David Belyavskiy’s senior career started 11 years ago and she competed at his first World Championships back in 2010. With his performance in the all-around final at 2021 Euros where he won silver, he shows that he is still one of the top gymnasts in the world and is not slowing down. In an interview to MatchTV, he said that despite years of experience he still gets nervous in competitions but tries to use the nervousness to his benefit.
Q: Yesterday, there were some issues on bars and pommel horse. How did everything go today?
A: Compared to yesterday, I did much better, of course. I got 0.8 more on pommel horse and 0.5 more on bars.
Q: The pommel horse routine seemed close to perfect, at least from the outside.
A: There are minor issues, I will try to improve tomorrow, to do it a bit better.
Q: Four days of competition in a row – qualification, all-around final and two days of event finals. How is your body reacting to it?
A: Great. After all, we prepared, we held verifications in a row, because we knew what the schedule would be. Our coaches said: “Guys, it’s unlikely that the Europeans prepared like that, so they’ll be a bit deflated today”. That was what happened.
Q: For the girls, the bars were different today in terms of the settings. Was everything normal in your case?
A: Everything was the same, no changes.
Q: Rings. The Maltese which was taught to you by Nikita Nagornyy – do you manage to do it without any issues?
A: Sure, of course. I do this element in competition and such a good score yesterday did not happen for no reason. Today, I did rings well but on the dismount… I guess, I believed in myself too much. I thought that I could deliver and started spotting the landing but not where I was supposed. As a result, I ran forward a bit.
Q: About confidence – it’s one thing when an athlete makes mistakes because he’s tensed and nervous. But sometimes he makes mistakes because he’s on a roll. How can you fight it?
A: That happens, of course. It all can be fixed in training. The mindset is important, you try to channel it into the right direction, so that the adrenaline doesn’t throw you off but instead adds precision and focus on execution. If you manage to do that, the results will be good.
Q: Melnikova said yesterday that she doesn’t get nervous at competitions anymore. I guess, she has enough experience. You have three times more experience than Angelina but, turns out, you still get nervous.
A: Hell, I don’t know how she manages that. I’ll ask her, I guess.
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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