After Petro Pakhniuk threatened to quit the national team over not being selected for Worlds, the head coach Gennady Sartynsky provided some explanations. Per Sartynsky, and also confirmed by Pakhniuk himself, there has been no communication between the two and Sartynsky has no way to follow Pakhniuk’s training progress, learn about his possible upgrades, his health and so on. Pakhniuk has also refused to come to the pre-Worlds training camp to which he was invited, even though a great performance at the camp could potentially put him in the running for the Worlds team.
Palhniuk and several other gymnasts training with Vyacheslav Lavrukhin have been in conflict with the rest of the national team for a while. At the 2021 Worlds Championships, Pakhniuk and Radivilov both talked about having to leave the national team training center because of the tense atmosphere there. The conflict clearly progressed even further and communication between the gymnasts and the coaching staff must not have been easy. On the other hand, Sartynsky’s demands to follow Pakhniuk’s training progress and to see him at one short training camp over the last year do not seem unreasonable at all. Radivilov reportedly complied with the demands and sent regular updates to Sartynsky.
Another factor that likely added to the current iteration of the conflict was that Lavrukhin’s gymnast were given the Paris World Cup assignment and then withdrew close to the event. The competition is traditionally quite well attended with an especially strong roster this year. This would have been a great chance for Ukrainian gymnasts to test themselves and in the end, none of them attended. Pakhniuk competed at Bundesliga that weekend and he claims his scores should be taken into account for the Worlds team selection. However, judging at a Bundesliga competition is not exactly at the same level of strictness as at a World Cup and he missed the chance to show how he measures up against top international gymnasts.
Pakhniuk told Tribuna he moved to Italy as a result of the coninuing conflict with the head coach:
“After the dismissal of my coach Vyacheslav Lavrukhin in the end of 2021, by the way, the coach of the reigning European vault champion (Radivilov) and of [Ukraine’s] only event finalist at the [Tokyo] Olympics (me), I decided to move to Italy with my family to train there because I did not expect normal communication with the head coach in the future and I wanted to continue my career. I notified everyone about that, bearing in mind that I wasn’t the first Ukrainian athlete who had an opportunity to train abroad, received permission and moved there in January of 2022.”*
“On September 15th, I was informed that I was not selected for the 2022 World Championshops and I was invited to a training camp that starts on October 15th.”
He expected to have been selected for Worlds without providing updates to Sartynsky or communicating with him in any way:
“There is a complete lack of communication between me and the head coach. I got onto the European Championships team without video, based on competition results. Now I keep competing and demonstrate results at competitions, it is publicly available, I know that the team management is aware because the guys from the national team tell me what’s going on and what they are talking about on the inside.”
Pakhniuk believes the situation on the team is unhealthy and more gymnasts will leave:
“The fact that the juniors are getting 79 points [in AA] and I got 77 (the sum that will objectively help the team) – this is great news but they [the juniors] are not eligible to compete at these World Championships. I don’t know why he mentioned this, perhaps he didn’t know what to say and this way he pointed my weakness or he was too nervous. But he as the head coach has to say everything and I, as a gymnast, only have to talk about myself. I’ll summarize and be frank: I don’t need conflicts now and the Ministry of Sports needs them even less. During this difficult time for our country the head coach is doing whatever he wants to, but he’s not the one to judge me, how I should behave and what I should do. Does he think I’m the last person [to leave]? Look at the national team roster from last year and from this one and let’s see what will happen next year. Guys have been leaving and will continue leaving him. And the war is not the reason for this at all.”
“The conflict is over, I gave my resignation notice, it’s everything he’s been dreaming of, I think. He lost another gymnast – well, this only shows he’s unqualified, that’s all. There’s Ukraine, there’s the team, there’s gymnastics and there are results but mixing professional and personal relationships is wrong and unprofessional. So, I’m moving on. I’m not retiring – when the head coach changes, I’ll come back and fulfill my duties. In the future, I’d like not to continue talking about this topic, because I’d like people to hear about gymnastics and about me connected to competition results and not conflicts and scandals. But if there will be responses [to me], I will not stop because I claim that the actions of the head coach are not objective and his explanations have little to do with reality.”
*In this statement, Pakhniuk says he originally planned to relocate to Italy. However, in a pre-Euros interview, he said he came to Italy only for a few weeks and did not plan to live there before the war broke out.
