Valeri Alfosov, the head coach of the Russian national team, gave an interview to R-Sport. He talked about the challenges of selecting a four-person team for the Olympics, about the team strategy and about coaching the gymnasts in all aspects of their life, not just in the gym.
Q: Will it be hard to select a four-person team for the Olympics while you’re used to having five people on the team?
A: We’re already thinking about this problem. We will need to calculate everything and to understand what team to prepare. Four all-
Q: So, the value of all-arounders increases sharply, right?
A: That’s right. It’s the easiest option – to take four all-arounders, put them in the line-up and that’s it.
Q: And do we have four stron all-arounders? We have two, everyone has seen them.
A: If we will have four strong world-class all-arounders, the coaching team can take a vacation. [laughs]
Q: Is the team that you’ve built the dream team?
A: Of course, you can’t call it the dream team. It’s just that our common work resulted in the team that the gymnastics fans saw at the World Championships. I can’t even imagine what the dream team would be.
Q: Why?
A: Because the coaching work is similar to the work of an engineer. You can’t build a dream airplane because after that you will always want an even more modern plane.
Q: I’ll rephrase my question, then. Is this the best possible team currently?
A: Of course, it’s not the best possible team. If we turn to history, in the old times, in the USSR national team, we saw, as we thought, more capable, more talented athletes. And you know how many medals the Soviet gymnasts won at World Championships and Olympic Games. But even now you can’t say that the Chinese, the Japanese or the American teams are weaker than us, you understand? That is, we compete as equals. And it’s obvious that the ones who win will be the ones who prepared better for a specific competiton.
Q: The phrase “you can’t say that the Chinese, the Americans and the Japanese are weaker than us” is very characteristic. That was quite a leap forward in perception. Just recently it seemed absolutely clear that they were stronger than us. Is that right?
A: Of course, it is. But we didn’t stand still. We knew our rivals, we knew their strengths and weaknesses and we kept trying to catch up with them – in difficulty, in execution, in the organization of the training process and in many other factors. And we managed to do that. Currently, we compete with these leading teams. The Rio Olympics and the 2018 Worlds showed this.
Q: But the competitors didn’t stand still either. So, I’m drawing a simple conclusion: the Russian team was moving faster than their rivals, right.
A: Right. I guess, during the Olympic quad, our team did a bit more than the Japanese, the Chinese and the Americans. It’s clear that we went half a step further.
Q: Could you elaborate? What exactly was that half a step?
A: I’ll try to answer that. During the 2013-2016 quad and especially in this quad we brought several things into the international gymnasts which are now being repeated by all the teams, as we’ve seen at Worlds. For example, the elements on bars done from arm support. A Cuban gymnast used to perform those elements, then they were developed by a Greek gymnast. We went back to them because there were changes in the code. We tried to continue improving them and we managed to do just that. We made some changes on high bar as well. We removed the elements that were heavily deducted and replaced them with Likhovitskiy’s elements. In tumbling, we changed the direction a bit. We didn’t just do the classic twists, we started doing triple
Q: So, it was a very serious and meticulous study of the new Code of Points.
A: Of course. We were choosing a strategy for how to catch up with our rivals. With what can we catch up with them? What are our strengths and difficulties? We don’t hide that some of our events are weaker while some are ahead. Of course, our pommel horse and high bar are a bit weaker than that of the Chinese or the Japanese. Although we are not that far behind them in difficulty. But the execution leaves much to be desired. On rings, on the other hand, we are ahead of those teams
Q: All of that would not be possible without internal competition. As the head coach, can you say that there is enough competition on the national team?
A: There’s competition on the national team, of course. There are guys who are still trying to make a step forward in order to make the national team. But I can’t say that we have a lot of competition. Russia doesn’t have much of a reserve. We can’t compare our reserve to what the Japanese, the Chinese or the Americans have. Ours is much smaller. When a boy comes to the national team from the reserve, he needs at least two years to adapt.
Q: And what would be the ideal situation – to come and start competing right away?
