Shortly before competing at the World Championships in Doha, Eleftherios Petrounias talked to Sport24 Radio 103,3 about his decision to compete as usual despite the injury to his left shoulder. The “Lord of the Rings” talked about this obstacle and wasn’t shy about his determination to keep his World title despite the problems he’s facing. He made it clear that he is ready to give a 120% to stay at the top.
About the fact that he hasn’t been vocal about any issues lately:
I’m avoiding that because I have my injury and my psychology needs to be dealt with very carefully. Because if you lose morale, you can’t deliver for the Championships. I’m dealing with my own personal battle in order to be able to do that.
About the fact that he’s going to be competing despite his injury and what’s going on with that:
The problem came up in early January. The tear wasn’t easy to find because it’s very small. But with the pressure that my arms are under on the rings, my shoulder started to act up. It took three MRI scans to locate it and it’s a small tear at the bottom part of the tendon. This causes a big inflammation, but there’s no danger for it to develop into something worse. But the pain from the inflammation is excruciating. My surgery is scheduled for the 5th of November and that’s three days after event finals, so if everything goes well, I want to be present for that.
The reason why we are doing the surgery is that we want to make sure that the problem isn’t going to get any bigger as we head closer to Tokyo. Next year’s Worlds act as a qualification to the Olympics and in a year and a half we’ll have the Olympics so I want to make sure I’ll be completely fine by then. One more reason I decided to compete is for the team so that we can make the top 24 and qualify to next year’s Worlds. Without me competing, we would fall behind by 5 points and these points are worth 25 placements. I have also promised, not just to myself but to everyone, to keep the gold medal streak until 2021 and I want to make good on that promise.
On how he’s dealing with the pain and if that’s going to be affecting his performance at Worlds:
The thing is I’m in a lot of pain when I perform certain elements. With my coach, we’ve laid down a plan on how to work around this. We worked on strength elements, but not on the technical part, because rotating my shoulder hurts a lot. So that’s where we have to use my experience. I’m stronger than ever. The only aspect in which I’m at a disadvantage compared to the other athletes is the number of repetitions of my routine. Everyone else has performed their routine 30 or 40 or 50 times before coming to Doha and I haven’t made it through a routine. On his winning streak since 2015: I’m happy to hold this streak and I’ll be very happy once I keep it. Because it will happen.
About the fact that his injury is making it more possible to lose the winning streak:
The odds of this happening are certainly higher but it’s not affecting me at all. I’m happy to have accomplished this and I’ll be happy to keep the momentum going. I’ll give a 120% and I’ll make an effort twice as hard. It’s all about the head, the confidence, and the concentration. Since I’m not lacking the strength, what I’ll have to do is keep my calm so that I can follow through. I’ll be very concentrated and I really want to do that. I think I’ve got all these elements under control.
On his competition strategy:
It’s very good to check in on your opponents before competing. I’ve seen what they’ve been doing, we’ve worked on everything that could help my shoulder to work right, without any problems arising and without making the inflammation worse. I’ve been very conservative, working on the right things. That’s my tactic and we think it’ll work. I’m lacking in terms of training and repetitions, but I also outweigh the rest in terms of my experience and my confidence. The most important thing is that I’m not lacking in terms of strength. And like my coach said, if it was any other athlete, he wouldn’t even think about taking them to Worlds.
