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Anna Pavlova gave this interview to Elena Vaitsekhovskaya in 2008, shortly before the Beijing Olympics.
Q: Anya, is that right that you were selected for the national team by Leonid Arkayev?
A: My gymnastics career has started earlier when we started going to camps in “Dynamo” in Moscow. I wasn’t even 10 years old then. We lived in Orekhovo-Suevo, my mom was coaching me. She also always took me and her other girls to watch various competitions, including international, so that we would understand what is real gymnastics. You can’t see that in a small town.
In 1992, we came to watch the World Stars competition that took place in Luzhniki and where the whole Russian team was supposed to compete. But the team bus ended up being late for the competition. While people were waiting for it, due to the negligence of the adults, I went out on the floor and started doing my floor routine there.
Q: Wait, I remember this moment very well. How we all laughed at the seats, watching you…
A: And I liked it sooo much! I realized clearly that everyone was watching me. And clapping for me. It was extremely pleasant.
But I got to Round Lake where the national team was training only much later. I was invited there for the first time either at the end of 1997 or the beginning of 1998. Without covering my expenses and without my mom. And I didn’t go. Money was half the trouble but going somewhere without the coach at such age… My mom would simply not let me.
Then someone explained to my mom that if we will be really needed, I’ll be invited with my coach and with all expenses covered. And that it’s definitely not a good idea to go to Round Lake at such a young age. The training loads there were too heavy and many kids broke psychologically because of it.
I remember my first camp at Round Lake very well. I was 11. My mom and I took the first train from our home at 6 am. Around 10 am we were already at the camp and I was told to change immediately and go to the gym. They invited us for three days but we ended up staying for a month.
At Round Lake, I was shown to Arkayev. It was the first time in my life when during one day I did all my tumbling five times.
Q: Did you have a feeling that Arkayev paid you some sort of special attention?
A: Not right away. At first, I stood at the end of the lineup. Both because of my height and because of my gymnastics level. I have a strong tumbling foundation but that was it. I couldn’t vault over the vaulting table because of my height, and in addition to it, my weight was too small and didn’t allow me to push the springboard down in order to launch myself higher. Because of that, I didn’t have a vault, even the simplest one. But Arkayev was impressed that I could do a triple twist on floor. In addition, I stuck my landings about ten times during that “viewing” – that is, I did what no all seniors could do. We just had a good tumbling coach in our school. He always gave such versatile exercises that everyone could feel like they’re the best at something.
Q: At some point, there was an impression that Arkayev was coaching only you on the national team.
A: I was his favorite. He became truly intense with me in 2002. I guess, he saw something in me. My mom and I were planning to compete at Stella Zakharova Cup in Ukraine but at the end, the whole team went there except for me. Arkayev said that he would be preparing me for the European Championships himself.
When he told me his training plans, I was shocked. It was a lot and it was hard and without my mom… And he set such a goal for me – to win the all-around and to win medals on all events. And to win the team competition, of course.
In the end, our team won, we snatched the half a point form over the Romanians. I became the first in the junior all-around, then on vault, I fell on bars, and they didn’t credit me with a difficult element on beam. But it was normal: in gymnastics, it’s rare to allow one athlete to pick up all the medals. On floor, I competed with minor errors and I was judged very strictly. Then I basically understood the validity of the statement that you have to be two heads above your opponent if you don’t want to lose due to strict judging. But if you give them a reason, well, sorry…
Q: And what happened next?
A: The World Championships in Anaheim in 2003. I did such a weird thing there on bars. I fell on my first element which isn’t even considered an element – I put my feet on the bar incorrectly. Then I worked through the whole routine without a single mistake from start to finish, but I ended up somewhere in the second ten. At the time I had a pinched sciatic nerve, I got help right before my routine – massage, painkillers, but when I went onto the competition floor, I forgot all about my injury. I really wanted to compete well. And so my feet slid off. I remember: I’m standing on the floor before the bars not understanding what happened.
In the team final in Anaheim we ended up sixth. With four falls. We later made calculations: if we had even one less fall, we’d be in third place. But at that time the third place wasn’t considered a good result – you’re either first or your place doesn’t matter.
In the Olympic year, there was also the European Championships where I let everyone down. I fell on bars and also got a lower difficulty by 0.2. We were always taught not to look at our scores. Like, our task is to perform our routines, and the coaches will later tell us what’s going on. If we only looked at the scoreboard, we got scolded immediately. But I forgot and looked. And this rattled me so much that I also did poorly on beam and then didn’t perform that well on floor. Only on vault Lena Zamolodchikova and I shared the second place – we lost to the Romanian Monica Rosu who later won at the Olympics.
Athens
Q: Did you have a feeling that in Athens everyone was concerned only with Khorkina’s performance?
A: I couldn’t really think about that, honestly. The preparation for the Games ended up difficult. By the draw, we were supposed to compete in the first subdivision and so the practices at Round Lake were scheduled in such a way that on one day we started working in the gym at 6:30 am, and with a full training load, and the next day we trained till 10 pm and in the morning we went to the gym at 6:30 am again. It was horrible but I guess it helped since we got into the finals. All of them, except for floor where it was an issue of a few thousandths of a point. The final itself is a lottery. Everything starts from scratch and anything can happen. For example, Catalina Ponor won in Athens with a very average routine. And those who were expected to fight couldn’t do anything. In my case, in the all-around, I lost bronze by only 0.025. It was very frustrating.
