Catching up with Elena Produnova

Elena Produnova is currently coaching in Nalchik, at the South of Russia and hopes to one day raise gymnasts that will make the national team. This interview was published in the magazine of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation last fall.

Q: Elena, how would you answer the question about what is sports life, if you were asked today.

A: First, I would ask for clarification, whether it’s the life during competing or the sports life afterward.

Q: Perhaps, we shouldn’t split the question like that. After all, as they say, there are no former athletes.

A: Then it’s very different. Let’s start with the fact that life in sports starts with a lot of limitations. Your whole life is spent in the gym. But why is it good? Our children are different, they don’t have the same interest as the kids outside the gym, they have different life principles and goals. And, perhaps, the sport preserves many good things from our childhood: behavior, discipline, respect, and a combination of many qualities without which you won’t be able to achieve anything. And today I know this for sure and see it confirmed every day looking at it as a coach. We just understand some things only later. When I was training, of course, I would get angry or upset sometimes: some people go to meet their friends, while we keep going to the gym and work there all day long without days off or holidays. Gymnasts have a crazy life in terms of their productivity. But it’s hard to force a kid to work week after week.

Q: You said that you had fantastic coaches…

A: Yes, I was very lucky. After Elena Pechenzhiyeva who coached me from the age of five, Ruslan Lavrov and Veronika Yakubova became my coaches. They raised me and passed me on to the national team and they did absolutely everything for me, taught me how to behave, fed me, clothed me. I stayed in their homes. To use words to thank them is just impossible. How can you find words to explain how and why you love your parents?

Q: After retiring, some athletes practically break up with their coaches. Could you imagine that?

A: No, this is impossible for me. These are people who made me. When I visited Rostov-on-Don, I ran to hug them. Same was with Leonid Arkayeva and marina Bulashenko. Leonid Yakovlevich is a person who knew everything about my life. Even though it was not easy to endure my crazy character – it wasn’t like when I was little and would shut up sometimes and not to express my displeasure with something. Arkayev still says to me: “You took 20 years of my life!” My gymnastics was built out of the elements that no one else could do, that is why there are elements named after me today. My coaches invented them and I performed them. I remember well how I performed the double front vault for the first time and everyone went crazy, they said it was impossible! No one could understand how I managed to do this.

Q: Can you answer how you did it?

A: This vault was invented by Ruslan Spiridonovich. I started learning it with him, and it continued for a long time, in the form of a game. No one thought, or at least I couldn’t even suppose that I would go back to this vault and would do it in competition. Such a thought didn’t even occur to me. But then Leonid Arkayev remembered about it in the right time and implemented what was once trained.

Q: And how did this happen? “Lena, let’s do the vault that you used to play around with in Rostov…”

A: More or less. It was when everyone left the training center and I didn’t really want to train: everyone’s preparing for the New Year but you still have to work a bit more, until, let’s say, 28th of December, and can only rest after that. On such boring days, Leonid Yakovlevich tried to motivate me. And I tried it. I landed it. So, we decided that we would prepare the vault for the competition.

Q: How would you describe it to kids?

A: Two and a half front saltos. If you count from the time your legs leave the ground, it’s actually three saltos. If you count from the block on vault, it’s two and a half saltos. The vault has no twists, it’s considered a men’s vault, few girls attempt it. It’s hard in terms of coordination. But, honestly, it wasn’t very hard for me to do.

Q: Why?

A: As a gymnast, I was especially good at front saltos, I was better at moving forward than backward. Also, because I had an injury and the landings on front saltos did not cause me pain, unlike the back ones. But, of course, it didn’t all happen right away. We had a lot of progression exercises – on the trampoline, into the pit, and only then onto the regular landing mat. Many repetitions. Then “let’s try”, and everything worked.

Q: On what try?

A: Oh, not right away, this was a long process. First, you tumble and flip without knowing what you’re doing. Then the action is gradually filled with a feeling, with a sensation, and you’re understanding what your body is doing. And then the millions of repetitions give a result.

Q: Have you been often asked about this vault?

A: A lot of times.

Q: But it seems that this question still pleases you – after all, this is a major reason to be proud.

A: Yes, I won’t deny it. Although now, actually, I will probably be very happy and joyful when a pupil of mine will do this vault. For me, this is the biggest dream. And she should do it exactly as I did. Not like when you go for it, it doesn’t work but you tried… No, I want to see it as if I did it. My coaches prepared me for this vault and I also want to prepare someone for the dream.

Q: All your career, you were bothered by injuries. You missed the Atlanta Games but the next year you were shining.

A: I guess, there’s time for everything, even for injuries. I was able to open, to feel everything differently – how to push, how to land. It was as if gymnastics opened for me. I didn’t have fear, I had a sensation of full control of my body. It was some sort of gymnastics wisdom.

