm up.

- Andrei Fyodorovich, could you explain what happened to Ablyazin?

- Denis was outraged, we were all outraged … It’s the first time that he has failed his dismount from rings – double layout with double twist …

- Denis failed on his three events…

- I can explain this. Ablyazin has a fantastic technical level. He has always had problems in focussing himself. Denis is temperamental. Recently I told him: “My friend, I know what to do with you. Before the competition we have to take you to the arena and have you perform on all apparatus at a 200% level so that your level of performance will be 100%”.

Editor’s note: we are not completely sure what Rodionenko means by ‘equipment testing’ in this interview; sometimes he refers to it only as ‘testing’.