Mustafina: I didn’t leave gymnastics, I just stopped training

Aliya Mustafina has been working as the head coach of the junior national team for over five months now. After her retirement from elite gymnastics was officially announced at the Russian Cup in Novosibirsk, she talked to Irina Stepantseva of MK about her current life and the transition from a gymnast to a coach.

Q: Well, Aliya, did the farewell ceremony make you hold your tears back?

A: No.

Q: Not at all? Not when there were photos of a tiny you just starting to compete, then you blowing a kiss to the audience after your victory, and when your peers wished you happiness and a successful new career? Half the arena were ready to tear up but you were a rock?

A: No, of course, all of this was extremely nice. Of course, it was touching and made me remember things. But I… I guess I did gymnastics for so long that I realized – that’s it! That I’ve done as much as I could. And there’s nothing to regret. Especially since I work at Round lake now and, relatively speaking, nothing has changed in my life. Except for the fact that I got down from the apparatuses and started looking at them from the sidelines.

Q: Do you truly believe that you’ve done everything you could? I know that fans hoped to see you at the Tokyo Olympics.

A: Even if I haven’t, I don’t regret it at all. I like to think that everything happens for the best.

Q: Once, when you were already a champion and an international fans’ favorite, you said that you hadn’t yet done anything in life to be proud of. Now, when there will be no more medals, do you still think that? Or will you take your words back?

A: I guess it depends.

Q: Are you taking your words back or not?

A: I can’t say I am. Yes, I’m not the great Larisa Latynina. But I did my best. When I was on the national team, I felt like I had managed to do only a little, but I don’t feel like that anymore. And there were things on the competition floor after those words as well. In general, I tried everything I wanted to try. For example, I needed to recover and come back to the sport after giving birth – I recovered and came back. And, in any case… I don’t know, I just like my current life so much, let’s not jinx it.

Q: What do you like so much about your life that you’re saying this?

A: Everything!

Q: I’ll look into disadvantages instead of you. For example, you didn’t want to be a coach but became one.

A: Yes, I didn’t want to. But I also never wanted to stray far away from gymnastics. I’ve always thought about how to give more to gymnastics – not just through my performances but also through my personality, if you could say so. Leaving gymnastics completely would be a pity. And I didn’t leave, I just stopped training.

Q: Taking the offer to become not just a coach but the head coach of the junior team, any young professional would calculate the risks.

A: There will always be risks. But if you think like that, you can just stay in bed and do nothing. No, I’m taking it a bit easier – of course, people expect a lot of me, but if it won’t work out… then it just won’t work out. I’m only trying. Experience will come with age. I’m trying. If that experience will come later and not now, then it will come later. But I’ll say again – staying under a blanket, not getting up, and just thinking about the risks is not for me.

Q: How did it all happen? Were you prepared for this offer? Were you in Moscow when you got a call: “Aliya, come to Round Lake, you’ll head the junior team…”

A: I indeed was in Moscow, Valentina Aleksandrovna Rodionenko called me and said: “We have an offer for you, how about you… You have a day to think about it and give your answer”. And that was on the 30^th of December. [1]

Q: Ded Moroz came a little early with his surprises. [2]

A: Yes, although I thought right away – well, here go all my New Year preparations… But ok. I called everyone I deemed necessary to call and asked for advice. I told my parents this: there’s this offer and, as you understand, it means that raising Alisa will again be mostly on you.

Q: How did they respond?

A: Dad, “Go!” And mom backed this up, “Great!” And the next day I called with my response: “Yes, I’ll try it”.

Q: Obviously, the head coach doesn’t decide everything on their own, there are many professionals helping the national team, but still… The price of mistakes on the junior team is high and, if we’re being really tough, unforgivable. This team is the feeder of the main team, its human resources.

A: I’m ready to learn. And ready to recognize my mistakes. This is what I’ll say. And I believe I will get help if needed.

Q: How do you see the role of the head coach?

A: They have to be a mentor, a coordinator, a link between the specialist coaches and head coaches.

Q: Are you already able to do that?

A: Nothing to complain about so far. I think what also helps me is that we have quite a young team. Of course, there are very experienced coaches who come to the camps with their girls but I think they are also not complaining, they like my work. And that’s what’s important.

Q: How did you know that they like your work, are they saying something already?

