As the reigning World and European AA champion, Nikita Nagorny came to Tokyo as a heavy favorite to win the all-around gold but had to settle for bronze. He qualified to the final in second place, over 0.5 behind Hashimoto Daiki but had room for improvement on several events. He actually did improve on rings, vault, and parallel bars and got a slightly higher sum of scores than in the QF, but mistakes on other events meant he couldn’t reach Hashimoto. Xiao Routeng who won silver had an overall stronger day than Nagorny as well and the tiny separation of less than 0.04 between them is only due to the fact that he forgot to salute and got a neutral deduction of 0.3 for his high bar routine. That is already the second time he forgets to salute and gets deducted at this competition.
Nagorny talked to MatchTV about the competition:
A: I’m upset, very upset.
Q: Why weren’t you able to do it [win gold]?
A: Because I’m the weakling today. I lost to myself, first of all. It’s my fault.
Q: But you had a chance to win second gold here.
A: Did you come to add salt to my wound? Like, oh, Nikita, you got too happy now…
Q: You went out of bounds on floor and got deducted.
A: It happens. You go out to do your first event, you’re nervous. It happens, it’s a sport, guys.
Q: Then you had to chase the others on other five events.
A: It’s like a business. Some start well right away and some build it stone by stone. I hoped that I would manage to get second but not third, I wasn’t thinking about the third place. When I got to bars, I had a flicker of a thought: “Perhaps, you’ll finish your [Olympic medal] collection today?” And because of that… You wanted it – you got it. It’s like genie and the wishes.
Q: After high bar, you threw your grip down in anger.
A: I already knew that I flushed my chances down the drain.
Q: It was your third all-around in five days. Were you tired?
A: I can’t even put it in words how amazing it was. And I also can’t put it in words how angry I am with myself. But, on the other hand, first of all, it’s my first individual Olympic medal. Second of all, it’s a complete collection, I now have Olympic medals of all colors – silver in Rio, team gold here and this bronze. And, third of all, I had an opportunity to do everything I had prepared and compete better. But I didn’t do it. I had a chance, everything was already give to me on a silver platter. Everything was great, I was physically and emotionally prepared at the highest level, I just needed to go out and do it. And regarding being tired – we prepare for that. We don’t expect to compete just once here and then rest. I knew from the start that I would go out and fight for a medal today. I just wanted to fight for a different medal. And I first and foremost lost to myself today.
Q: There are often surprises at Olympic competitions.
A: It’s hard to deal with it. There is a difference between the Olympics and Worlds or Euros. When you go out to compete at the Olympics, you try to do better than you can. Today, I tried doing vault and pommel horse better than I can and here’s the result. It went ok after that, I started performing better, but I tried to stick the landings and we can’t do that, the more you try to land perfectly, the more there is a chance for a mistake. I feel today like I did in the team final, I performed well. Thousandths of a point. If not for those thousandths… If Routeng did his routine, saluted, and left, he’d have gotten 14.500 and I’d need 15.000 to reach him, so I’d get 14.000 and be happy with the third place. But because the gap was only a few thousandths of a point, because I had this chance, it makes me sad.
Q: Did you keep track of the gaps [between you and the other leaders]?
A: I didn’t even look at them, didn’t pay attention, I was fighting myself during that time. There was kind of a funny fight going on in my head:
– Come on!
– Shut up!
– Dude, you have a chance!
– Shut up and do your job!
– Wait, what are the scores?
– Don’t look!
So, these adventures, this war, it was very interesting, I recommend it to everyone, just don’t lose yourself in it.
Q: What conclusions did you draw?
A: That I need to do most of the work in my head and not at the gym. Well, at the gym as well.
Q: Were you a bit underscored today?
A: Everything was fine with the judging. Blaming someone else when you’re at fault is the easiest. But admitting your fault is the most important thing. I admitted it. I’m to blame. I got a good score on high bar, I had lower scores here. Considering my landing, I got a really good score. Whatever happened happened and I can’t change anything. It’s a life lesson for me.
Q: What will you do before the event finals?
A: My task is to rest and recover. I’ll need to manage not to go to the gym tomorrow, I know that I will be really tempted. I need to spend the whole day at the apartment, just get food and that’s it. There are finals ahead, it’s the Olympics, I will fight and try to kick some ass.
Q: What do you think about Simone Biles withdrawing from the team final and the all-around final?
A: I got upset about it. I empathise with her and wish her to figure her issues out as soon as possible. I hope we’ll see her again on the competition floor at the Olympics. But it was a good chance for our women’s team and they took it. I noted her comment that she lost the feeling of celebration inside. Perhaps, that’s due to [the lack of] spectators [here], because the whole world is cheering for her. But we still wish her to get better soon and get rid of all the problems.
Nagorny said that when he realized he wasn’t in the running for gold anymore, he cheered for Hashimoto Daiki:
“I cheered for Hashimoto in the end. I knew that he had a chance to win and I wouldn’t have been able to reach him. Before his HB routine, I approached him and said: “I believe in you, you can win”.
He says he never sees gymnasts from other countries as his enemies on the competition floor:
“Journalists always ask us who are our main rivals but I always say that I’m my own rival. But I can say that my main enemy is food, I always have major weight issues. Of course, there’s some competition and we support our countrymen more, for example. But we are always in awe of athletes who do the hardest routines. You can’t not be in awe of that.”
During the press conference after the team final, some journalists complained that the Russian team were more focused on their phones than on talking to the media. Nagorny apologized for that:
“I’d like to apologize for the team press conference. We were talking to our families during that time. Because of that many were on their phones and many [journalists] didn’t like it. We were sharing our emotions with our families, it was important for us. So that’s why I apologize to the journalists.”
“First of all, I want to thank everyone for the support and congratulate the young favorite [Hashimoto] who finished first. I actually cheered for him. He’s young and has big prospects, it was expected. Regarding myself, I wasn’t able to give it a 100%, I had moments of weakness. I will work on figuring things out. It’s my first individual [Olympic] medal. I’ve been working towards it for a long time.”
Nagorny will have a chance to win more individual medals – he qualified to the individual finals on floor, vault, and horizontal bar. Nagorny’s medal is only the third Olympic AA medal for Russian men – the first two (gold and silver) were won by Alexey Nemov and Nagorny’s medal came 21 years after Nemov’s gold in Sydney.
Nemov commented on Nagorny’s success:
“Nikita Nagorny got a respectable third place in a tough competition. I congratulate him. I also congratulate Artur – he showed his best despite being injured. I sincerely and with all my heart congratulate the guys. Now they need to get themselves together, there are many finals ahead where they need to compete well.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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