According to Gennady Sartynsky, the head coach of the Ukrainian national team, the surprising absence of Oleg Verniaiev at Euros is due to injuries and upcoming dissertation defense:
“First of all, Oleg is finishing his [PhD] dissertation – he needs to defend it. Second, he had minor injuries, that’s why he didn’t come with us to the European Championships.”
In addition, the team lost new senior Nazar Chepurnyi who had to withdraw because of a back injury.
Sartynsky thinks that despite the pandemic-affected training, the team is prepared for the competition:
“Considering that there was a lockdown and that it’s hard to train without specific goals, I generally think we’re well-prepared. We should have good results in event finals and we’ll try to fight as a team. I hope the performance will be successful.”
“We’ve done podium training already and everything seems fine. We have two guys for whom this is their debut at this level. But the rest have already competed at Worlds and Euros.”
“Taking into account that many countries didn’t come because of the pandemic, the number of participants here isn’t as high as usual. But for athletes, it’s still an extremely important competition, since when there are no competitions, the whole point of training is lost. We need to go through this and finish the year successfully. I think that the guys will fight for both individual and team medals.
Sartynsky was cautious about the main rivals of Ukraine, saying that many things can happen:
“The latest example is Azerbaijan – the team came to the European Championships, three people at once tested positive for Covid-19, and because of that, the whole team was quarantined. I think that the hosts – Turkey – will be among the favorites, and also Romania. Of course, everyone’s not in their usual shape now. It’s hard to say something and make predictions, because normally, you already know and see what’s going on when you go to such competitions, but there was a long break now. The preparation process was uneven because of the pandemic.”
The Ukrainian junior team became European champions yesterday. The senior team is second after Turkey in qualification right now. You can watch them battle for gold in the team final on Saturday at 15:00 (GMT +3) here.