A: No, but you understand it even during the work process. For example, I point out some mistake to a child and during the next go I hear their coach tells the same. This is the best reward. Also, I can explain these mistakes not according to the book but according to how I feel and as easy as possible so that the kids will understand. That is, I won’t say “throw yourself not at 45 degrees”. A kid doesn’t really understand it. But [I can] show a spot on the wall – there! And the coaches see that it helps and start giving tips like that as well, this is great.

Q: How do you feel when you’re called Aliya Farhatovna? In sports, when you become a coach, you automatically get the patronym added. 

A: For me – it’s fine. Because I am in favor of respect, of good manners, and I think that it’s proper to use “vy” to address a person even if they’re not much older than you. Even in regular life, if a person is younger than you but you don’t know each other, it’s still “vy”. And it’s proper that children use my first name and patronym to address me. I don’t need to get used to it. [3]

Q: What will you, with your character, let’s call it not quite tamable, do if you encounter the same character in one of your pupils? It’s one thing to live with this character and another to see how someone else demonstrates it to you.

A: I think that in addition to my character, in the past few years, I also got patience – a huge amount of it, so to say. The kind of patience that I can even not notice “my” character in another person. I’m not short-tempered, I never yell, I don’t even talk loudly. And I think everyone can see my patience. I can probably be forever patient. People can’t get me to lose my temper.

Q: Was patience one of the most important components of your success on the competition floor?

A: Yes, it came to me while I was a gymnast but it didn’t happen right away. And it came to me gradually, especially during certain difficult periods when I wanted to give up and heard some talks about me. That was when I learned how to fight it. I learned how to show the ill-wishers the way out and… that was it, basically. I stopped being haunted by thoughts of other people. I don’t care at all what people say about me. They can even beat me up when I’m not there – be my guests. [4]

Q: Is it earned wisdom or thick skin?

A: It’s my choice. That’s how I want it to be. It’s easier to live like that and, as I’ve already said, I don’t have any reasons at all to get upset lately. The only times I get nervous are when Alisa gets sick and has fever. After all, my daughter is only four years old.

Q: I’ve just had a thought, if we’re going back to coaching and patience – perhaps you haven’t yet met the girl who’ll be able to make you lose your temper?

A: Perhaps.

Q: Have you really never yelled in your life? I think it’s an achievement for the Guinness book.

A: I don’t recall. Perhaps, when I would fight with my sister a long time ago. I can’t recall. No, I can be strict. But no yelling. I even stay silent when I’m on a roller coaster. Even when I gave birth, it was silent.

Q: I just saw you sitting with Vika Komova and Masha Paseka in the stands. Competing together is such a huge piece of your life that… What does it mean for you?

A: If we’re talking about competitions – it’s done and done. But the girls are a completely different story. We might not meet for a very long time, but we are forever. We come somewhere, see each other, are happy and we’re together.

Q: No reasons at all to get upset – what does it mean? 

A: What could it mean? I don’t have reasons to get nervous, reasons to worry, reasons to get upset or cry.

Q: Women always have them. Didn’t go somewhere or went somewhere for nothing, didn’t meet something or met someone, the child is not by your side but somewhere else, and so on.

A: Nope.

Q: Is it a story for the journalists in order to protect your privacy?

A: No, it’s the truth.

Q: Usually, people say in interviews: this didn’t work out, so I’m going to do this and that and make plans based on where they failed. Everything’s good with you. And your plans, turns out, are completely mundane. Is that so?

A: Yes.

Q: What about your personal life?

A: It’s personal which means I don’t talk about it. It exists and, as I said, I have nothing to complain about.

Q: How was your first day at Round Lake in the role of the junior team’s head coach? Were you nervous then, at least?

A: I was scared.

Q: Finally. Because you were like an iron lady.

A: It’s not like I was nervous, it’s just new kids, new coaches, everything new. I told Andrey Fyodorovich Rodionenko, “I’ll just watch on the first day”. He went, “Yeah, yeah, of course”. The first day passed, the second, and by Thursday I had a training plan for the camp. I came to Rodionenko, he signed on it.

Q: Without corrections?

A: Without.

Q: Do you dream about competing? Or about recovering from the injury?

