Maria Kharenkova received permission to start competing for Georgia last month. This will allow her to go to the World Championships in Stuttgart where she will try to qualify to the Olympics. She talked to Sport-Express about her decision to change her nationality, saying that she hopes to get back to her previous shape. At the peak of her career, Kharenkova was able to win gold on beam and silver in the all-around at the European Championships. However, she’s been plagued by injuries since 2016 and her last international competition for the Russian team was in the beginning of 2018. She competed at the Russian Cup last month but did not have a successful competition and was not able to make any event finals. However, her 49+ score from there could be enough to qualify a nominative spot to Tokyo.
Kharenkova said she received the offer from Georgia back in April:
A: In April, I was contacted by people from Georgia with an offer to compete for their country. I’d been thinking for a long time what to do, I asked Valentina Rodionenko for advice. She said that there were no barriers, Russia would release me. It made no sense for them to block a way to compete for me, it would be better if I continued my career on another national team. So, I decided to try to come back.
Q: Why haven’t you competed for two years?
A: I had a shoulder injury. It wasn’t anything serious but the shoulder kept hurting for a long time and prevented me from getting back in shape and starting to compete well. So, I gradually lost my spot on the Russian national team. Nevertheless, I haven’t stopped training, only I was training back at home, in Rostov-on-Don, with my personal coach.
Q: Does your shoulder allow you to train and compete at full strength?
A: It’s not bothering me anymore. The break and the temporary reducing of the training load helped, plus, I kept doing physical therapy. Right now, I’m working at full strength and preparing for the World Championships.
Q: Are you upset with your performance at the Russian Cup where you didn’t make any event finals?
A: Of course not. Because of the injuries, I hadn’t been doing all-around for almost two years and only started to train the all-around about two months ago. So, in Penza, the most important thing for me was to perform consistently and without falls. I managed to do that. I’ll think about finals and medals later.
Q: You’d been competing with Aliya Mustafina for a long time and posted a photo with her from the Russian Cup. How is she doing?
A: In Penza, I asked her about the future. Aliya said she’s still training and she’ll recover after the injury and compete again.
Q: How did it happen that you got Georgian citizenship but still competed at the Russian Cup?
A: I have two citizenships, so I still can compete at Russian national competitions. The only difference is that now I’ll represent Georgia internationally.
Q: Would do you need to do to qualify to the Tokyo Olympics?
A: I think I need to finish in the top-24 in the all-around [at Worlds]. Generally, this is a realistic goal for me.
Q: Do you visit Georgia? Are you planning to train there?
A: I visit it, but not very often. I told them right away that it would be more convenient for me to train at home. But, generally, I think that if I ask them, they can arrange a place for me to train.
Q: As a junior, you were considered a rising star. Do you still have the ambitions to win?
A: I really want to get back to the shape I used to be in. But this won’t happen at once. So, first, I’ll try to qualify to the Olympics. This is the main goal for now.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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