Q: But before this wisdom came, you likely wanted to run away from the gym, you’re stubborn, after all…

A: Yes, my character was not easy. But I had a goal and an understanding that no matter how much I suffered from injuries or other issues, everything was still within reach. How is it in sports? If you have a will and the opportunities given to you by nature and hard work, the rest will follow. I never wanted to give everything up. There was a hard time because of the injury. It was hard, but I overcame myself and came back.

Q: But you probably asked yourself why you kept getting injured?

A: It just happened. There was an injury, I didn’t heal completely, there wasn’t enough time required for a full recovery. There was never enough time, we always had a full squad of fighters, the girls were stepping on my heels. But the shortened recovery time always has negative results afterward.

Q: Do you often remember the Sydney Olympics where you won two medals?

A: All the time.

Q: Even now, 18 years later?

A: Even now, because it’s the most memorable event in the life of any athlete. It’s the career peak, it’s your goal toward which you’ve been moving your whole life, first unconsciously, and then understanding that this was your work, your choice of a goal. Sydney was… I’m a positive person, and when there is even a little bit of positivity in something negative, I’ll focus on that. And it’s impossible to forget the feeling of happiness and accomplishment at the Olympic Games. It was an amazing feeling – this happened in my life, after everything, and went quite well, I was able to help the team and to show what I could do. You can’t explain the euphoric feeling on the competition floor but any gymnast will understand what I mean.

Q: You retired quite early. Did you not want to live according to the training schedule anymore?

A: I still have regrets and memories and dreams. Because you understand your capabilities very well and understand that you could do something that no one else could. We remembered my vault. It was prohibited, then it was allowed again, it’s the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics now. What tortures you when you decide to retire is the incomplete realization of some of the goals, when you understand how competitive you are in the international gymnastics. Yes, perhaps, I wanted to resume training and continue to amaze people. But another thing is true, too: you have to leave with a bang. Until this day, even though a lot of time has passed, people remember how I competed. And there are no talks like “she regressed and retired”. I think I retired at the right time.

Q: You said you dream about having a pupil who will do your vault as well as you. But you still need to find and train such a pupil. Did you start from scratch in Nalchik?

A: I want to do something for gymnastics. Why Nalchik? A good friend asked me to come here. I opened a club at a municipal gym. We have pupils to work with, there are many children, but, as usual, there are not enough hours in a day. There’s a lot of administrative work. We lack some equipment. It’s hard to find coaches, to get them to move here. Honestly, I’m always invited to work in other places. I even get calls from America: come already. I reply: you have a gym, kids you train, would you leave them now? No? Well, I can’t leave mine either, I’ve invested a lot in them mentally and physically in four years. I won’t leave them, this is my place already.

Q: Does the current gymnastics appeal to you? There are some who love it and some who hate it.

A: The current gymnastics is just different. Some of the elements stayed, some are gone, the rules are changed every four years. In my time, for example, there weren’t so dance elements necessary to build the difficulty. There was more tumbling, preferably the kind that no one else was doing. So, perhaps, we actually had more difficulty then. But nowadays, gymnastics is more diverse. A kid needs to do both tumbling and dance elements. It’s much harder, no doubt, but it’s more interesting for the spectators. Not many people understand tumbling but everyone can see the beauty of choreography and artistry. So, I don’t have a feeling like we lost something and will never get it back. There’s always a way forward. There are no such words as “can’t” and “impossible”. A person can do anything. He can’t only in one case – when he dies. But otherwise, if you have the will and the resources – help, support, joint work, partnership…

Q: You have such good energy, Elena, and such a power of persuasion. I understand why you were the one who gave the world such a vault.

A: Yes, I am too stubborn, perhaps. Stubborn and honest. It often works against me. But I know how to turn my life upside down, how to change everything quickly. The sport is to blame here, too. If I didn’t have the sport in my life, I wouldn’t have this character either. I had a lot of losses in my life, truly a lot. Starting from personal life and ending with business. If not for my character, everything could end up worse. And here gymnastics and how my parents and coaches brought me up, everything that was invested in me helped me. You know… My mom passed away, I really miss her. I didn’t have enough time to say or to do something, the athletic career pulled us apart. After the sport, you try to compensate for your long absence but it’s still not enough. My mom was against gymnastics my whole life but she also supported me my whole life. I never heard from her: give it all up, don’t do it, it’s hard, it’s dangerous! My mom was my shield until her last day. She understood that gymnastics is the life that I found and cannot lose. Today, I have 500 pupils in my gym. I’ve been organizing an annual competition in Nalchik for two years now. I’ve never had and will never have it easy. Which is good, I guess…

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