Nikita Nagornyy talked to RT about the year he won both the team and the all-around gold at Worlds and his plans and expectations for the Olympic year.
Q: Your year was practically perfect and, among other things, you managed to win three golds at the World Championships. Were there any moments you’re not satisfied with?
A: Actually, an athlete always have to be unsatisfied with something, otherwise he’ll stop improving and striving for new victories. But, if we’re talking about the World Championships in Stuttgart, I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I planned on floor. I’ve been dreaming of winning a medal on this even for a while but I didn’t manage to. Of course, there were some small organization problems as well. I was called to compete too early and wasn’t given time to prepare even though this shouldn’t happen. As a result, I wasn’t able to do the routine well from start to finish.
Q: Could it have been connected to the fact that you approached the event not in the best emotional state?
A: My mood was great then. Generally, your mindset for the competition isn’t formed right before going out to compete, but a day or two before the competition. Before the arrival, we try to get into the right mindset so that we won’t have extraneous negative thoughts when we get there.
Q: Russia has historically had strong gymnasts. Why wasn’t the country always able to dominate on the international scene?
A: There just wasn’t a team like the one that appeared now. Fortunately, we have come together and can show the maximum results like we did in Stuttgart, where we won team gold for the first time in 28 years. In the future, we will try to show the same results or even better.
Q: Why is the men’s gymnastics stronger at the moment in Russia?
A: Honestly, I don’t know. I guess that’s the case everywhere. You cannot always be the first, sooner or later someone stronger will appear. You cannot always stay young and be at the peak of your strength. Unfortunately, the leader of the women’s team Aliya Mustafina is absent at the moment, she is missed. Other girls retired, a new generation came. Generally, they are winning medals and that’s good. Also, let’s not forget that they have very strong rivals – the American who have been dominating for many years, not giving anyone else a chance. The situation won’t change in the future either, since the US has Simone Biles who have been winning all the medals she can get hold of. But on the Russian men’s team, basically, every one of us is a leader. We are lucky this way. Everyone has a strong character and always has his own opinion. Surprisingly, it works.
Q: The Olympic Games in Tokyo are less than a year away. What are your expectations from this competition?
A: For me, every competition is the same. I think I’ll be getting into the same mindset for the Olympics like I do for the World or European Championships. All competitions are important. Especially, since it won’t be my first time at the Games. God permit, we will be able to go to Tokyo and compete there. The mindset is simple – to endure all of the volume of preparation, to prepare myself mentally, and to show the best results.
Q: Do you plan to change your routines in any way for the Olympics?
A: Of course. There’s such a notion in gymnastics – cleanliness and execution. Now, we need to improve this cleanliness, even though we already get good scores for it. But we need to clean up and improve even more. Plus, we need to learn new elements, harder and more serious ones, because the base score rises because of difficulty and it allows to compete with other gymnasts.
Q: Do you keep track of how your rivals are preparing for the Olympics?
A: No. Our task is to watch ourselves. The most important thing is to work despite anything, to set goals for ourselves. Others are doing the same. That’s the point. We are competing at big arenas without knowing who is capable of what.
Q: Isn’t it too late to learn new elements seven months before the Games?
A: It’s never too late. The question is whether you’ll be able to master them enough to put into a routine and do without mistakes. That’s worth a lot. No one should doubt you.
Q: How much time do you usually need to put a new element into a routine?
A: There are different elements. Sometimes, I see a difficult element, do it on the first try and put it into my routine even though some would say you need a year to learn it. But there are other elements that I can’t do. There is just a physical predisposition toward certain elements.
Q: It feels like you are confident in yourself approaching the Olympics. But what do you think about WADA’s decision regarding Russia?
A: That’s not new for us. The same happened at the Rio Olympics when we flew there without knowing whether we would compete at all and if yes, on what conditions. We arrived for the opening of the Olympic village and the IOC’s decision was being announced while our plane was departing. Some thought that we would be banned and we’d turn back right away. Bad, unpleasant thoughts were running in our minds. We were trying to distract ourselves from all that but our flight lasted 12 hours and during that time we managed to ruminate quite a lot. As soon as we landed, someone got their phone out, went online and read that we were allowed to compete. The whole plane was applauding and cheering. It was a small celebration right before the Olympic Games.
