This week has been a rollercoaster for the fans of Nikolai Kuksenkov. First, Kuksenkov abruptly left Penza the day of podium training for the Russian Championships without explaining what happened. This spurred rumors about his possible injury, especially since he is known to be injury prone. A day later he explained his decision to withdraw from the nationals, saying that he felt betrayed by the coaches of his district team who did not include him on the team.
Today, Andrei Rodionenko has announced the retirement of Nikolai Kuksenkov, he said to TASS: “He finished his career”. The announcement comes quite suddenly as Kuksenkov has been training and participating in the national camps and was prepared to compete on pommel horse this week. Valentina Rodionenko also commented on the news: “He’s practically a coach now, he’s 30 years old”.
Kuksenkov has not commented on the news yet. There
They treat him as if he was a 15 year old kid. He’s nearly 30 and deserves a better treatment. After all his accomplishments. All the Rods want is docile gymnasts.
Николай, переезжайте в Киев опять!
У вас миллиард фанатов!
Even if it is fake news, as we saw in komova and nabieva’s case, once the Rods retire you, a gymnast is no longer invited to camps or put on teams anyways. If Nikolai didn’t decide this for himself and they are announcing such news, it seems they were not happy with his abrupt departure and are being petty.