Rodionenko: Remove Biles and we will easily beat the US team

Both Russian men and women left the European Championships with a collection of medals of different colors. Valentina Rodionenko told MatchTV she was very happy with the results despite some mistakes from the gymnasts and talked about their plans for the rest of the pre-Olympic period.

Q: Did this competition decide the Olympic team’s roster?

A: We have Nagornyy, Belyavskiy, and Kartsev here who will sure be on the team, although no one’s safe from injuries. But Kartsev for now is among these four, same as Dalaloyan whose recovery we’re counting on. Even if Artur won’t be able to compete on all six events – his signature events are floor and vault – we’re still take him for four events.

Q: How is Artur doing now?

A: We talk on the phone, he says he’s fine. His injury is not as serious as it originally seemed to us. It’s a small partial tear, he had surgery the next day and I talked to him after the surgery, before I flew here. He was already saying that everything was fine. He’s now training together with Dmitri Lankin who also had an injury.

Q: Judging by the performances here, could you feel that the team lacked competition experience?

A: Even though there wasn’t a team competition here, we tried an Olympic team in Basel, four people. And, of course, Dalaloyan’s presence was missed. He was needed to earn more medals. But the most important goal was to see how Kartsev would do. And he met the expectations. It was his first senior international competition and he did was what required of him.

Q: Kartsev wasn’t too happy with his performance [at Euros].

A: He’s not happy, yes. And that’s good. He says: “I wanted to make the final!” But David is a more experienced athlete and Kartsev lacked experience to beat him in the all-around qualification. Also, it’s important to understand that in the qualification, Kartsev competed in the last subdivision together with Nagornyy. This always plays a role in gymnastics whether you want it or not – judges are stricter, they don’t forgive some mistakes.

Q: He complained that he’s too tall for rings.

A: He’ll be fine and he’ll do rings at the level of an all-arounder. He doesn’t need to win on rings, he just needs to get 14.0 – 14.5 for it. Look at the roster at the Euros, all-arounders are a rare breed, there aren’t many.

Q: Nikita Nagornyy is the hero of the 2021 Euros. Assessing his readiness in percentages, how ready is he?

A: I think, he’s about 80% ready. But Nikita has a strong character. Remember his stumble on pommel horse? Another athlete would end up on the floor but he save the routine. That’s Nikita, that’s his character. After all the finals at Euros he was sitting with us and you could see that he was very tired. But he said: “I still have something left in me and if I was called to perform again now, I’d do it differently.” I’ll repeat, it’s his character and we don’t always know what to expect from him. Great athletes are exactly like that.

Q: Where does David Belyavskiy get his motivation at 29 years old?

A: We protect David, he glues the team together. The guys, both Dalaloyan and Nagornyy, keep saying: “Don’t discard David, he has to be at the Olympics!” They have a very strong sense of unity. After the qualification, David’s back hurt a bit and the men’s coaches told me that they could take David out of the competition. I asked what the athlete himself thought of it, I wanted to hear his opinion. Belyavskiy came up to me and said that he wanted to compete. That solved it, we go with the competition results and if he wants to compete, he’ll do it without any special allowances. So, it was decided.

Q: Talking about how united the men’s team is: Nikita said that the Russian team went through such things that no other team went through. What did he mean?

A: Gymnastics is such a sport that when we go to a competition, we don’t know what can happen to whom and when. Dalaloyan is an example of such a case. Who would have thought that this could happen the day before the flight? That’s why we have reserve athletes, a bench, even though we don’t have an equal replacement for Artur, that’s absolutely obvious. Kartsev will be a very strong gymnast but he’s still maturing.

Q: Girls.

A: Everything’s fine. Three young girls – Listunova, Urazova, and Melnikova – didn’t flinch. They were nervous, of course. Urazova competed in the first subdivision and started on beam – it’s sure death, it’s very hard. And how she managed to endure it… She took out half of her difficulty and didn’t fall but didn’t get a good score. She was supposed to fight for the gold on bars but you saw how clenched she got. But it will all pass, the Russian Cup is ahead of us and everyone saw at Euros that these girls can fight.

Q: Listunova’s gold in the all-around.

A: Before Euros, I was asked about the possible scenarios on the women’s team. I pointed at Viktoriia and said that she would become the all-around European champion. I didn’t know then that Angelina Melnikova would make mistakes but Viktoriia is potentially stronger now, she just lacks experience.

Q: Vika was crying after floor, she couldn’t explain her mistakes.

A: She was. And it’s our mistake as coaches. We shouldn’t have brought them to warm up four hours in advance. They did all the tumbling there and then went out and faltered in their tumbling, both Angelina and Viktoriia. It happens. They were tired both physically and mentally, this competition was hard and stressful.

Q: After a year-and-a-half-long break.

A: There were many difficulties, countless tests, warnings, restrictions. It’s hard. If someone forgot their mask at the hotel, they would get a call and a warning right away. But it’s fine, we’ll deal with it.

Q: David said he couldn’t catch his breath in a mask.

A: And have you seen how Nagornyy started having issues? With his [great] health! But he started having issues on the last day. Four days without rest for men – there’s never been such a schedule. But they prepared for this.

Q: It’s April. David had back issues, Nikita spent a few hours doing physical therapy every night. Is it always like that during the Olympic year – at the limit, without protecting the athletes?

A: Always. You see how this sport is. Six events, each one has different requirements, you need to be prepared for vault, and high bar, and rings, and these are completely different qualities that an athlete needs. Imagine how hard it is to select people like that? The guys that would fit all six events. That’s why all-around is very difficult, of course.

Q: Where do you get new gymnasts, where does the reserve bench come from?

A: We comb through the whole country. And there are fewer and fewer athletes. Our kids’ health is worse and worse. When they come to us, they get examined, and need their spines fixed right away. It’s not an issue of the sport, it goes much deeper. Our athletes are all from smaller cities, from the regions, only Listunova is from Moscow. And it’s not accidental, I think this issue happens in all the sports.

Q: It’s hard to understand how ready are the American, Japanese, Chinese gymnasts now. There are no competitions and there’s very little information about the rivals.

A: Have you seen Biles? What is there even to say? She’s 70% of the American team, you remove her and we will easily beat them. And the American guys are nothing special, they can get into the medals on one or two events. In MAG, our main rivals are the Japanese and Chinese gymnasts. And we follow them, read, watch videos that we get. The Japanese team got reinforced by two guys that have very difficult floor routines. But ours aren’t easy either. We just need to plan the work well before the Olympics.

Q: How will the team plan that work?

A: The Russian Cup will be in the middle of June and on July 16th we’re flying to Tokyo already. We’ll fly from Moscow even though before the pandemic, we had some ideas of holding a camp there, but it’s all canceled now because if one person gets sick, they can send the whole team into a quarantine. So, we decided to fly to the Olympic village a week before the start of the gymnastics competition at the Games. I hope it will be enough time.

Photo: Elena Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation

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