Artur Dalaloyan is enjoying his newfound fame in Russia after not only winning the first MAG AA gold for Russia since 1999 but also adding a whole stack of medals to that gold. He gave this interview to R-Sport the next day after winning the all-around gold.
Right after the final, Dalaloyan said that he had a hard time processing what happened and the fact that he was the new all-around champion hasn’t sunk in.
Q: Artur, has it sunk in now? You said that you needed to go to your hotel room and process everything that happened.
A: Yes, last night I couldn’t fall asleep until 2 a.m., I kept thinking about all of it, kept analyzing what happened, drew conclusions. And finally, the fact that I won has sunk in.
Q: Does the fact that that you tied with the Chinese gymnast but won in execution make you feel better than, say, winning by a whole point?*
A: It’s awesome in the following aspect: two days before we lost as a team by 0.049, and it was upsetting, but in the all-around final, there was no gap at all. But I managed to win with cleanliness and elegance.
Q: Dima Lankin said after the team final that in order to get that 0.049 you needed to just smile to the judges. So, does that mean that this time your smile was shinier than your competitor’s?
A: [laughs] I don’t know how pretty was my smile, I just tried to be completely focused on the result and not to think about the medals and the competition with the guys. I just understood that I needed to go out and do my job and to prove it to myself first that I didn’t work so hard and so long in vain. It’s true, we were preparing for five weeks and every day I woke up at 6:30 a.m. and did morning exercises even though no one had to exercise according to the schedule, the practices only started at 10 or 11. Every day, I deprived myself, I forced myself to wake up early because I think that the early bird gets the worm. [smiles] That’s for sure and I’ve seen the proof more than once. I gave it my maximum.
Q: Many are now remembering your career history and emphasizing how our work attitude was completely different two years ago. That is, you weren’t a fan of discipline and schedule.
A: That is completely true, I can admit it because two years ago I didn’t know what discipline was. I didn’t know what it is to set limits for yourself, to whip yourself into shape. I was completely relaxed, I was thinking differently, I had a different attitude. I can’t say at what moment something switched in my head. It definitely didn’t happen abruptly, it was gradual, step by step.
Q: Perhaps, it happened at the very same moment when Nikita Nagornyy and Ivan Stretovich made the Olympic team and you didn’t?
A: Perhaps. I remember that moment very well, it’s stuck in my head. Even at that time I was already putting a lot of effort in my work, I was working towards the result and realizes that I could make the team, but in the end, Poliashov was made the alternate and I was removed from the roster completely… Yes, at that moment, a lot changed, I realized that I needed to work more, to get myself together and to spend the maximum time and attention on gymnastics. Not to waste myself on random parties, girls and so on. Sometimes, this habit still showed up but gradually it all faded into the background and then disappeared completely. I won the all-around at the Russian Championships, went to the European Championships and won gold on vault.
Q: Was that last year, in Romania?
A: Yes. And I also became second in the all-around final, losing only to Oleg Verniaiev. And these victories and results made me realize and gymnastics can and should be my life, that I can earn a living and that it can affect my future. So, that’s how my head gradually got into the right place. And we arrived here.
Q: Do you understand now that it all wasn’t in vain?
A: Yes, absolutely. It was not in vain, we’re moving in the right direction and this will continue in the same vein.
Q: Do you realize that your all-around gold is not just your personal victory but the victory of Russia, a truly historic success?
A: Yesterday, right after the competition, I got a call from the Minister of Sports, I was very happy that such people show interest, that they care about our successes. He congratulated me and I was proud to talk to him on the phone. And I told him that this victory is for the whole country and it belongs to all of us because the Ministry of Sports, the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation, and our sponsor, VTB Bank, do a lot for us. Let’s take the hotel where we are staying now. At first, we lived in some bad conditions and then we were moved to a normal hotel, We appreciated all of it. And this victory is for the whole of Russia. In no way, I’m taking all the credit for it.
Q: Nikolai Kryukov said in an interview yesterday that he hopes you remember what he taught you when you worked together…
A: Of course, I remember everything, Nikolai Kryukov coached us on the junior team, when we were really young. At the time, we didn’t think like adults yet and misunderstood the lessons regarding discipline. I remember all that and I appreciate it now.
Q: Does the fact that the last World all-around champion in Russian history was Kryukov add some sort of excitement?
A: Absolutely, it’s pretty amazing and hard to put in words. I just realize that I was three years old when Nikolai Kryukov became the World all-around champion and this fact is pretty amusing.
Q: Am I not mistaken saying that, compared to other events, you have a lot of work to do on pommel horse?
A: Yes. And I can say already that I did a lot of work on pommel horse after the European Championships, I paid the maximum attention to this event. I showed at Euros, that the rest of my events are more or less stable in execution and they’re competitive. But the pommmel horse was behind, I didn’t do it at all in Glasgow. And I set a goal for myselef and said that if I’ll get this event to a good level, everything will work out. But there’s still work to do, it’s such an event that you won’t be able to achieve significant changes in half a year, you need to suffer and work on it for a long time.
Q: Why didn’t you do a triple twisting Yurchenko on vault in the final?
A: I didn’t do this vault, I did my second one instead. It’s the same difficulty, but it’s a piked double front. It’s because my left wrist hurts a bit and on that vault [TTY] I especially use it to push. I decided to save it a bit for the vault final because I’ll need to do two vault there. It’s not really an injury, it’s just overuse, we were preparing for five weeks and I had to do that vault almost every day. I’m really happy that I demonstrated flexibility in the final and that I have another vault as a reserve which, as it turned out, I can do even better. It’s valuable.
Q: Who else congratulated you besides the Minister of Sports?
A: The whole team in the arena. And when I got to the hotel and had wifi, there were lots of calls already. First of all, I replied to my girlfriend, my mom, brother, relatives, all my loved ones. Then I tried to respond to everyone else but that was impossible! So, I just made a post on Instagram thanking everyone for supporting me and cheering on me.
Q: There are less then two years until the next Olympic Games. Do you realize that? Does the fact that your team qualified to the Olympics now makes life easier?
A: Very much. We were originally told that our main goal is to qualify to the Olympics so that we could spend the next year just working on upgrading and cleaning the execution and get to the Olympics in the shape and with the routines that will allow us to win. And now I understand that we’re on the right path, this time until the Olympics will be enough for us to prepare to fight for the highest places.
Q: How realistic would it be to achieve the kind of success you had at Worlds at the Olympics?
A: I want to tell you it’s absolutely realistic. It’s not some sort of an unreachable level for us. To upgrade on vault, to upgrade a bit on high bar and to clean up the execution and we will be perfectly capable of fighting for the gold at the Olympics.
Q: Both as a team and in the individual all-around?
A: As a team, in the individual all-around and everywhere!
*While Dalaloyan indeed had better execution than Xiao Ruoteng in the all-around final, this was not how the tie was broken. The ties in the all-around are broken by not counting the lowest score for each of the tied gymnasts.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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king Artur like alexei nemov elegant and strong 🙂