The renown skating expert Svetlana Khorkina commented on the recent Russian Championships in figure skating in an interview to Sport24 and lamented the fact that in Russian artistic gymnastics, the national championships are not as competitive as in skating:
“I really want our women’s gymnastics to be like these Russian Championships in figure skating. Each girl is better than the last one! There’s a pool to choose from. In gymnastics, sometimes the stars don’t even attend the Russian Championships. Not the stars but, how to call them better… Gymnasts who won titles. And, as a result, our arenas are empty. Look at how competitive the selection is in figure skating! If you made it – you go to the European Championships. Didn’t make it – keep training, even if you already have an Olympic medal. The competitive principle trumps any previous titles. If you’re not ready to compete – go back and get ready!”
“There should be internal competition boiling on the team. It’s the Russian Championships, it’s the most important selection competition! I don’t know what can be better, higher and more serious than the Russian Championships in Russia. It’s the most important competition in the country.”
Interestingly, when Khorkina herself competed she treated national competitions as “verification practices” as she wrote in her memoir. Khorkina mentioned several times that she never tried to do her best at national competitions since she only cared about international titles. She also described several situations in which she was not quite ready during the team selections but was still put on the team for international competitions due to her previous achievements. Clearly, gods may do what cattle may not.
Khorkina has also commented on the results of the World Championships which she attended as a guest. No, she still said nothing about the fact that Simone Biles broke her record of three AA World titles, and called Biles “that gymnast from America” but at least she refrained from doping allegations this time.
“I was present at these World Championships. How proud I was when I watched the boys’ team final and the all-around final. I’m saying it now and I still get chills. So many years we were waiting for this breakthrough.”
“The girls… I’d like to see better results, of course. The whole situation where we compete for places after the first doesn’t make me happy at all. And what about that girl, that gymnast from America. Well, ok, it’s clear that she makes mistakes, you can compete with her, but when [our gymnasts] were head to head with her, they started shaking and fell. Current gymnastics has different rules. God gave that gymnast [Biles] the tumbling ability, so she tumbles. But in the current gymnastics, you can get high difficulty with dance elements. I don’t understand, Russia is such a huge beautiful country, where are all our girls?”
Of course, the Russian gymnasts weren’t actually head to head with Biles when she made mistakes in the all-around final. Angelina Melnikova had a clean and consistent performance in the AA but she still competed for the second place at best.
Khorkina also said that her dream is the Russian WAG team winning a team competition at Worlds or Olympics:
“I have a dream, I want our women’s team to win the team competition one day and I would give them the medals as the FIG President”.
In another interview, Khorkina was asked about the return of Aliya Mustafina. This is another sore topic for her, since Mustafina has the potential of achieving what Khorkina wasn’t able to do in her career – winning three Olympic golds on bars. Until this happens, we are reminded once again who is the true bars queen:
“Too little time has passed since the great event – when she became a mom. There was little time but she needed to compete. She managed to get back her basic routines that allowed the team to achieve their goal – to qualify [to the Olympics]. Aliya saw that today there is a great gymnast from Belgium who won the gold on bars. Of course, I can’t look at this calmly, after all, I’m the Queen of Bars, and I’d like the titles to stay in Russia, since, in my time, I took this medal from China. And it’s really important for me that it would stay in my country. Today, it’s clear that the Belgian gymnast is number one and for now, no one can do anything about it, until they get high enough difficulty and do it cleanly enough. To hope that she will make mistakes is to underestimate yourself, to not love yourself, it’s just participation. So, lots of work is ahead. The Belgian almost made the top-3 in the all-around, only her floor routine wasn’t difficult enough.”
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Always speaking stupid and insensitive things… it’s not a coincidence she is a Puttinesche gurl…
Yep, on other hand, she was or still is very funny in competitions and after, one of the human problems, charisma and toxic personality tend to be linked.
Gymnastics was more subjective when Khorkina was a gymnast–the judges knew that if she hit, she won–despite everyone in the final having the same 10.0 start value. I thought some of the Chinese had comparable, if not better routines than Khorkina. In addition, the routines back then had fewer composition requirements, so they were physically easier. The fact that Aliya could win twice in a row in an open-ended code is more of a feat than Khorkina.
I’ve never liked Khorkina, but at the same time I have so much fun reading her stupid and ignorant statements… I always have a good laugh because of her yet she annoys me so much.
Oh Svetlana… I hope you eat crow when Aliya wins bars at the Olympics 😬
She really is just an awful person.