Artur Dalaloyan gave an interview to VTB about his success at the 2019 World Championships and preparing for the Tokyo Olympics.
Q: A year ago you won the gold on floor at the World Championships. This year you won the team gold. Does it feel different?
A: Completely. It’s one thing when you did the job well just for yourself. It’s another thing when the team won – that’s the result of the work of the whole team. There’s twice as much happiness after the team gold. Each medal is a result of a long journey.
Q: Is it true that the expectations from the team competition at the 2019 Worlds, after the upsetting second place last year, made you lose sleep?
A: I won’t say that I literally couldn’t sleep at night but, of course, I was thinking a lot about it. The team gold was what was missing – especially, since we could have won it back in 2018, in Doha, if not for the mistake on bars. Although, perhaps, that wasn’t the reason. The important thing is that we won the gold in Stuttgart after all. The Olympic year is ahead of us and we need to do twice as much.
Q: You were born in Cremenciug, in Transnistria. What kind of stuff did you do there as a kid?
A: Of course, it wasn’t like it is now in Moscow, where parents are afraid to let their kids outside. At 3-4 years old, I would already go outside by myself. I would go sledding with other kids. I would take my grandpa’s bike, get under the frame and ride it. I was very independent.
Q: So, gymnastics wasn’t on your mind yet then?
A: Absolutely not. At the time, it was more interesting to climb trees and stuff.
Q: Your mom said that you like to walk on your toes as a kid already.
A: Yes, I walked like that – I have always had good flexibility in my feet. I have always been quite flexible.
Q: Which congratulations on winning the gold were the most memorable?
A: The nicest were the congratulations from the head of the VTB bank and the telegrams from the President and the Minister of Sports – by the way, we read them aloud in front of all the gymnasts, we were very proud. Last year, I achieved great heights for myself but there wasn’t such attention like we got after the team gold, we were showered in congratulations. It’s pretty cool.
Q: While waiting to compete in the team final, Nikita Nagornyy had fun with Ivan Stretovich. How did you fight the anxiety?
A: If I feel like I’m shaking, I try to normalize my breathing. I start breathing calmly and evenly. When I feel like my breathing is steady, I can go out and do my routine. About three years ago, Nikolai Kryukov advised me to calm my nerves down this way. And it works – you inhale and the shaking goes away.
Q: Two years ago, you competed at the World Championships with an ankle injury. How did this happen?
A: I was selected to compete only on two events – floor and vault. But during a practice before the start of the competition, I had a bad landing and got really injured. I competed in unreal pain. I forced myself. I went out and and did my routines while gritting my teeth. Although, that never ends well – you’re just abusing yourself.
Q: Were you in doubt whether to compete despite the pain or to withdraw from the competition?
A: No, I had no doubts – that was my first World Championships, after all. As any athlete, I had to compete there and I couldn’t leave that path, despite the injury. I had a comminuted fracture: the ligament was sprained so much it took out a piece of a bone. It’s not too serious but the bone had to heal after the competition. I had a special boot put on my foot. You can even walk in it. I even went to my vacation in it – to the Dominican Republic. Even danced in it.
Q: You’ve been coached by Aleksandr Kalinin since you were a kid. How did your relationship change over time?
A: I was growing and my coach was, too, so, of course, all sorts of things happened. Once we even had a fight and parted our ways for a year. We realized that we couldn’t communicate at all. I had been coached by Kalinin since I was 6 years old and until I was 17 – of course, we got fed up with each other. After taking a break, we found a reason to get together and resumed the collaboration. By that time, I grew up mentally and rethought many things. And he admitted he had been too emotional. We just both were at difficult places in life at the time.
Q: Another difficult time was your first attempt to start university studies.
A: Oh yes. I thought, “I’m an athlete, they’ll do everything for me”. I had a “good friend” who volunteered to help me in exchange for renumeration and took my report card [1]. I was busy with training and naively trusted him. He would report to me: “Everything’s fine, I’m almost done with all the Fall semester exams!” Then, suddenly, I learned that I had been expelled. [2] Turned out that not only I never stepped a foot inside the university before that but neither did my friend.
Q: Did not making the Olympics help you grow up as well?
A: All the crises either break you or make you stronger. I choose this path: not to break but use failures to my advantage.
Q: Did winning the gold at the 2017 European Championships make you more confident?
A: Of course. That was my first senior European Championships. The rest of the guys were in the resting mode after the Olympics and had a more relaxed attitude towards training, while I was working and catching up, so that I was in good shape by the European Championships. It worked out well – the silver in the all-around and gold on floor. For me, it became a great motivation to keep working.
Q: Does the presence of your family at the arena make you uncomfortable?
A: Not really, it’s just distracting – you keep looking at them in any case. That causes additional emotions and anxiety. And having extra emotions doesn’t end well in our sport. So, my family has never been present at the arena. Although, I think, at some point, it will happen – they really want to.
Q: Have your mom described to you how she watches you competing on TV?
A: She’s very emotional, she will always scream if I do a good routine.
Q: Do you talk to your family during the European and World Championships?
A: I try to reduce the communication with my parents and my wife to the minimum. We talk for 10-15 minutes every few days. Other than that, I try to keep my emotions and anxiety inside, so that I wouldn’t spend too much mental energy.
Q: Does having a daughter motivate you more?
A: It adds responsibility – you clearly understand what do you work for. You can’t just quit gymnastics now, you can’t be lazy. You have to plough forward because a big family is behind you. On the 16th of August, I was with my wife when she gave birth and then when she was discharged. These emotions are unbelievable.
Q: Did two successful World Championships bring you more energy before the Tokyo Olympics?
A: Both at this and the last World Championships, there were issues in my routines I was unhappy with. So, there’s still a lot of work to do. And I like it. That’s the fun – that there’s more to work on and to strive for.
[1] In Russian universities, students have a little book that contains their grades. They have to bring that book to all the exams so that the professors can put the grades in it (in addition to putting the grades into official exam records). The book also serves as an ID for the exams as it contains the student’s photo and personal information. However, students use a regular student card for all other situations when they need a form of identification at the university. For some reason, that system still exists in the 21st century. Below is an example of such a report book to give you a better idea.
[2] Russian higher education has a system of pre-determined majors (future students apply to study a certain major and cannot change it once they entered the university) where all the students in the same year have to take the same courses (except for a few electives in later years). They have one attempt to pass an exam for each of the courses at the end of the semester. If they failed, they are given another attempt (re-taking the exam just to raise the grade is normally not possible). In some cases, a third attempt is given after two failed exams. If a student finishes the exam period with even one failed course (after all the extra attempts), they are expelled from the university and have to re-apply next year if they want to try again. Some of the private universities are moving to other systems nowadays but gymnasts normally study for coaching degrees at state universities and colleges. For national-team-level gymnasts, many accommodations are often made that allow them to miss classes, reschedule exams, and study according to an individual plan. Those, however, still require a student to go to the university once in a while and request accommodations and schedule changes which Dalaloyan apparently didn’t do in this situation.
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