Angelina Melnikova got interviewed by Komunna, a local Voronezh newspaper, after getting home.
Q: Angelina, I remember the summer of 2016 before the Rio Olympics when you got injured at one of the last practices before the flight but still managed to compete despite the pain. Was your body ready for the competition before Tokyo?
A: Things weren’t so easy before Tokyo either. In the beginning of the year, I had to have a minor eye surgery and couldn’t train for two weeks because of that. I remember how I came to the doctor and he told me that I needed to have surgery. I said in surprise, “What?! I have the Olympic Games in three months! No!” But, in the end, I had to have the surgery even though it threw me off the training schedule. And before the flight to Tokyo, I got sick during the training camp and started coughing even though I don’t remember the last time I had a cough before that. I started getting it treated urgently and taking antibiotics, but it’s really hard to train while taking them. Regarding injuries, though, everything was fine this time.
Q: Perhaps, it was harder mentally? After all, the team was under the lockdown at the training center in order to protect you from the coronavirus before the Games.
A: Yes, for the last year and a half, we spent almost all our time at the locked-down training center. It’s really hard when you’re in the same place, do the same things in training, go to the same dining hall, eat the same food, talk to the same people… I started feeling apathetic, I didn’t want to do anything but I saw my goal in front of me and that’s how I stayed emotionally ready.
Q: How did you fight the apathy?
A: I started getting interested in all sorts of things. I started learning languages, drawing, reading books, watching movies. I needed to see other people and distract myself from gymnastics. The girls and I counted the days until Tokyo – we dreamed of leaving the center as soon as possible since the lockdown started. We even drew a poster and wrote on it how many days are left until the flight. 30 days, 29, 28…
Q: But you also ended up in an empty arena in Japan. Did it affect your performance significantly?
A: It’s actually very hard to compete without spectators. The first time I competed like that was at the European Championships this year – it’s boring! Perhaps, for the young girls who came to such a big competition for the first time the Games themselves bring the excitement but for me, excitement is brought by spectators and crowd noise. That was missing in Tokyo.
Q: Did you feel like it was your Olympics and everuthing would work out?
A: I believed in my success because I had an honest, fair, and hard journey to the Olympics. In five years, I haven’t missed a single major competition and got to the Games in good shape. But when I made five out of six possible finals after the qualification, I was still truly shocked. It seemed unreal to me. At the same time, I was 100% ready to show my maximum.
Q: Scoring higher than the US team headed by Simone Biles in the qualification – did it give you additional motivation to win?
A: When I realized we scored higher than the Americans, I couldn’t believe it at first. I tried to recall when was the last time the Americans lost to us – it was a long time ago. During the team final, we knew that we came to fight not for the second or the third place like people predicted we would but for the first.
Q: When beam trouble started in the final – first, Vladislava Urazova fell from it, then you – did the belief in victory stayed with you?
A: After Vlada fell, I thought that I needed to do well because one fall is a lot already. And then, as luck would have it, I fell too – everything fell inside me, I started worrying that I let the team down. But then we saw that we still lead over the Americans by 0.8 and it really motivated us. The three of us did great on floor. I guess we needed the two falls in order not to relax.
Q: Describe your emotions when you went out to do the last routine of the team final?
A: I was 100% confident. The girls asked me, “Are you worried?”, and I told them, “Everything will be fine!” I saw that I was alone on the podium, that I was the one who would compete last, and I calmly did what I know to do. When I landed my last pass – that’s the pass in which I make mistakes the most often – I knew that I managed to finish without major mistakes. And realized that we became Olympic champions. A second ago you were a nobody and now you’re an Olympic champion. These are very confusing empotions – I wanted to cry, scream, and jump all at the same time.
Q: In addition to the gold, you also have two bronzes – in the all-around and on floor. Which medal is the most dear to you?
A: They’re equal. Well, perhaps, the all-around medal is a bit dearer because it was harder to get, while floor is my signature event. I was really angry with myself for the mistake on bars. I just touched the bar with my feet on the second element and knew right away that I wouldn’t get a medal. I can’t explain what happened. Later, I thought about it and realized that if I had a medal on bars, then, perhaps, I wouldn’t have it on floor. And I would have been more upset about floor than about bars.
Q: But looking back at the bars final, do you think you should’ve fought then?
A: Yes, I didn’t fight till the end. It was a weird day, I don’t really want to go back to it. But whatever happened happened. I apologize to everyone for such a weak performance.
Q: Another victory from these Games – you have the most new subscribers on social media among your teammates. Does such fan activity online feel nice?
A: I never thought about it before, never counted the subscribers, but I was shocked when I got so many of them. And the number only grew with every day – 200,000 people subscribed to my account during the Olympics. It feels extremely nice, of course, but the best thing is that everyone started paying attention to artistic gymnastics. During the Olympics, there were many posts online about gymnastics. It’s great that our sport is becoming so popular.
Q: Now, after winning a gold and two bronzes in Tokyo and a silver in Rio, how would you respond to the question, “Was it all worth it?” Are these medals worth training hard from 6 years old, exhausting competitions, injuries?
A: 100% worth it. But if I was offered to go through this again, I wouldn’t agree. It was very hard and we definitely deserved all these medals.
Q: And, of course, the question that is on the minds of all of your fans now – it’s not the end of your career, right?
A: I don’t know, I need to take a break from gymnastics for now, because I’ve been thinking about it for too long. The competition ended a week ago, but I still keep thinking about it. Even during interviews, I again live through everything I lived through in Tokyo. Now, first of all, I need to think what I want next. It’s important for me to do gymnastics professionally, at a very high level, in order to keep winning. After all, there’s already no point in not winning.
Q: But you don’t yet have a gold medal from the World Championships. Wouldn’t that be a goal?
A: For that, I would need to go through difficult preparation again. And it’s not easy mentally. But I’ll take a two-week break now and definitely won’t be back in the gym in August, and then we’ll see. Perhaps, I’ll be ready for another Olympic quad.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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