Nikolai Kuksenkov missed almost the whole last season because of a shoulder injury and then, when he finally came back last fall, his other shoulder got injured. This Euros mark the first major international competition for him since Rio. Kuksenkov gave this interview to RIA Novosti after the podium training.
Q: You’ve experienced some difficult times in your career lately. What are your goals in Glasgow?
A: First of all I want to say that this is a huge event for me because it’s the first big competition in two years after Rio. For me that’s already a big step, I overcame a certain limit, partially an age limit and partially a mental one. After all, I’m not 20 years old anymore and it’s harder and harder to compete with the younger guys. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties and injuries, despite everything that happened in these two years, I made the team. I’m very happy, it was an important goal. Regarding the competition, of course, we’re setting the highest goals but, first of all, we need to do what we can. Those who don’t make mistakes will be on top. Yes, there’s some pressure, but that’s sport. I don’t want to make predictions, the team is psyched, everyone’s ready to compete. The team environment is also comfortable.
Q: How did the podium training go?
A: Well, what can I say… Not completely unsuccessfully, but we kind of didn’t have enough time to feel the apparatuses. The girls came a day earlier, they had time to acclimate, but our flight wasn’t the best, we didn’t sleep at night and had to do podium training the very next day. It affected us a bit but there’s still time until the competition, especially since our main final is on Saturday.
Q: Will you compete on two events?
A: Yes, on high bar and pommel horse.
Q: The format is not easy, only three gymnasts compete on each event and all three scores are counted.
A: It’s different from the Worlds where it’s four up three count in the qualification, so one score is thrown out, and only the three best scores are counted. Here all three scores are counted and that’s the difficulty. But all the countries are in the same conditions so it’s not especially bad or good for us, we shouldn’t look for positives and negatives, we just need to go out and compete.
Q: On your events, you beat the younger gymnasts with a good potential this year. How did you manage to do this?
A: Let’s start with the fact that the selection criteria were the Russian Championships and the Russian Cup. The results from the two were added together and then the verification results were added to that. So, it was according to the sum of scores. Let’s say a gymnast could do great one time and not so well next time, anyone can make a mistake. But if you’re showing consistent results time after time, you have a better chance of making the team. And so it happened, that, by this sum of scores, I beat those guys. And what’s the reason…
Q: Experience?
A: Experience isn’t always enough. Experience is such a thing that it works when necessary but you can’t rely just on it for too long. At some point, you have to upgrade and increase the repetitions. If you won’t train, nothing good will happen. Many athletes, when they reach a certain level, start thinking that they can hold that level without training. It works for a while and then… I think that you have to work even more. After all, sometimes you lack health, sometimes something else.
Q: And how do you have these internal reserves? Did the Olympic medal play its role?
A: This medal was such a huge deal for me when I realized that I truly achieved what I’ve been going towards for so many years. But unfortunately there are both rises and falls in the career and I was out of competition for almost two years. At first, I was treating my shoulder, almost recovered, didn’t compete so well at the Russian Cup and then the issues with the other shoulder started. Now I came back, everything’s fine. I did ok at both the nationals and the Russian Cup. I’m just a regular person, I have my ups and downs and thank God that I managed to come back to the team. It’s very important to me.
Q: Usually, the competition calendar is more relaxed, the European Championships are in the Spring and the World Championships are in the fall. This time there are only two months before the Worlds, are you distracted by thinking about it?
A: Honestly, I always think about the future a bit, analyze what I need to have done by Worlds, what I need by the Olympics, how to qualify and so on. But still, I need to take it step by step. The Euros will end, it’s one format here, then there will be a completely different format at Worlds and my two events won’t work for the qualifications or the final. This means that I have to do at least four events, so it will be a completely different kind of preparation. And why should I think about it now if the format is different?
Q: Which events do you plan to add?
A: First of all, I need to add floor, vault and parallel bars. The rings are still an open question. My shoulder is healed already, what’s left is to start training rings.
Q: Yes, it’s too early to start thinking about Worlds, but you still don’t have a Worlds medal, right?
A: Yes, unfortunately, my career happened in such a way that I never got higher than the fourth place at Worlds.
Q: That’s some upsetting statistics.
A: I got fourth as a part of the team, I got fourth in the all-around, in the event finals, like in 2014…
Q: In Glasgow, you took the fourth place as a team.
A: It was a very good performance, we didn’t have mistakes, but we were lacking something…
Q: If we’re talking about 2018, what competition were you most pleased with?
A: The Russian championships went better than the Russian Cup because I got to medals there and not just one. At the Russian Cup, I had the first result on pommel horse in the qualification, placed higher than Belyavskiy, but lost to him in the final. On high bar, I had the third result in the qualification but there was a problem in the final. And at the Russian Championships, I did better. Both competitions went relatively fine, but my high bar routine is quite new and perhaps it lacks practice. That’s where the European Championships are useful because I can do my high bar routine here and see where I stand. I changed my routine completely, removed the Kovacs because right now the high bar routines are judged very strictly and you have to do it very clean in order to get a good score. I want to compete and see how my high bar routine places because this is an event very much needed on the team.
Q: Regarding the D scores, as I understand, according to the new rules, the D scores got lower… So, is it hard to say now how will you place on this event?
A: Generally, we’ll see which D scores others have. Everyone’s scores got lower. I think that only the top gymnasts like Epke will show the highest D scores because they really connect all the elements. They’ll have 6+ D scores. Ours will be a bit lower.
Q: Yuri Titov expressed his opinion that it’s not advisable to show all your maximum and your new additions at Euros and you should keep some surprises for your rivals until Worlds. Do you agree with him?
A: I can’t say that the team is super ready right now but I also can’t say that the guys are “in pieces”. He says correctly that they’re no sense in going all in right now, the most important competitions are ahead of us. The Worlds will be the first qualification stage for the Olympics. On one hand, the Euros don’t decide anything. On the other hand, you can’t give other teams the reason to beat us. Who do I find notable here? The British, they’re competing at home, perhaps, the judges will help them somehow, but that shouldn’t be a problem for us. Also, the Germans, they won a friendly meet against the British a couple of weeks ago. There will also be some dark horses which are interesting to see.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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