Igor Radivilov became the European Champion on vault again last month, winning his 11th European medal. His big dream is to win another medal at the Olympics (his first and so far only one was a bronze on vault in 2012) and he said in an interview to KP-Ukraine that the postponement of the Olympics helped him to prepare more thoroughly for the Games.
Q: Igor, you’ve become a European Champion for the fourth time. Does this victory taste as sweet as the first one?
A: It might be even sweeter. This gold was harder to get. I’m doing a different kind of work and I work a lot. The first time, my victory on rings was kind of spontaneous. We didn’t expect such a result in that period of my career. Now we’re explicitly working on vault and it brings results.
Q: You’re missing a World Championships gold medal. Does it upset you?
A: It motivates me. It’s my dream and my main goal, same as an Olympic medal. We’re working towards it.
Q: How hard will it be to win a gold medal in Tokyo?
A: Any medal will be hard to win. Many guys come to fight for medals hungry and prepared. It’s hard to predict how things will go but our goal is victory.
Q: At the moment, do you know how the Olympics will look?
A: As far as I know, only 70% of the seats will be filled and only by the Japanese and delegation members. The foreigners will not be able to go to the Games [as spectators].
Q: What’s going on with Oleg Vernaiev? Is there a chance to see him in Tokyo?
A: I won’t answer this question. First of all, I don’t know anything and the head coach is responsible for him. Let Verniaiev himself answer this question.
Q: How close are you with Oleg Verniaiev?
A: We’re just teammates, nothing more.
Q: Was the postponement of the Olympics an advantage or disadvantage for you?
A: More of an advantage. I had time to fine-tune my new 6.0 vault. To refine it, let’s say. I had little time before because there were many competitions in a row and we were very worried that I would not be able to prepare it. I don’t know how things would have gone a year ago. So, that played into my hands.
Q: You won a bronze medal at your first Olympics in London. How unexpected was it?
A: I was working towards it. I had the highest difficulty on vault. At the time, I did 7.0 vaults and only three or four people in the world did them. The medal was expected, I just needed to execute the vaults well. I managed it then and I hope I will manage it in Tokyo.
Q: Were the 2016 Games a disappointment? Or was there something good as well?
A: Of course, it was a disappointment. We came there for a medal but everything worked out against us. We made mistakes but it’s all history now. We learned out lessons and started training slightly differently. It taught me a lot.
Q: What prevented you from doing the vault well in Rio?
A: Time! I trained the vault spontaneously, it wasn’t completely ready. It was a gamble, a fifty-fifty chance. There was no guarantee that I would land the vault on my feet. And the competition schedule wasn’t great. I competed last in the rings finals. The girls were supposed to compete after the rings final, and the vault final was after that, but the organizers changed the schedule and put the vault final first. I was second on vault and didn’t have enough time to rest and warm up. Everything happened so quickly that I , honestly, didn’t event understand what happened. I did the vault unsuccessfully.
Q: What was the main difficulty of the Radivilov vault, why was it banned?
A: It was banned because it is very difficult and dangerous. No one in the world did this vault and I don’t know if it will ever be repeated. The difficulty score of the vault was very high; perhaps, that’s why it was banned. There are many nuances which are hard even for me to explain. Perhaps, it will be allowed again in three-four years if someone does it successfully. I’m not ruling it out.
Q: Which event do you like best – rings or vault?
A: I like best the one on which I’m doing the best. Rings are a good event as well. At the moment, I’m focusing more on vault because it can result in medals. In the beginning of my career, I thought I would specialize in rings but with time, what happened was that my vaults became better and brought more medals.
Q: Do you try to focus completely on the competition or you manage to also see the cities in which the competitions are held?
A: Very rarely. The training schedule, travel, gyms, hotels – all that takes a lot of time. I don’t have any energy left to see the city. And, usually, we leave the city right after the competition. Only during the Rio Olympics, we stayed in Rio for three days and had a chance to enjoy the city.
Q: Is there a gymnast who you watched and wanted to be like him?
A: Alexey Nemov. I re-watched many videos of his competitions. He’s truly an example to follow. Nemov has 12 Olympic medals, six from Atlanta and six from Sidney.
Q: What would you like to change about artistic gymnastics in Ukraine?
