Evgeny Nikolko, Alexey Nemov’s long-term coach and the head coach of the Russian MAG Olympic teams in 1996, 2000, and 2004 passed away on November 22nd at the age of 76 from pneumonia complications. Nikolko stopped working with the national in 2010 and returned to his home town Togliatti to work at the local gym. He kept coaching actively until he became ill this year.
In this interview from 2019 published to commemorate his 75th birthday, Nikolko talked to Irina Stepantseva about his work and hobbies.
Q: How did you celebrate your birthday, Evgeny Grigoryevich? Were you fishing by any chance? After all, I think, everyone already knows about this hobby of yours.
A: No, there’s a fishing ban in our region right now because of the spawning, so I had to leave fishing for some other time. I went to my dacha. Originally, I planned to go to the Immortal Regiment parade, that’s what I normally do. But people started congratulating me on May 8th, and there were many calls on May 9th as well, so I left the city. And there, I did some work in the fresh air, you know that there’s always something to do at the dacha. Fishing won’t go anywhere, I really love fishing. And my granddaughter Polina can’t wait for it. As soon as I come, she starts, “Grandpa, when are we going fishing?” But other than that I still coach during two practices a day in the gym, 8 am to 10 am in the morning and 4 pm to 7 pm in the evening.
Q: Are you happy with your pupils?
A: Andrey Makolov is recovering from an injury, he’s already training. He does vault and floor well but there’s still an issue with rings since it’s his shoulder joint that was injured. Mish Khudchenko, he’s also on the national team reserve, is preparing for the Unified State Exams. It’s a lot of responsibility. When this is over, we’ll start preparing for the Russian Cup in Penza in August. I hope that Makolov will completely recover by that competition.
Q: The national team is getting back to her previous level…
A: Yes, the current men’s team is very strong. I would say that at the moment, the level of competition on the national team is growing rapidly. It’s hard to make the top five and they could send two teams to competitions. That feels good. The guys have great motivation – to get onto the team. Lyosha Nemov was a unique talent, of course, there are few like him in the world. But when he was growing up, things were different in our sports system. The coaches’ salaries were higher, our job was respected. Now, many coaches left to work with recreational groups. And if you have a talented gymnast, there’s another problem right away. For example, we now have Makolov, Khudchenko and Ruslan Makarov – he’s on the junior reserve national team, so the situation with boys is quite good in our school. But if I leave [for camps] with any of them, the rest of the kids are left without me. It’s good that I work with Aleksey Yarygin. But not everyone has this option – to leave an athlete with someone else. And there are some other issues that might not seem crucial. For example, when our school was a part of AvtoVAZ, there were no funding problems. But now all the sports facilities are funded by the city and the region’s Ministry of Sports does not give funding. So, what happens is that the city survives somehow thanks to the recreational classes but gives very little funding. Sometimes, we can’t even go to competitions properly. The equipment in the gym is also old. Our school’s manager helps however he can. Sometimes he sends technicians to fix something, sometimes he helps otherwise, but he can’t do everything. I also fix equipment on my own. I hung the new spotting belt, for example, and fixed the pommel horse’s cover. I made some simple training equipment for the kids – you always try to come up with ideas to make the training process easier for the kids.
Q: And you’ve been doing it all your life.
A: I can’t do it any differently. All my life is inside these walls. Although it’s getting hard sometimes. After all, I’m quite old and you’d think – for how long can one go on just enthusiasm? But what can I do? Young people nowadays often don’t know even how to tighten a nut. So I go to the market and think: ok, here I’ll need to to buy bolts, here – ropes for the spotting belt… So, we go on, everything’s fine. Now we’ll host the Nemov Cup, then my guys will get into the university – they can’t be left to their devices either – and then we’ll start preparing for the Russian Cup!
Q: Do you ever dream of the years you spent at Round Lake? Do you think of it often?
A: I’ll tell you what – I spent 22 years there with Lyoshka and if you take the years I was the men’s team head coach, then I lived at Round Lake for over 20 years. I came back to Togliatti in 2010 and have been working at the school for 9 years. One generation of gymnasts are all grown up already and new guys are coming up. And, you know, I got motivated again. I started going to training camps again. Sometimes, I go, and sometimes.- my coaching partner, we take turns. And there, you spend a whole day in the gym again, when you have one guy on the junior team and one on the main team. Juniors leave the gym and seniors come in. Then, the evening practice, in two shifts again. You only have time to run to get lunch. But I’m interested. Back in the USSR, when I just started coaching, I was young and crazy motivated as a coach, so I would even spend the night at the gym sometimes. Now I’m older and have grandkids, but it’s still my priority. Work is work. I still have this engine inside that makes me push my pupils. For example, I want to prepare Makarov properly for the next Junior European Championships, he has three very strong events…
Evgeny Nikolko’s pupils are still on the national team. Andrey Makolov is on the main senior team. Last year, he placed second on vault and third on floor at the Russian Cup. Mikhail Khudchenko is on the reserve national team. Ruslan Makarov is on the main junior national team and placed third at the junior Russian Championships on rings last year. Since Russia withdrew from the European Championships this year, he will not have a chance to go to that competition. Another one of his gymnasts, Yegor Frolov, is on the espoir national team.
