The Ukrainian women’s team today was able to qualify to the team final at the European Championships for the first time since 2010. Eight years ago the team was completely different, but one gymnast from that team, then having a different last name, Kysla, kept going. This year she finally got a team that is able to compete at the highest level. Angelina Radivilova made a few mistakes today (falls on beam and on her newly upgraded floor) and while talking to us, she didn’t yet know the team would qualify, so she was visibly upset. Now, Radivilova, together with Diana Varinska, Valeriia Osipova, Yana Fedorova and Alona Titarenko will have another chance to show us what they are capable of.
Q: Do you have any plans to upgrade in the future?
A: Well, of course, I have plans but as the experience showed, I haven’t perfected what I already do even though everything went well in training. I was sure that I’d be able to do everything here.
Q: How did the team environment change after Oleg Ostapenko [new head coach] started working with you?
A: Everything changed. Before we used to be all on our own, even, for example, during warm-ups before practices. Now we’re all more together, the training load has changed, there’s some sort of system now. It didn’t exist before but he set up a system.
Q: Did the coaches set any goals for you for the European Championships?
A: They did – to compete without falls, but that didn’t quite happen. Let’s see what happens in the next two subdivisions.
Q: And what plans do you have for the World Championships?
A: For the World Championships? To prepare better than we did for the European Championships [laughs]. It’s just that we haven’t been training with him [Ostapenko] for long but I think the improvements are quite good already. We’ll try to prepare better for the World Championships.
Photo: Gymania, Israeli Gymnastics Magazine
Gymnovosti is able to provide coverage of the European Championships thanks to the support from our patrons on Patreon.
So excited for Ukraine! Absolutely stoked they made it into the final!! Theyre gonna hit on Saturday.:)