A: We keep looking back to the Soviet Union as the ideal situation. Back then, the guys from the junior team moved onto the senior team and started fighting for a place among the top-5 or top-6 right away. They were competitive right away. And sometimes the guys from the junior team made the national team and went to Worlds immediately and won medals there. We don’t have anything like that now. Nowadays, the guys are progressing gradually. Let’s take, for example, the 2017 Worlds. We had Beliavskiy and Nagornyy in the all-around. Dalaloyan wasn’t an all-arounder then, he competed on single events, he wasn’t completely ready in 2017. But all the specialists saw that both Beliavskiy and Nagornyy would soon be able to fight for medals in the all-around. Only their mistakes didn’t allow them to do it there. Currently, Nagornyy has the highest difficulty in the world in the all-around. His execution suffers but is difficulty is even higher than Uchimura’s. When Uchimura was at the peak, he had the highest difficulty in the all-around and made finals on four events! We set a goal that the all-arounders should have one or two events on which they can make event finals and we achieved it. Nagornyy made finals, Dalaloyan and Beliavskiy did, too. Of course, our coaching team tried to motivate the guys to fight for the medals both in the all-around and the event finals, and, especially, in the team final.
Q: So, the team has achieved all the goals for the World Championships?
A: Yes, of course.
Q: But they lost to the Chinese in the team final by 0.049. Wasn’t that upsetting?
A: Only for the fans. For the professionals, this wasn’t upsetting, it was many months and years of work. The fact that we lost by that amount, we didn’t lose at the Championships. We lost that before. I guess, we didn’t do enough, didn’t get to that state when the athletes are ready to win outright, without a risk of losing 0.05. Losing means that we made some mistakes in preparation. Many people called me or wrote to me about how upsetting it was to lose by 0.049. But when we drew the conclusions of the competition among the professionals, we talked about not being upset at all. We just didn’t do enough.
Q: Before the Worlds, did it you think it was realistic for the Russian team to win just with their own good performances and without the mistakes by other teams?
A: Of course. We just didn’t talk about it. We didn’t have a goal to become the World champions. We had a different goal. This was the first stage of the Olympic qualification. Only three teams would qualify after these championships. So, the team had the goal to fight for the top-3, to make the top-3 and to qualify during the first stage. And whether this would be a bronze, a silver or a gold… They’re not far from each other. But, first of all, we needed to qualify
Q: In 13 years, you’ve gathered a large database of knowledge on what is the team, how to build it and so on. In your opinion, who is a Russian national team gymnast?
A: It’s an athlete in love with gymnastics.
Q: Aren’t they all like that?
A: You can love gymnastics in different ways. Only the person who wants to become a big athlete and capable of doing it physically should make the national team. A physically well-developed person, a healthy one. This person also needs to be educated, cultured, well-mannered, and socially active.
Q: This seems like a perfect person: both smart and handsome. But why would a national team gymnast have to be socially active?
A: Because it’s our gene pool, our future generations. You’ve been to the Olympics more than once, remember what beautiful people you see when you get to the Olympic village! Healthy, educated, smiling, speaking several foreign languages. Is that bad?
Q: It’s just great but is it necessary? If someone is quiet and not smiling and only spends his time training but wins at the end – why would that be bad?
A: That’s not bad either. There are people like that in the sport. There are all sorts of people. You don’t take up the sport for a month. To raise an athlete takes decades. For example, right now we have these guys on the team, they came from the developmental team at 13 or 14, now they’re 26. I marry them off, they have kids. Just imagine how interesting all this is for me as a teacher. This all happens before our eyes. And we are interested to learn what people we raised – good or bad. What can we expect from them in the future?
Q: Your ideas aren’t very characteristic of most of our coaches. Most of them demand the results from an athlete.
A: I demand it as well.
Q: But many of your colleagues don’t care at all who an athlete marries, how many kids they have and so on. They squeeze an athlete like a sponge and as soon as he stops producing results, they stop caring about him.
A: And I know many coaches who, after their athlete retires, keep doing things for him, helping with education and work and so on.
Q: Let’s remember Alexei Bondarenko then. Everyone thought he was an amazingly talented gymnast who, unfortunately, wasn’t able to translate his talent into a big victory. What did he lack? Or, rather, what did the team Alfosov-Bondarenko lack?
