Igor Radivilov will compete at the European Championships in two weeks. Recently, the Ukrainian Olympic Committee published an interview with Radivilov talking about his preparation for the main competitions of the season and the infamous triple front vault now banned in the Code of Points.
Radivilov tells that his competition and training schedule is so busy in the next two years, he’s not likely to go on a proper vacation until after Tokyo:
“I would like to get some rest, but I guess this will only happen after the Olympics in Tokyo. We are now rapidly preparing for the Games and there are many stages ahead – Euros and Worlds. I hope we’ll show good results and will please our fans”.
Radivilov thinks that if a gymnast is exceptionally good on some event, it’s because the event chose him. The event that chose Radivilov was vault, of course:
“Everybody thinks that my best event is vault, In fact, I probably didn’t choose it, it chose me. Apparatuses choose athletes according to the physical abilities. It so happened that vault and rings were the easiest to master for me. I won the most medals on vault and that’s why I’m trying to develop my vaults and to show better and better results every time. In the future, of course, I would want to show new vaults but this will be in the next quad. I hope we will all survive till then”.
In the current Olympic quad, Radivilov plans to fight for medals with the vaults that aren’t named after him and he’s still very much not over the fact that the Radivilov vault was banned in the Code of Points:
“My coach and I came up with a new vault, a big push in the development of gymnastics. But, unfortunately, this vault was banned and it was not properly evaluated regarding its difficulty score. My coach suggested I try [this vault], it went well and we hoped that it would be the bomb, I guess, that everyone would be amazed by it and it would be scored well, but, unfortunately, we weren’t able to achieve what we hoped. That’s why we’re currently working on the vaults that are already in the Code of Points and we hope that perhaps [the Radivilov] will again be allowed in the next quad and I’ll show and prove to everyone that it’s all possible and things that already exist shouldn’t be the limit. The whole world saw that no one else could do it before me. Yes, of course, it’s a pity that I wasn’t able to win a medal. I think that even if I did my vaults well and clean, they would still not be likely to give me a medal. I don’t regret anything, I’m moving forward and I have hope for the next Olympics”.
