Nagorny talked to MatchTV about the health issues that affected his performance in the all-around final and two days of the event finals:
“I feel much better now. I never said that [the kidney stone] was the reason for anything. It’s just that Dima [Zanin, MatchTV’s journalist who was in Tokyo] came to me and said, “You look pale, you have bags under your eyes. Did something happen?” I said that I won’t say it on the record. But other journalists picked it up and started asking about my health every day. And with that feeling, when I got a medal on high bar, when I didn’t even believe I could, I told them about all my issues. It wasn’t in front of a camera but journalists recorded everything.”
“I got chills, colics, fever over 38 degrees. Everyone immediately started panicking about it possibly being the coronavirus. But we were tested every day, so we would know. But still, I got a PCR test. And only after that, David Belyavskiy said that a kidney stone can cause it. That’s why we concluded it was the culprit. After all, shortly before flying to the Olympics, I was diagnosed with it and was told that the stone could start moving due to physical activity.”
Nagorny talked about the overwhelming emotions he felt when the team won gold:
“Now I can finally say it on live TV: Russia! Russia! After all, we came home. And I’m finally starting to realized what we’ve accomplished – our names will stay in history. I think an Olympic gold is every athlete’s dream. Of course, when that dream is gone, you start thinking – what’s next? That’s why our coaches always tell us – you won a medal, now forget about it.”
Nagorny felt that these Olympics were very different:
“The Olympic Games are, first of all, a celebration for the whole world. There are all sorts of festivals normally, everyone dresses up. But it was just emptiness now. There were no people at all. We came to the Olympics with a specific goal – to win the team gold. But we were afraid to even talk about it because we knew it was possible. We’re all superstitious, we were afraid to jinx it. So, this victory overshadowed the lack of attention from the spectators which is normally present at the Games. We knew 100% that we had the best team. Take Denis Abliazin, for example. He has seven Olympic medals at the moment! He’s just a legend. David has been to three Olympics already. I started this quad with Artur and we were always on the medal podium together. There’s no such team anywhere else. Emotions after the scores were announced? There was an emotional outburst, I couldn’t even keep standing. I couldn’t get myself together for even a second, I was crying and screaming.”
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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