Aliya Mustafina gave an interview to Sport-Express talking about her competitive comeback at the Russian Championships. Mustafina’s team (Moscow) won the team competition and she came in fourth in the all-around and qualified to three event finals.
Q: Aliya, are you happy with the results of the Russian Championships?
A: I did even more than I expected from myself. I’m very happy that I managed to prepare all four events and to force myself to compete. It’s great groundwork which allows me to be optimistic about the future.
Q: Was it important for you to win, even if only at the team competition?
A: Of course, I’m happy that we won but frankly I didn’t think about victories or even about judging. For me, the competition process was the most important. I had to understand how would I feel in this environment again, how would my body act. I was afraid: I couldn’t imagine what would my body do.
Q: You’re probably not used to stay out of the medal at the national level.
A: These losses were absolutely expected. I knew that it could happen and was prepared for it. Most important was that I managed to do some elements that I wasn’t even able to do in training yet. I remembered such an element on bars and on floor, on the second day I went out and did everything without stepping out of bounds.
Q: You said that the most important thing was to do all the routines without falls.
A: I had a fall on vault in the all around. After that I got very scared, I thought: well, that’s it, I’m out of energy, how will I keep competing? It was very hard to get myself together and to set my mind to the other events. But in the end it turned out that everything was fine, my conditioning was enough.
Q: Are you not surprised that in six years since London-2012 Russia still has no gymnasts who would be able to beat you and Viktoria Komova even though both of you aren’t in the best shape yet?
A: I’ve thought about it. But actually we have girls that beat me and there could be even more of them if not for mistakes. The competition experience is very important here and it comes with age.
Q: What can you say about Angelina Melnikova who’s been the team leader while you weren’t competing?
A: She’s in great shape right now, she works a lot at practices. I really hope that she’ll be able to perform according to her preparedness at competitions.
Q: Irina Alexeeva who came back to Russia after living in the USA for 8 years trained with your first coach, Dina Kamalova, right?
A: Yes, I remember her. She was 6 years old when they moved to America. I was happy to see her again and I really liked her as a gymnast. Of course, the differences between our school and the American one can be seen. I think she would be able to strengthen our national team.
Q: What do you think about the raging sexual scandal on the American team?
A: I heard something about this but I didn’t pay close attention. I’m such a person that I don’t like distracting information.
Q: Your daughter Alisa isn’t even one year old. How hard is going to the practices and competitions without her?
A: I can’t say that it’s very hard for me in that aspect. I’m grateful to my mom: when I leave my daughter with her I’m not worried at all. I know that everything will definitely be fine. I’m sure that what I’m doing now will eventually benefit my entire family.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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