Of course, people had special expectations for Sveta, after all, it was her third Olympics. The whole world was waiting for her victory on bars – it was clear that a second place would not satisfy her at all. But this weight of expectations turned out to be too heavy for her, and for us as well. It was me who prepared the bars for her on that day…
Q: And?
A: Till this day it’s hard for me to think about it. On that day I competed on vault, became the third and right after the final, all medalists were taken from the podium to the doping control. In that room, we were following the competition and I was terribly afraid that I’d be late to prepare the bars for Sveta. I didn’t even warn her that I could be late. And there were no other girls [from our team] in the arena.
When I was finally free and entered the arena, Sveta was warming up and I could already see that something was not working out for her. And then the French girl Emilie Le Pennec competed very well right before her. She competed in grips and in that case the bars are covered with a very thick layer of chalk. We, on the other hand, are used to working without grips. That’s why we first clean the bars with sandpaper, then we smear them with honey or syrup and only after that we put on chalk. Just a little bit. So that the bar would stay almost naked.
Usually, there’s enough time for that. But the French gymnast didn’t make any mistakes, the judges didn’t consult each other, they gave the score fast and the time for the bars preparation ended up minimal.
I told Sveta before her routine: “Check [the bars], it’s “sweet” there”, meaning the bars were slippery. But she didn’t have time to check already. Or didn’t want to. And then there was the shock, of course. It wasn’t any sort of mistake, after all. Sveta just jumped off. She later explained that the bar wasn’t “holding” her properly and it could lead to an injury. Although many still think that she needed to do her dismount in any case. But it’s hard to judge here.
We were very scared for Svetka then. She came back to the village, packed her things and disappeared who knows where. Her sister kept calling us on our phones because Sveta turned hers off. We didn’t know what to think. That’s why her defeat immediately slipped our minds.
Four more years
Q: When Arkayev left the national team after the Games in Athens, have you thought of leaving gymnastics, too?
A: I decided in advance that after the Games I would rest and start training again. And Arkayev didn’t leave right away. It happened after the athletes and the coaches wrote a letter to Vyacheslav Fetisov where everything that we weren’t happy with was listed.
Q: What exactly were you not happy about, personally?
A: It so happened that in the fall when I was already rested and planned on competing at World Cups, I called Round Lake and asked if I could come. Very few of us have proper training conditions at home gyms, especially in small towns. And World Cups are serious enough competitions that would require proper preparations. But I was told that I couldn’t come. One of the arguments was that they had to look at a large number of small girls and that there was no space at the camp to accommodate us. Then I went there by myself in order to take my winter clothes and leotards. There I learned that the girls who were training at Round Lake were living there for a couple of months already.
At first, I thought that I was the only one who was written off the team. I started calling everyone who was on the Olympic team and turned out that everyone was in the same situation. It became the last straw. So we signed that letter.
Q: How difficult it was for you to adjust to the new management of the team?
A: Before the last World Championships for a long time I couldn’t understand what the coaches really wanted from me. Whether they needed me on the team or not… To prepare for the competitions or to keep treating my injured leg? If they told me right away that I wasn’t going to Worlds, I’d start treatment for my leg three months earlier. But they were telling me: “Keep training”. And then they didn’t take me. Said I wasn’t in good enough shape.
It’s always hard with new people at first. For example, I knew Viktor Gavrichenkov for many years, but I knew him as Natalia Ziganshina’s coach. That is, we went our parallel ways without ever crossing paths. And when he became the head coach of the women’s national team, I suddenly understood that this was a completely different person. With different duties, different responsibilities. We could understand him but he didn’t always understand us. Now, I think, I learned how to find a common language with everyone.
The coaches always tell us not to keep silent if something bothers us. But not all the gymnasts dare to voice their complaints or wishes. They come to me: “Anya, tell them…” Sometimes I honestly don’t understand: why is it always me?
Q: So, it turns out that the strict discipline suits you completely?
A: There was strict discipline before as well. Naturally, sometimes it causes an internal protest. For example, before the European Championships when there was a flu epidemic in Moscow, we weren’t allowed to leave the camp. But it wasn’t clear why such measures were taken is at the camp half the coaches and the athletes were sick as well. Now we ask to take us out somewhere at least occasionally. To a nearby mall, to the movies… We want to get distracted, after all. Of course, it’s nice at Round Lake: there’s a pool, a sauna, you can walk in the forest. But when you’re stuck here for 10 years in a row you can’t look at that forest anymore.
Q: Do you get scared sometimes?
A: On the apparatuses – all the time. Especially, on bars. For me to take my hands off the bar is the scariest thing in gymnastics. I try to watch what I’m doing but the eyes don’t always manage to keep up with the hands. And when I’m thinking about Beijing, it’s a bit scary. It’s a big responsibility after all.
Q: And what will happen afterward?
A: I’ll keep training. And then we’ll see whether it’s for results or just for fun.
