Azerbaijan’s WAG experienced another coaching change this year. Polish Przemysław Lis who has been coaching in Baku for the past two years has been replaced by Olga Barkalova from Belarus. Barkalova has been a senior coach on the Belorussian WAG national team for a while now, under several head coaches. In-between changes, she also served as an interim head coach but did not become a permanent head coach. In 2019, Belarus hired Valery Kolodynsky who came back from Australia and has been working with the team ever since.
Barkalova said to the media:
“I’ve visited the gym where the national team is training and met the gymnasts. All the conditions for developing artistic gymnastics have been created here. The gym is very beautiful. I really appreciate the trust that has been shown to me and I’ll try to do everything to make Azerbaijanian artistic gymnasts competitive on the European and world level.”
