Podkopyaeva: I was honored to represent independent Ukraine

Liliya Podkopayeva talked to 112.ua about her gymnastics and coaching.

Q: You are the Olympic, World and European AA champion. Is there a more decorated gymnast than you in Ukraine?

A: If we’re talking about independent Ukraine, then no, I’m the first one. But if we’re talking about Ukrainian representatives during the Soviet times, then, of course, there are the legendary Larisa Latynina, Polina Astakhova, Liudmila Tourishcheva. And it’s nice that my name was added to this list of great gymnasts.

Q: I remember watching Bill Clinton who was then the U.S. president applauding you. Are you still friends with him or keep in touch?

A: No, unfortunately. Back in 1996, I didn’t speak any English, so we weren’t able to communicate. About 10 or 15 years ago he visited Ukraine with his AIDS foundation and we met. He said: “Of course, I wouldn’t recognize you now”. Of course, age changes everyone. But my knowledge of English helped us to communicate better, it was just a short talk but such moments stay in your memory forever.

Q: Has anyone been able to repeat your named element – double front with a half twist on floor?

A: One girl from America did it at an international competition. Not in the same combination as I did, but still. And one guy did it, he even upgraded it a bit. But the element is only counted when it’s shown and performed without mistakes at World Championships, European Championships, and the Olympics.

Q: There are few people like you. What are you doing now?

A: It so happened historically that since 1996, after being invited by Bill Clinton, I participated in gymnastics shows. We spent two years touring the country, performing, basically, every day. For me that was an incredible experience, my views on how sports are treated in the U.S. were changed completely. People buy tickets to gymnastics shows for the whole family there. They really invest in the future of their child and help their kids to fall in love with the beauty and the magic of the sport at such shows. Starting in 1996, I traveled to the U.S. and I keep going there, doing master classes. I’m not doing shows anymore due to my age but I’m still in demand and it’s really amazing. I’m asking myself: would our country be able to keep inviting American Olympic champions for more than 20 years in a row so that they would share their experience? Currently, our country isn’t ready for something like this.

Q: Where do you live now? How much time do you spend in Ukraine and in America?

A: So, I’ve been going to the U.S. with master classes for the past 20 years and last year, when I came to my favorite “golden” Atlanta, I met my significant other there. Since he’s an American, he’s from Kiev but has been living in America for many years now, I spend most of my time in the U.S. But no matter where I am and for how long I’ve been outside of Ukraine, my homeland is still Ukraine. And I come back enormously happy and joyful to recharge my batteries, to get in touch with my friends, to walk along the streets, to breath the air of the land where I was born.

Q: After you brought so many medals and so much fame for your country, did Ukraine offered you anything in terms of work?

A: Last year, Oleg Ostapenko, the head coach of the Ukrainian national team, talked to me about a possible job offer with the national team. It was really nice and I’d love to work with the coach who went out on the competition floor with me in 1996. But the issue is financial I can’t feed my children while staying in Ukraine. So, the offer fell through on its own, but I would definitely love to share my experience. And I have quite a lot to share even though the 21st century brought different rules and there were changes in gymnastics. But there are some timeless things that affect all aspects of our life.

Q: So, you would really want to get Ukrainian girls and boys and to train future Olympic champions?

A: Very much. Although I guess, people become coaches a bit earlier. I never called myself a coach, I’ve always been an invited guest. I am truly amazed by the work of a coach because you have to spend 6-8 hours in the gym, six days a week. Because gymnastics is such a sport where you need to get every movement to automaticity and you have to sacrifice something. When you’re young, you sacrifice play time, sleep, food, but you know what you’re doing. When you’re an adult, you sacrifice your family because you spend so much time at the gym and at training camps. And people’s lives often go differently because it’s so much hard work. Considering the current reality of our country, I bow to the people who don’t give up and become champions despite everything. Of course, I’m extremely proud of our Olympic champions and medalists because it’s an enormous amount of work.

Q: When you were still competing, how many hours a day did you need to train? How many hours a night did you sleep?

A: When I lived in Donetsk, my practices started at 7 a.m. I lived on the outskirts of Donetsk and I had to wake up at 5 a.m. in order to get to practice in time. I took a tram and the ride was almost an hour, then I had to walk. Then we ran to school and came back to the gym after school to train again. In the beginning, in Donetsk, I trained for five hours a day but when I made the junior national team, I started training seven hours a day, every day except Sundays. On Wednesdays, we trained for half a day and rested for half a day. During rest, I needed to do my homework. Looking back, I can’t imagine how kids were capable of doing it. They say that kids can endure more than adults and I guess the crazy love for the sport played a role. You can’t really force someone to do it. A person needs to fall in love and this love needs to be reciprocal. I came to the gym and looked at that magical world and this was love from the first step. I said that gymnastics was my boyfriend for 15-18 years.

Q: Does Ukraine pay you something or provide some sorts of benefits now?

A: Yes, I get an Olympic stipend. It’s supposed to be lifelong but, in our country, anything can change. It used to be about $300 but now it’s about $100. So, the athletes can’t really live on that. Of course, the country has lots of problems, so I’m not asking what it can do for me, I’m asking what I can do for the country. We all can criticise everything while sitting on the couch but you need to get up and move forward. The status of an Olympic champion motivates to do it, I guess it’s the perfectionism.

Q: Did you get any job offers from other countries that you refused?

