David Belyavskiy’s main goals at the Russian Championships were to compete in all-around again (his last AA competition was at the 2019 European Games where he won gold) and to try his upgraded routine on rings. As Belyavskiy is aiming to get onto the four-person Olympic team, he knows he needs to work hard to improve his relatively weak event. He had some mistakes on both days of the all-around competition and finished third after Aleksandr Kartsev and Artur Dalaloyan. He also won gold on pommel horse and finished fifth in the rings final, which, he said, made him quite happy:
“[On the day of the PH final], everything went quite well. I only downgraded my routine on pommel horse in order to do in consistently. I was competing eighth, at the every end, and saw how other competitors did, so there was no point to do my full difficulty.”
“Rings have been making happy, it’s the third day in a row I’m getting similar scores and this means consistency. I don’t mean the score is high internationally, I mean it’s high for me because I’ve never gotten scores like these.”
Belyavskiy said the first competition after a long break felt different:
“I managed to find the feelings that I usually have at competitions, more or less. But still not quite, something was different. I hadn’t competed in the all-around since the European Games in Minsk in 2019. You could say that the Russian Championships were my first proper all-around competition since then, because at the World Championships in 2019 I competed only on three events due to an injury. The pandemic led to adjustments.”
Before the pandemic, athletes from Moscow had an opportunity to see their families every week during training camps, but at the moment they are not allowed to leave the center until the end of the camp. Belyavskiy’s family lives in Yekaterinburg, 2,000 kilometers away from Moscow, so for him, things have not changed that much, he still sees them only between camps:
“My family and I have been communicating via FaceTime. Of course, it can be hard for my family to be apart from me and, for me – to be apart from them. But when my wife and I started dating, this was already my life, so we’re more or less used to it. But, of course, when we are locked down at the center for a long time, this really affects [us].”
According to the new regulations, athletes who have been vaccinated against COVID-19 or have antibodies to the virus can leave the center during the week and do not have to be quarantined when they return:
“Leaving the center and coming back doesn’t really interest me much because I don’t have much to do in Moscow – my family lives in Yekaterinburg. Of course, it would be nice not to feel like you’re under lockdown and can’t leave, this just stresses you out. But, overall, I don’t really need to go anywhere. If the center opens up, it will be great. Getting vaccinated? I’d get vaccinated if the vaccine gets approved in many countries, so that I could go abroad without tests and quarantines.”
Belyavskiy said one of the hardest parts of training during the past year was constant waiting for competitions which eventually would get canceled:
“The waiting for competitions throws you off a bit because you’re always preparing, giving it your all, and then boom – there won’t be a competition. Then it repeats again and during the next preparation period, you start thinking – should I even give it my 100%? What if we are told again that we won’t go? Regarding the neutral status [of Russian athletes at the Olympics], the most important thing is that we go. Let’s just go to the Olympics already and compete. The most important thing is that they happen.”
