Update from April of 2019: Aliya Mustafina has recently said that she reconsidered her position on vaccines and opted to get her daughter vaccinated abroad since she did not trust Russian vaccines. In April of 2019, she took Alisa to Germany to get vaccinated.
Seems like June will also be “Aliya Mustafina” month as most of the Russian gymnastics news items continue to be about her. It also will be the month when Mustafina ended her run as a “gymnast who doesn’t voice controversial opinions”, as in a very short period she claimed there’s no harassment in Russian gymnastics, ADHD meds might have given Simone Biles a slight advantage and that vaccines are dangerous so she doesn’t vaccinate her one-year-old daughter. If you want to take a break from reading to cry a bit, we understand.
On her daughter’s Instagram Aliya Mustafina has written a post to commemorate Alisa’s birthday:
“Hello to everyone! We have turned one year old. I’ll now tell you: I chose the name for Alisa, it seemed kind and like from a fairytale and I never wanted to change my mind and give her some other name. I really want to sign her up for rhythmic gymnastics in a couple of years, I really like this sport and I hope she’ll like it too. We’re not getting vaccines besides the ones that she received in the maternity ward and during all that time we only once had a fever, a couple of times – a runny nose and we’ve never had a cough. We’re not getting them because I’m very afraid of them knowing what kind of complications might occur… She started walking at 10 months and at 11 she wasn’t crawling already and I don’t even remember when she made her first step. I guess, at 8 months old. We have 8 teeth. We don’t puree the food at all, she doesn’t eat stuff like that. We don’t know how to drink from a cup and don’t use a potty at all. We only say “Mom” and a bit more in their own language but she already understands a lot (when she wants to)”.
Mustafina also recently gave an interview to Realnoye Vremya portal in which she talked about likely missing the Russian Cup and how her training is going. She was also asked to comment on Simone Biles (as the Russian media continue to be obsessed with the news that Biles has ADHD and took methylphenidate to treat it) and on whether Russian gymnastics has a harassment/abuse problem.
Q: I must ask this: how are you feeling?
A: My knee is injured but I’m feeling fine. Will I compete at the Russian Cup? I don’t think so.
Q: During the past month everyone was trying to guess where you were – either you’re in Croatia or you didn’t go there and instead you’re in Germany, or you’re in Penza, or you’re now in Moscow. What’s the truth?
A: I didn’t go to Croatia, I was training in Penza. There are good training conditions there. And we sent the MRIs of my knee to Germany so that the doctors would look at them.
Q: What was the most difficult thing for you after coming back to the gym? Have you ever felt hopeless because you couldn’t do the simplest elements? Have you ever thought of giving up?
A: No, I didn’t want to give up, I knew it would be hard. I can’t name a specific difficult situation. Everything was hard but not hard enough to stop.
Q: Because of the training you don’t have much spare time. How often do you manage to rest and how it usually happens?
A: Depends on what you consider rest. For example, we have a rest between the practices – lunch and a nap.
Q: You’re the only mom currently competing in artistic gymnastics besides Chusovitina. Does it inspire you or perhaps it restrains you?
A: It doesn’t restrain me at all but I guess it doesn’t inspire me either. I don’t even know what to say to you. I’m just discovering something new for myself. And if I’ll be able to recover to my full strength then I’ll prove to myself and to everyone else that you can come back after giving birth, that it’s possible.
Q: Last week you opened an Instagram account for your 11-month old daughter. How did you decide this?
A: Actually, I was coming to it gradually. Not for the duration of all 11 months, of course. Well, you’re opening your phone and there are lots of photos that are just lying around. I thought that my fans would like to know how my daughter looks, how she’s growing up. So that’s how I decided to open an account for her.
Q: Denis Abliazin followed your example and opened an account for his child. Tell us, did you suggest it to him?
