I am just recording here some notes on a media interview with Russia’s MAG team captain. David uses quite a lot of rhetorical questions here in his responses, and parries as the interviewer tries to get closer to his thoughts on the wartime ban in international competition, and the idea of competing as a neutral individual.
Read this in the context of what we know about growing repression in the Russian Federation. This could well be considered to be a historic document on wavering freedom of speech in Russia as the country approaches the nightmare of total mobilisation to support the war in Ukraine.
I’m sharing this from my Facebook post.
Quite an interesting interview with David Belyavski. He is very skilled now at speaking in public.
He says he hasn’t lost motivation because of the international ban on Russian athletes, he loves gymnastics and will continue for as long as he can be part of the national team. He likes coaching but has no particular plans to take up work at present.
He doesn’t intend to compete under a neutral flag; he has already done this once. In his opinion there is no chance of Russia sending a team to the Olympics. The requirements set for individual neutral participation are not easy for athletes to meet, for example they have to pay their own travel expenses. Gymnasts from Dynamo and CSKA are disallowed. Changing nationality isn’t workable in the time frame before the Olympics and besides, why would a gymnast who had trained and lived in Russia all their life want to change their nationality? Competition is less interesting without international gymnasts present and during such competitions as Euros, the gymnasts watch and want to be there. But they can’t and who knows what the situation will be for the 2028 Olympics?
His condition now is good, but not top - he saves that for the Olympics. Daniil Marinov is good but needs some international experience and to strengthen his content on all the apparatus but specially pommels and floor. His p bars and vault are already good.
The gymnasts are being paid the same as they were when they were competing internationally and the Federation is looking after them well.
https://metaratings.ru/blog/intervyu-olimpiiskogo-chempiona-po-sportivnoy-gimnastike-davida-belyavskogo/
Paraphrased and edited version from a Google translate.
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