A: I did. And it was some nonsense, like I get a call and they say, “Aliya, you have to go to the World Championships”. I say, “Are you crazy or what? How will I go if I haven’t been training for two years?” “You have to! We believe in you”. And I would wake up at that moment. And injury… No. And I was never afraid to compete after it. I’m most scared now when I have Alisa. I am even afraid of flying. But I didn’t have a fear of getting injured. Some people say, “I won’t put my kid in gymnastics, God forbid something happens…” I went through injuries, three surgeries, but I’m prepared to put my daughter in gymnastics. Is it saying something? 

Q: Not in order to be able to keep a watch on her?

A: Of course not. And is gymnastics truly the most injury-prone sport? Where are such talks coming from? Yes, it’s difficult. But there are coaches and all the conditions to prepare athletes properly. Take any sport, there are enough training problems everywhere. Injuries are normal for sports.

Q: It’s just that young girls compete in gymnastics, and everyone especially worries for them. See how heated the discussions about raising the age limit in figure skating are.

A: I got an impression that it all comes down to one thing – no one likes someone else’s victories and Eteri Tutberidze and her athletes know how win. There are always young girls competing in sports that require complex body coordination – gymnastics, both artistic and rhythmic, diving, acrobatic gymnastics… I don’t see the point of discussing the age limit.

Q: So, you don’t accept the arguments of people who say that a young body shouldn’t be given training loads that will backfire later?

A: For some reason, people who talk about it, or, rather, who come up with some scary tales, are those who never experiences such training loads. But there’s time for everything. If you don’t experience these training loads at 15, they can break you down after the puberty. Because the younger you are, the easier everything is. And when you’re going through those loads in the mild form, all these achievements continue further. All the elements need to be learned at a young age. Because it will be much harder to do at 20 years old. And the training load has to be correct. Then, if there are no mistakes, there won’t be injuries either. I saw this very well from the point of view of a coach already.

Q: Have you discovered something new?

A: I don’t know yet. Generally, everything’s happening the way I imagined it would. After all, I competed a lot with young girls. And I partially played the role of a coach: a coach isn’t allowed to point out mistakes on the competition floor, but there’s nothing in the rules about other athletes, so I could do it. And I spent a lot of time standing by the podium, worrying about the girls, all of this was in my life.

Q: Have you had to communicate to young athletes’ parents already?

A: Not yet but this isn’t a problem for me either.

Q: There are different parents. Some can wear a coach out.

A: So what?

Q: And how do you talk to them?

A: Respectfully.

Q: Aliya, how do you see yourself in five years?

A: It’s hard to say but I really hope I won’t compromise my principles.

Q: Which are what?

A: To be kind and respectful and do my job.

Q: You replied really fast. It seems, you defined them a long time ago.

A: Yes, a long time ago, didn’t need to come up with anything on the spot.

[1] New Year is the biggest holiday in Russian culture, so imagine getting a call like that on December 23^rd, the day before Christmas Eve. On December 30^th, Russians are normally already preparing for the celebrations and not thinking about work.

[2] Russian New Year tradition, similarly to Christmas, is rooted in pagan customs. Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost) is a god-like or demon-like winter creature in Slavic mythology that was integrated in the celebrations of New Year. Ded Moroz and his granddaughter Snegurochka (Snow Maiden) bring presents, grant wishes, and create miracles on New Year. 

[3] Russian language has a complicated system of politeness rules that affect the use of names, pronouns, and verbs. Each person has several versions of their name that are used depending on the level of politeness in the situation. In a gymnast-coach (or child-teacher) relationship, a coach is normally addressed by their full first name and patronym (name of the father plus a suffix that means “daughter of” or “son of”). If Mustafina was still training, the girls on the junior team could potentially address her just by her first name or even a nickname because she would be a peer (even though she’s older than them). But as a coach, she has to be addressed by the polite version – first name + patronym. In the gym, coaches might also opt to address each other by first name + patronym in front of the gymnasts but switch to just first names between each other (if they are of similar age and have an informal relationship).

Russian also has a polite pronoun “vy”, similar to Spanish “usted”. The pronoun is a plural form of “you” but becomes a sign of politeness, when used to address one person.

[4] Mustafina is alluding to a well-known Russian joke:

“You know, when you’re not here, people are saying such horrible things about you!”

“You can tell them that when I’m not here, they can even beat me up”.

Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation

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