A: At the time when Bondarenko had his career rise, we were ahead of the leaders in many aspects. In addition, he was a very hard worker. When he was getting to the high level, we worked without days off. I went home on Sundays, ate breakfast but he called me and said: “Valeri Palych, come here, I’m at the gym already”. I said to him: “But we have a day off today”. He responded: “But I’m bored, come here, let’s train”. That’s how things were. Of course, he had a great potential. Only his lack of self-discipline prevented him from achieving his dream and that’s it.
Q: Isn’t that the responsibility of a coach? Why weren’t you able to organize him as needed?
A: Yes, it’s the responsibility of a coach. It was hard. There was no help from his family. Perhaps, he couldn’t hear me. Or, perhaps, I wasn’t able to get through to him. Or, perhaps, this was an illness. Not everyone can fight off alcohol and smoking. Some get better but some keep being sick.
Q: And what conclusions did you draw from that on how to work with gymnasts in the future? Not to take on gymnasts who are at risk for that?
A: No, why? You just need to fight this, to talk to them, to explain. For example, now, I say to the guys that during my youth, smoking was fashionable. But now the modern youth doesn’t find smoking or drinking fashionable. I talk to them about how to dress and how to present yourself to the public. I talk to them about the fact they need to study. It’s a shame to go abroad and not to be able to speak any foreign language. At least, a bit. At Round Lake, we have English classes – welcome. And when the team leaders start doing all that, the rest will follow. Everyone started learning English. They stopped running errands in training suits with saggy knees, they started wearing nice fashionable jeans and sweaters. When handsome young men enter the airplane, we, the coaches, enjoy this sight.
Q: Artur Dalaloyan said in one interview that he had recently been a slob and didn’t understand how important self-discipline was. He realized it half a year before the Rio Olympics but wasn’t able to prepare in time and didn’t make the team. And now he says he understands that he has to work without slacking off. Do all the guys on the main team understand that?
A: We try to teach this to all of our students. I’ll tell frankly, with the arrival of Nagornyy, Dalaloyan, and Lankin, the team became slightly different. These guys are a bit difficult, they’re not quiet mama’s boys, they’re street-smart guys. I don’t want to offend their parents, but these guys have a different kind of upbringing. And the fact that these guys are changing now, that’s also a result of the teamwork. If Dalaloyan is admitting it – and I know exactly what he’s admitting – and he started to realize that, that’s very good. If Nagornyy will realize this as well, we will expect an even better result from him than what he’s showing now, not the bronze in the all-around but something higher.
Q: What, hasn’t the multiple World medalist realized it yet?
A: Not yet. We expect more from Nagornyy. I’m talking not about the results but about the discipline during practices, making demands from himself, discipline in achieving the goals that were set for him.
Q: It’s hard for me to imagine a gymnast on the current national team who could allow himself to break the discipline. Does he skip practices?
A: No, of course, not. What is the discipline in training? It’s working according to the plan every day. It’s not necessary to stick to the plan by 100%, practices differ. But you need to try sticking to it. For example, in order to complete the weekly cycle, you need to go to sleep on time and not stay up late surfing online. Or to overcome the desire to see your girlfriend for which you need to get into the car and leave. You need to do all the medical procedures if you’re sick. I understand that the guys have other things to figure out, too: apartment renovations, buying a car, getting winter tires and so on. The self-discipline is making sure that all these things won’t distract you from the sport. That’s what the results depend on.
Q: Well, what if, for example, Nagornyy comes to you and says: “I need to get my car from the dealershi on Wednesday, can I miss the practice?” What will you say to him?
A: Of course, he can.
Q: What do you mean “of course”? What about the weekly plan? Can’t the car wait at the dealership till Sunday?
A: Of course, it can, but we’re not a prison. Everyone has problems and we allow the athletes to solve them. We can adjust the weekly plan on Thursday and Friday. The plan isn’t a law, it’s flexible. It can change according to the state of health, too. If someone’s not feeling well and my plan says they are supposed to do X and Y, an athlete can say: “Can we lighten the load”, and I say: “Of course, we can”. The work won’t stop because of it. It will just change and continue. After all, we won’t kill the athlete: “You’re bad, you didn’t achieve the goals for today!”. We don’t have anything like that.
Q: Do you restrain yourself when watching your athletes compete or you don’t even have to?
