While many gymnasts around the world had their training disrupted or stopped completely due to COVID-19, for some time, it looked like Russian gymnasts would be able to keep training as usual. However, yesterday, it was announced that Round Lake, the center where the national team trains and lives, will be closing alongside many other training centers around the country. According to Valentina Rodionenko, the national team is still not giving up their training plans and the monthly camp will go as planned. Since the athletes will not be able to live at Round Lake, they will stay at Novogorsk, at the training center that houses the rhythmic gymnastics national team. However, since Novogorsk does not have an artistic gymnastics gym, the gymnasts will still have to commute to Round Lake every day to train there. Round Lake is about 30 minutes away from Novorgorsk by car. In addition, due to the quarantine measures, the gymnasts will not be able to go outside the two training centers and see their families or friends.
It seems that since there aren’t any competitions in the coming months and gymnasts in other countries are also unable to train, it would make sense to take a break. Artur Dalaloyan definitely thinks so and he expressed his unhappiness with the arrangements to the media:
“Of course, it’s great that the state cares about the athletes, but they don’t take into account that athletes have families. They are separating us, they don’t care about our families. Personally, I have a baby. I would be happier if I could spend this time with my family.”
“It was said that it will be a three-week camp and we have no idea what’s after that. I know that we will live in Novogorsk for a month. We are leaving the training center today and moving to the center in Novogorsk. We’ll live there but we will train at Round Lake, because the gym will be open just for us. Because of the quarantine, most of the athletes were sent to their cities, the national team lists were culled, that is, only a small number of athletes is left under the governance of the Ministry of Sports. I guess, in order not to spend a lot of money on several training centers, they are making shorter lists [of athletes] and keeping only one training center where we will live.”
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