Q: How is this time different from 2016?
A: The situation is worse now. They are taking away our flag and it’s unfair. Unfair to me, to my teammates. We are always arguing for fair play and clean sport. As the president Vladimir Putin said, the punishment should be individual. It’s better not to punish those athletes who have never had a doping violation. They have been working towards the Olympic Games, their dream for their whole life. Olympic gold is the dream of any athlete since they are a kid. It’s all he lives for. And here, they are just prohibiting us from competing under our country’s flag. I think it’s not fair. But there’s a second option – to compete as a neutral athlete. It’s all individual but, in my opinion, athletes should compete anyway because it’s their whole life. We all know that the sports career is not forever. So, if there is any chance, we need to use it and prove ourselves.
Q: Does thinking about the injustice serve as extra fuel?
A: If an athlete is mentally strong, any external provocations will not affect him and will not drain him. They can only motivate or not affect him at all. You can ignore stuff like that. All that happened lately angers and motivates a bit. It’s horrible when our flag is taken away. After all, we were born in this country, we live here and love it. It’s not exactly right. But everyone will still know that I’m from Russia: competitors, family, fans. Take the flag but it’s not a punishment, it’s circus.
Q: You are running a quite successful vlog about artistic gymnastics. Does it interfere with your training?
A: When I started it, I had lots of free time. I wanted to promote artistic gymnastics, since, unfortunately, not many people know this sport. There are simple team sports that everyone follows. But gymnastics is not quite comprehensible for a regular person. Looking at the routines, you can say: “He’s spinning his saltos, ok”, and the interest dwindles. It’s hard to understand the whole system of points, additions, and so on. That was when I had an idea to tell about it.
Q: You made the first video about the European Championships where you won.
A: I showed how we were training, what we ate, where we lived. It ended up interesting and the video got 30,000 views. I thought it was a good number for the first video. I continued working on the vlog. Then, there were the Olympic Games and a long break during which I could spend more time on it. It ended when I needed to resume my career. I was told: “You’re a gymnast, not a vlogger. Be done with it.” At that moment, I already had a videographer and an editor, even though at the beginning, I did everything on my own. Right now, the videos come out less frequently, but they still continue. I show what happens at competitions and try to popularize artistic gymnastics.
Q: Your wife Daria Spiridonova is also a gymnast. What are gymnastics families like?
A: I don’t know what happens in regular families but I can tell you about mine. For example, at home, we rarely talk about the sport. We have enough of that at the gym and at camps. We really like to travel, we take walks, go to various events. So, our horizons are not limited to sports. We always have something to talk about and somewhere to go. I think it’s necessary to have distractions sometimes in order to miss the sport.
Q: Besides the sport, you are also an entrepreneur. How did you become interested in it?
A: That happened in 2015, when I started reading a lot. Before that, I barely opened books besides literature classes in school. Then, I found a couple of books that said that money needs to be invested. After studying that business-psychology, I cam home and said that I needed to open a business. After the Olympic Games, I had a certain budget and opened my own barbershop. And closed a year after. That was my first experience. I realized that books won’t tell you everything about the process. Turns out, you need even more money and some time until the business develops. It’s not so simple. When I encountered the problem, I got interested in fixing it. That’s how I slowly got into this field.
Q: Do you also have to sacrifice your business for the sake of gymnastics for now?
A: If I’m ranking them, the sport is in first place for me, the business is in second, and the vlog is in third. It’s my hobby. And the business is a safety net, since a sport career is not forever.
Q: Since you spend most of your time on the sport, whom did you delegate managing your business?
A: There’s no one else. I opened it and manage it. There are employees which I manage.
Q: You were born in Rostov-on-Done. How people from the South are different from the rest of the country?
A: It’s cheesy but we’re more sincere and take everything to heart. I got used to Moscow fast because I moved here as a kid, when I started going to camps. But when my friends from Rostov-on-Don come to Moscow now, they can’t understand a lot of things. For example, we are not as ironic as Muscovites. We’re less materialistic, we strive for sincere relationships and real friendship.
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