A: The promotion of this sport isn’t done well in our country. There are no streams of the World Championships, World Cups, and Olympics. It’s the biggest issue. People have no idea what artistic gymnastics is. It’s honestly upsetting. We compete, but only if the country’s flag is raised, people learn that such a gymnast exists. But this problem is not unique to artistic gymnastics. Are wrestling, swimming, or rowing shown on tv? There’s only football being shown. I don’t have anything against football players, they’re doing a good job, but the attention they get is disproportionately high, while other sports get zero attention. In gymnastics, people spend 6-7 hours a day in the gym, they do such an enormous amount of work, and it’s not even shown. It’s not right. Unfortunately, sponsors don’t have my interest in gymnasts. Such an entertaining sport as gymnastics could receive more attention and promotion.
Q: Were you ever offered to switch nationalities?
A: There were offers, but it was a long time ago, six or seven years ago. But it was just talking, without specific details. Azerbaijan was collecting athletes from all around the world. But I didn’t consider switching nationalities. I want to compete for Ukraine no matter what. Money don’t make you happy.
Q: Can you describe a regular day of an Olympic-bound gymnast?
A: I wake up at 8 am. I start training at 10 am and stay in the gym until 1 pm, then lunch and rest. I resume training at 4 pm and work until 6 or 7 pm depending on the training plans. Then it’s dinner, a walk, and sleep. And each day goes like that during the preparation period.
Q: Can you drink alcohol during that period?
A: Absolutely not. It’s interferes a lot [with the training process]. You lose everything – the feeling of the apparatus, the explosiveness. Artistic gymnastics requires good body coordination. But, of course, I can relax a bit on vacation.
Q: Have you ever worked with a psychologist?
A: I’ve gone in for consultations. I’ve had such an experience. But I’ve never worked with someone on a long-term basis.
Q: What do you think about visualization? Do you visualize the vaults in you mind?
A: When you always do the same vault, you have this picture or visualization in your mind. I close my eyes and see how I run, push off the springboard, and flip. I always keep the best landings, the best vaults in my mind. They stay in my subconscious and I try to repeat them.
Q: How do you relax and release the stress after intensive training?
A: I generally distract myself with walks in the park, movies, and TV shows. There isn’t any other entertainment not because of the quarantines and lockdowns. Before, we could at least go to the movies but this is also impossible now. And my job doesn’t allow me to go out much. I spend most of my time in the gym. Gymnastics is a difficult sport and doesn’t allow for breaks, otherwise you’ll get out of shape.
Q: How did the coronavirus change your life?
A: I saw advantages for myself. It meant that it was my time to work on the vault and everything is supposed to come together. I’ve been competing with this difficult vault for over a year and during the pandemic, I won the European Championships twice, and competed successfully at a World Cup and two national championships.
Q: What does Igor Radivilov dream of outside of the sport?
A: In the future, I would like to have a business. I like dentistry as a field of work. It would be interesting to plunge into this field. But it will all be later. Right now, I’m completely focused on my sports career. And, generally, it’s hard to imagine my life even in a few years. Who could have thought a couple of years ago that the world would change so much? Everyone was dreaming of something and everything crashed overnight. I contemplated this a lot as well. It means that everything happens when it’s supposed to. I’ve been doing well in the sport and I need to finish this.
Ukraine qualified a full team to the Olympics but they also hoped to qualify an extra spot via either the all-around World Cups or the European Championships. This extra spot could have potentially gone to Radivilov since he does not compete in the all-around. However, the all-around WC series was canceled (and they did not have much hope of qualifying a spot without Oleg Verniaiev who is still suspended) and the new seniors did not have their best day during the qualification. Radivilov will definitely be on the team because he’s a contender for an individual medal and the head coach Gennady Sartynsky said that at this point, Radivilov is pretty much guaranteed a spot:
“We have qualified a team, it’s four people. Considering that Radivilov does two events, the rest need to do all-around. We have to have three all-arounders, and if we won’t, we will not be able to make the team final.”
Sartynsky said that coaches will finalize the team and the alternate in the beginning of July, but he refrained from making predictions aside from Radivilov’s participation:
“In our sport, it’s hard to say. We have two more months, it’s hard to predict because people can get injured, sick, anything. We need to fight and go through this journey. The selection will happen – we have the Stella Zakharova Cup in Kyiv now, then two World Cups, and Ukraine Cup. And two verifications after which we will decide.”
Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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