Nikita Nagornyy is currently quarantined at home after the training camp of the Russian national team has abruptly ended when Andrei Rodionenko and Sergei Naidin tested positive for COVID-19. Daria Spiridonova was not at the camp (only a few members of the WAG national team attended it) and the quarantine allowed the couple to spend some time together. Nagornyy told R-Sport he is trying to look for the silver lining in this situation despite being worried about the training process. He owns a gym near Moscow that is currently closed, so he is trying a new project – an online course:
“Most of the business projects are halted now, for example, my gym is closed. But I can sort things out there, check the employees, see how they’ll behave in this situation. I also launched an online course. My goal was this – What would I say to the 18-year-old me in order the achieve more? That’s the topic of the free three-day marathon that started on April 6th on Youtube. Then the main course will start that will take place on a different platform.”
“I was, let’s say, thrown out of the gym to be with the woman I love but I was deprived of the job I love. On one hand, it’s great that we can be together during some uncertain period of time. On the other hand, I’m also deprived of gymnastics for the same period of time. No matter how much I work on conditioning, how much I train at home, this won’t replace the gym. I don’t have apparatuses at home to train routines. We were willing to accept any conditions [at the camp] if only there was a gym and an opportunity to stay in shape. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out. In any case, I’m not being irresponsible about the pandemics. If this happened and it became public, I guess there was a reason. It doesn’t matter which one and, perhaps, we will never learn what it was. There are the government’s orders which we have to adhere to.”
“I am doing the maximum I can do at home. I train twice a day, I have a warm-up in the morning, conditioning during the day and I stretch in the evening. I have a certain conditioning plan that includes a salto to a raised surface. I posted on Instagram how I am landing saltos on my bed, 10 saltos in a row. And I do that every day. I am currently trying to take as much control over my physical shape as possible so that when this horrible epidemic is over, I can come back to the gym and get back to the previous level as fast as possible. But that won’t replace the gym and the apparatuses.”
“In our sport, five days are enough to lose your fitness. So, it doesn’t matter if it’s five days or ten. Of course, I never had such a long break like the one starting now. There were two weeks after the 2018 World Championships, after which we got married and went on honeymoon. Then, I also tried to stay in shape but the recovery still took a long time, no less than a month.”
Nagornyy says that while he is worried about getting back to the competition shape, the big picture stays the same, he was planning on training and competing in 2021 anyway. However, he feels that for the gymnasts who planned on continuing with the sport for just another year, the situation might be more complicated:
“For me, nothing changes. I will keep working just as I worked till now. I have the same goals. For the young ones, this extra year is only an advantage. They have an opportunity to get stronger somewhere, to fix something, to get in a better shape. It will be hard for the gymnasts who planned to retire after the Olympics. But, as most of the guys on our team, I’m not in either of these groups. We’re somewhere in the middle. We also have an opportunity to spend this year on upgrading the routines and reaching consistency in order to perform even better. But, in any case, the goals are staying the same and our motivation isn’t diminishing either. It’s only growing!”
“Before us, the Chinese won, and before them – the Japanese. It’s not about who wants to win more or who has the title. We’re not thumping our chests and saying that we’re the champions now and no one will ever beat us. The Japanese could have performed better at the World Championships if their two leaders were ready. But they have younger guys who will take advantage of this extra year. They can do a lot during this year. And the Chinese are in the same situation as us. We’ve been moving in parallel with that team since Rio. But it will be really interesting to see Japan, they’ll improve a lot. But we’re not standing still either! When the quarantine ends, we’ll also be learning new elements. Everyone will improve and that makes things more interesting.”
In addition to home training, Nagornyy and Spiridonova are filming TikTok videos and and hope to try other new things:
“Everyone who has been constantly going through their work routine now has an opportunity to try something new. Especially something that they’ve wanted to try for a while but didn’t have enough time or energy. All the elite athletes have a lot of free time now and we can try ourselves in new fields. Perhaps, someone wanted to learn how to draw or wanted to write a poem, a song. To read books or to launch their blog. It’s possible and even necessary to take advantage of this time! My spouse and I are filming various videos now, trying new formats. I also used to buy a lot of books which I finally can read now. I manage to read two-three books in a week.”
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