Angelina Melnikova thought about taking a long break already after the Olympics but ended up extending her season to compete at the World Championships. Now, she is finally taking a proper break for the first time in her senior career (except for the forced break during the lockdown) and will only return to competition next summer.
Melnikova told MatchTV:
“I’m fine, I’m training a bit with my personal coach and, at the same time, restoring my health. I’ve recently had an eye surgery. I plan not to compete for half a year, until June. The closest [major international] competition is the European Championships in August. I plan to come back for that. Andrey Fedorovich and Valentina Alexandrovna [Rodionenko] took it well, because they also talked about restoring health. I need to rest, after all. Half a year is not a very long time, we would spend more time without training during the lockdown.”
Valentina Rodionenko told TASS that the plan is for Melnikova to compete at the Russian Cup shortly before Euros-2022:
“She’s taking a break until June, she wants to rest, it’s her right. She will train and stay in shape and we’ll keep an eye on her – what condition she’s in. We’ve discussed everything, she’s an independent girl, she’s smart, she knows what’s what. During this time, she’ll think about a new floor routine because she needs to change it. It’s an active rest time, she’ll work on conditioning, maintaining functional training. The season has been hard on her, stressful, she needs to get healthy. According to our plan, the first competition will be the Russian Cup in the beginning of August, before the European Championships. She will skip the Russian Championships in April, the World Cups – that’s what she set her mind on and we agreed with what she wanted. I think this will be the right decision.”
