Oleg Verniaiev attended the Ukraine International Cup that took place last weekend as a spectator. At the event, he talked to Sport.ua about his recovery from the two surgeries. Unlike his coach, he doesn’t yet give a timeline for the possible comeback but says that he really wants to start training and competing again. The gymnast also noted that he had to pay for his surgeries out of pocket and the federation later only partially reimbursed him for that. While that might seem normal to people from other countries, it’s usually the case that the sports authorities pay for the athlete’s medical expenses in the FSU countries, so it is quite outrageous for an Olympic champion and a star athlete to have to pay for his own medical bills.
Q: How do you feel being on the other side of the competition?
A: It’s one thing when you end up as just a spectator after an unsuccessful performance. But when you’re just a spectator, it’s pretty neat, actually.
Q: Who was the most interesting for you to watch during the two competition days?
A: I already know all of our guys. And regarding the competitors, the Israeli team has significantly improved. Artem Dolgopyat is progressing and very much so. Andrey Medvedev has good vaults. Although one of them didn’t go well for him on the first day of the competition but everyone knows that he’s strong on this event and he looks very promising on it. In addition, he has a 6.0 vault in his repertoire.
Q: Has Dolgopyat upgraded enough to exchange his last year’s Worlds’ silver to gold in Doha-2018? Will he make Kenzo Shirai step down from the first place?
A: No one can yet compete with Shirai if he, of course, does his routine without mistakes. But Artem is pretty capable of fighting for gold at Euros and then confirming his vice-champion status at Worlds.
Q: In Kiev, during the competition, we could see how the Israeli team’s physical therapist was massaging your shoulder. Was it the same Adam Badir to whom you dedicated your double victory at the 2015 Euros?
A: Adam also came to Kiev. But today it wasn’t him who performed the “magic” on my shoulder, it was another specialist from the same clinic in Israel.
Q: At what stage is your recovery now?
A: I’m just starting to get to it. In a few days, Adam will write a plan for me, he will explain what I have to do and how and then I’ll start the process. Physical therapy, massage, conditioning – I’ll try to do everything he says. Before that, for three months I’ve been protecting my arm as the doctors advised. If I hurried, it could have become worse.
Q: Are there any gymnasts around you who had similar problems with their shoulders?
A: There was the same injury in the Saar Club for which I compete in Bundesliga. But Germans are Germans, they always have physical therapists and doctors right there. If I lived in Israel or Adam lived in Ukraine, everything would be happening much faster.
Q: It wasn’t only a shoulder surgery, you also had a leg surgery at the same German clinic, right? Who paid the expenses, by the way?
A: Yes, they operated on both at the same time. And I paid all the medical bills on my own. Only later the federation partially reimbursed my expenses. The Ministry of Sports did not participate in this in any way.
Q: What have you been doing during the three months when you were prescribed compete rest?
A: Nothing, I was just resting.
Q: I’ll dare to assume that such a long vacation happened for the first time in your career, right?
A: Yes, I’ve never had such a long rest before. For the first three months, I stepped away from gymnastics completely, I didn’t even want to watch it. But now I already feel that it’s been enough, I started to get bored with the freedom. I want to go back to the gym, to work, to compete, to win. Gymnastics doesn’t stand still, after all, everyone’s progressing and I have to catch up.
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