A: I’ll tell you, it wasn’t Denis who opened it, it was his wife [Ksenia Semenova]. I haven’t suggested anything to anyone, it’s their business. Some people want to do it, some don’t. Although it’s entirely possible that they followed my example.
Q: For new parents, the support of the loved ones is very important in the first few months. Who has been helping you the most?
A: My mom is always with me, she’s helping me a lot. I guess there would be nothing without her support.
Q: You said in one of your interviews that she even resigned from her job because of it?
A: She generally hadn’t been working even before [the birth]. She used to be a teacher.
Q: Right now your daughter is with your parents for the whole summer. Are you missing her? Isn’t it harder without her than with her?
A: Of course I’m missing her! But she’s with my parents, I trust them so it’s not as hard for me.
Q: Who was the most helpful in your formation as an athlete?
A: Absolutely all the coaches who are working with me now. My coach was really eager to have me back in the gym. And overall I never wanted to stop doing gymnastics.
Q: Rebecca Bross was considered your main competitor at the junior level. But you surpassed her at the senior level. How did you manage to do that?
A: I guess through my routines and through working. It’s hard to say. I really added the difficulty back then.
Q: Were you at those championships when she injured her knee?
A: No. I think it was the US nationals, a national competition.
Q: She’s never been able to get back at her full strength after that.
A: Not everyone manages to come back after such injuries.
Q: But there’s your example as well when you won the Olympics a year after a knee injury.
A: There is. But this doesn’t mean that every single gymnast has to do it. It’s easier for some, harder for others and some just don’t want to continue. It’s all horrible, but a lot depends on your mentality. Some starts getting really upset and some don’t care at all.
Q: Your father, answering the question why he decided to sign you up for gymnastics, told a story how you, when you were very little, slept with your hand raised up because of a cut. What was it?
A: Self-control.
Q: Can you say that this quality is the most important at competitions?
A: No, I wouldn’t say that. Gymnastics is rather a sum of all the qualities.
Q: The ability to control your emotions, focusing your attention – this is very important for gymnastics, right?
A: It’s important, of course. But you can’t go far just with control, without muscles and training.
Q: What do you think about Simone Biles? In 2016, she admitted that she took stimulants and tested positive for them but wasn’t disqualified for a doping violation. Why? After all, these drugs gave her an advantage.
A: I think of her as an athlete that won a lot of competitions. I try not to talk about the past. I guess, because of that she was a bit stronger than the rest. But besides that she had pretty difficult routines, it would be impossible to do those elements just by focusing.
Q: Is that normal that she advocates for the clean sport while she took the drugs that make her stronger than others?
A: I don’t want to say anything about her. I generally try not to think about such things.
Q: The same Biles recently claimed that she was abused by the team doctor. Recently, a Russian athlete in biathlon talked about a coach harassing her. How are the things in [Russian] gymnasts, what do you think? Is this a big issue?
A: No, we don’t have such issues in Russia.
Q: So, we shouldn’t expect such claims from our gymnasts?
A: No.
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While I think that her thoughts on vaccinations are ridiculous I can see why she said what she did about sexual abuse and Simone Biles. For Simone Biles she didn’t really outright say she cheated, she just said that there’s more to her physical abilities than simply focusing and that she doesn’t like to think about it when people imply that she cheated. In Russia, there is a lot of libel surrounding American athletes (possibly a retaliation for the USOC pushing for the ban on Russian athletes) , and the conspiracy that Biles cheated is among the most popular. So with everyone around her saying that she cheated, and with her probably being too busy and not caring enough to really research that topic, I can see why that idea would pop into her head. For sexual abuse, in Russia they are centralized almost the entire year. So I think that Aliya assumed that if any of the athletes at Round Lake had been abused, she or her teammates would have already known about it. So I think that her claim here pertains to the Russian national team, and her own experience, not necessarily as the entire country (although that still may be possible, her response on this topic is very vague). Of course there are claims against Arkayev at his own gym, but I don’t think Aliya would really know about that.