A: I was getting offers all the time from European countries but the U.S. was somehow closer to my mentality. We’re divided by the Atlantic Ocean but I’m still quite comfortable there, although when I moved to the U.S. for the first time, it was pretty hard: the different banking system, no public transportation, lack of some things that normally exist in a big city and to which we’re used. After retirement, every athlete needs time to find themselves and figure out what they want to do and in which direction they want to move. Of course, gymnastics gave me a lot and opened many doors for me, I still use the experience I got in the sport. I wanted to be a flight attendant, a police officer. In some sense, my dream came true, I represented the Dynamo club my whole life and I’ve spent a lot of time on planes.

Q: How much a private lesson with Liliya Podkopayeva cost?

A: It’s not the kind of question I’d like to answer but, believe me, it’s affordable.

Q: Is it true that you coached kids of Madonna and Antonio Banderas?

A: It was a long time ago but yeah, I had such an experience. It was in Los Angeles and I wouldn’t even know that they were children of celebrities. They were in the same lineup as regular children and only after I the lesson was finished I was told that they were the children of Antonio Banderas and Madonna. Lourdes was still a baby. When I saw Madonna, I couldn’t believe it. She looked like a girl, in a leather jacket and jeans, like a teenager. Of course, this flattered me. But my shyness isn’t always beneficial. Now I regret not coming up to her and asking for an autograph. I don’t compare myself to Madonna in any way, but when people come to you after the master class and share their emotions and experiences… After the 1996 Olympics, more than 3000 newborn girls were called Liliya. It was flattering. So, you shouldn’t be shy and afraid of approaching people, many like it and feel like it’s a part of their job.

Q: You competed against the Russian athletes. Have you ever experienced them looking down on you or did they always respect you?

A: My first training camp in Moscow happened before the USSR broke up. They saw us as small-town girls, we weren’t even from Kiev, we were from Donetsk. But all this leveled out when we became older. Yes, we competed against each other but this was a fair competition. And the Olympic Games were created for the countries the show off their strength. Gymnastics has been at the very beginning of the Olympic movement. There’s always been respect – if you won, I’ll shake your hand.

Q: So, you’ve never encountered people playing dirty?

A: Thankfully, I’ve never experienced that. I had a childhood dream, I wanted to wear a warmup jacket with the letters USSR and gymnastics shoes made by a French company. This was my biggest dream. When the Soviet Union broke up, I said childishly: “But I won’t be able to wear the jacket now!” And I made the national team. Looking back, I’m happy that I had the honor of representing independent Ukraine and the yellow-blue flag. And when the flag was flying and the Ukrainian anthem was playing, this was an indescribable feeling, I was so happy. I, a girl from the outskirts of Donetsk, was able to make the 45 thousand people in the arena and the U.S. president with his family to rise. The Ukrainian anthem was playing, the Ukrainians in the audience were chanting “Ukraine!” and you hear all of it… It gave me chills, I was crying. My grandma brought me to the gym for the first time and she said that we came there to get medals. She passed away exactly a month before my triumph and I dedicated my medal to her. I stood there and thought that I’m being watched from above and I was so proud. But, at the same time, there was some crazy emptiness and the questions for myself: “So, what’s next?”

Q: Were you able to answer these questions?

A: Not right away, but eventually. You find joy and happiness in small things. If you learn how to do it, you’ll be a truly happy person. Of course, we’re not the sun and can’t warm everyone but if we can do something for someone, we need to. Not to save ourselves, but to give ourselves up completely.

Q: Have you been invited to give master classes in Russia after 2014?

A: No, I’ve never got any offers for master classes from there, not now, not before. Russia has plenty of talented gymnasts and coaches from whom I can even learn something. Every coach, every athlete has their own approach, their own technique, their own strategy. I was very lucky to meet such a person as my coach, Galina Losinskaya, who know also lives near Atlanta.

Q: You’ve wanted children for a very long time but couldn’t get pregnant and you adopted a child from an orphanage. Soon after that you got pregnant and gave birth to a girl. How did this happen?

A: I was traveling around Ukraine with UNISEF, we visited orphanages, we needed to figure out how to help them. Once, during a visit to an orphanage in Donetsk, I saw a baby to grabbed me with his fingers and it was love at first sight. Vadik looked at me with his huge eyes, he clutched my fingers and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to leave without him. We are chosen by our children, no matter biological or not. These are magical stories that happen in our life. This boy who brought so much joy and happiness into my life will become a teenager in a month. He’s a head taller than me, he comes up to me, hugs me and says: “Mom, I love you”. It’s so much happiness and joy. Without Vadim, I wouldn’t have Carolina and without Carolina, I wouldn’t have Vadim. I keep telling them: “You’re one, there’s no one closer for you than you are for each other”. I faced a lot of criticism, people said that I did it for self-promotion. I said: well, if it’s self-promotion, let’s all promote ourselves like that, then all the kids will have parents. But we need to understand that an orphanage isn’t a toy store. When I saw Vadim for the first time, he was six months old and at the time of the adoption hearing, he was eight months old. And I needed to prove that he would be better off with me than at the orphanage. Back then I was really offended by it, but now I understand that the state needs to know where the child ends up, the living conditions should be up to the established standard, I had to talk to a psychologist because I didn’t have a parenting experience, I didn’t have kids yet. And then a miracle happened when during all these formalities I realized that I was expecting. Before, I was beaten up when my car was hijacked and the doctors said that I wouldn’t be able to have children. So, when I realized that I was expecting it was both huge joy and double fear: I didn’t have kids and now I’ll have two. People say that no one’s irreplaceable, but mom is irreplaceable. My mom raised my kids and I say to her that they’re not only her grandchildren but her children, as well.

 

 

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