A: Of course, I restrain myself. I think it’s not pretty when your emotions pour out in public. You have to stay positive.
Q: Can you remember your feeling when at the crucial moment of the team final at Worlds, Nagornyy’s elbows gave out?
A: I can. I thought: “We’ve just lost”.
Q: So, you already realized that you’d lost at that moment?
A: It became clear when Dalaloyan made a mistake on bars. And this was only the fifth event. And then Nagornyy made a mistake as well. That’s why I said that it wasn’t upsetting to lose by 0.049, it was the result of us not doing something during the last half a year.
Q: Who do you call names at such moments? The athletes or yourself?
A: Myself.
Q: But it was them who made mistakes. You’re investing in them and they…
A: So what? It means I didn’t teach them enough. Or the personal coach hasn’t finished something and our whole coaching team missed something. For the fans, of course, the most interesting part is when it’s hard to know who will win. Many fans told me that they haven’t seen such a competition in many years, such a fight, such a rush of emotions.
Q: But the coaches get gray hair early because of such competitions, right?
A: It’s our job. Sometimes we get gray hair. But sometimes, we grow wings. Success is happiness. When something goes wrong, the coaches are sad. But we shouldn’t beat ourselves up and cry: “Oh, we’ve lost by 0.05!” We need to find the reason and remove it. To go in a different direction. If you ask: “Does Dalaloyan not know how to do the element he fell on?”, I’ll say that, of course, he does know. How many times he repeated this element in training is another matter. It’s a reason to think. Or, perhaps, on the fifth event, he felt like the medal was within his reach and the psychology played its role. Perhaps, they all got to the fifth event and started making mistakes because they felt like they were winning. They saw on the screen that Russia was winning and started feeling something. The guys are very active, very hot-headed. Perhaps, they weren’t able to get themselves together. We need to figure this out.
Q: But it’s been a month since the World Championships. Were you able to figure out what happened with the team by the fifth event?
A: More or less. We have our vision of the issue but we want to hear the athletes’ opinion. For example, we want to hear from Beliavskiy. When he went home, I asked him: “After you come home, please, tell me your opinion, why you weren’t able to do well in the event final. Why you did well in the qualification and in the team final but couldn’t do it in the event final. Think about it.” He told me he’ll definitely think about it. And we will definitely talk about it with each of them. We want to hear their understanding of the mistakes. They need to know how to evaluate themselves. For us, the coaches, it’s important, because we need to move forward with the athletes, towards 2020.
Q: Explain to me, how can you live with such pressure from morning till evening? You wake up with the thoughts about how to do something, then you work, then you go to sleep with the same thoughts, where did you miss something. How do you manage?
A: Well, it’s my job, that’s how it is.
Q: Do you ever stop thinking about your work for even a minute?
A: I guess, I do. [laughs] For example, I talked about the 2020 Games format. For now, all our thoughts are about selecting the team. I take a piece of paper, a pencil, and draw the plan trying to find the best option that we can discuss with the coaches. After all, an athlete needs to know what is expected of him, why he is offered one role while his buddy gets a different one. You can’t just say to them: “You’re doing six events and you’re doing three”. They need to understand why that is. If we put the team’s interest higher than the individual medals, the athletes should also understand it and feel it.
Q: Is there a place for the word “star” that fans and journalists use so much in the work of a professional coach?
A: There are stars, of course. But, usually, people are called stars after retiring. Although, Uchimura is a superstar, of course. He made such a huge leap forward. He became the World all-around champion six times in a row.
Q: Can you call someone on the current team a star?
A: No, I can’t. Because… perhaps it won’t sound nice… how to say it nicely… During the USSR, the national team was made of the most talented gymnasts who went through a crazy selection. These best gymnasts were selected for the competitions. In our days, all the guys on the team have their strengths and weaknesses. For example, Dalaloyan can’t do pommels well. In the Soviet system, he wouldn’t have made the national team. He would be told: “You know what, go train on the pommel horse and don’t come back until you’re good”. Nagornyy can’t do something else well. And there are plenty of weaknesses like that on the team. I want to say that we have talented guys on the team and they reached the current level because of hard work which allowed them to win medals. But I can’t call them stars.
Q: But can the become stars in the future?
A: Of course, they can.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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