Nikita Nagornyy will compete for the first time this year at the Russian Championships in Penza on Wednesday. Ahead of the competition, he talked to Olympic Channel.
Russian government largely removed pandemic-related limitations and people can travel freely around the country (which, of course, results huge Covid-19 infection rates). One of the few places where it feels like the pandemic is still happening is Round Lake, the training center of the national team. Gymnasts that live in Moscow are used to seeing their families on weekends but this is not an option for now, Nagornyy says:
“We’re still isolated, even staying here during out days off. After the end of the pandemic*, a system was put in place where we do two [PCR] tests when we come to the camp. They both have to be negative in order for us to be allowed into the clean zone to train. Nothing’s changing now. It seems that the world is coming back to life, people are traveling, flying, the country is open, cities are open, but we’re still in isolation. Only between the camps, we have an opportunity to be with our families and travel somewhere.”
Even though Russia withdrew from the 2020 European Championships in Turkey back in December citing the dangers of travel during the pandemic, Nikita Nagornyy and Daria Spiridonova traveled to Istanbul the same month and then had a few more vacations:
“[I went on vacation] when I first had the chance. My wife and I really love traveling, it’s like reloading for us, that’s the only way we recharge. That’s why we managed to fly to Turkey, to Maldives, and go home to Rostov-on-Don a couple of time.”
Recently, Daria Spiridonova announced her retirement from competitive gymnastics. Nagornyy says Spiridonova has been struggling with training for a while :
“For elite athletes, such a decision comes on its own, from the internal feeling that you can’t continue anymore. At least that’s how it was for Dasha. Truth is it was becoming hard for her already after the Olympic Games in Rio. She was training without a coach, working with a specialist, Anton Stolyar, but he moved to another country and it became really hard for her. She got injured and didn’t talk [publicly] about it for a long time, she had a comminuted fracture and competed with the broken foot at the World Championships in Doha. After that, she got a plate inserted, she recovered, and went to the World Championships in Stuttgart in 2019, where she won silver with the team. After that competition, it became too hard for her and she was mentally preparing to retire.”
When asked about what Spiridonova is doing now, post-retirement, Nagornyy says she’s learning how to live a regular life:
“She’s studying life. What can an athlete that spent their whole life working, staying at the training center and not seeing life at all do? She’s enjoying life, trying things and searching for who she is. She has a wish and a goal to fulfill her childhood dreams – to open a beauty salon. She’s studying it and she understands that opening and developing a business is serious stuff and it requires effort. But she’s doing a good job, fighting for her dreams and improving.”
Nagornyy is known for the videos of crazy (and sometimes dangerous) stunts he uploads to social media. Recently, he posted a video of his fall from high bar that scared the fans, but he feels that falls are a normal part of gymnastics and need to be shown:
“We often experience falling, flying off, and injuries. If you look at the comments from elite gymnasts under the post, many just laughed and didn’t take it seriously. For us, such a fall is among the normal things, something that can happen in training and, I would say, a not very flashy fall either – I peeled off and didn’t land well, my back hurt for a few days, but I feel fine now. If we’re talking in general, our sport is quite injury-prone. We start falling when we’re still kids. For example, when we learn a new element, we fall on 99 attempts out of 100, and, of course, we learn how to fall correctly, so that it would be safe. From the outside, it seems like a gymnast is all broken but nothing actually dangerous happened. Elite gymnasts fall every day and have worse falls, and that’s fine, they get up and continue, because we can only learn through falls, we learn elements and then put them into our routines and bring them onto the competition floor. Such videos explain it and show the life of gymnasts from the inside. It also helps parents to make a choice when they decide whether to sign their kids up for [gymnastics] classes. Although, of course, this can scare parents as well. Mine, for example, watch a video and then call and ask how I’m feeling”.
Nagornyy says that his grandma is also watching his tricks and falls on Instagram:
“My grandma, who’s 82 years old, watches my Instagram [videos] and messages me on WhatsApp. My mom taught her how to, although that might have been not such a good idea because falls scare her. But I keep explaining to her that there’s nothing scary about it. Parents often think that successful athletes never fall but that’s not true.”
*By the “end of the pandemic” he probably means the end of the lockdown back in May when Round Lake was opened but people in Russia do often behave as if the pandemic were over.
