Gennady Sartynsky, the head coach of the Ukrainian MAG team and the personal coach of Oleg Verniaiev, talked to Gymnovosti about Verniaiev’s speedy return to competition and the expectations for the team.
Oleg Verniaiev underwent surgeries on both ankles in February and came back to competition only a month later after training for only a few days. He then went to the European Championships and made finals on both pommel horse and parallel bars but was not able to perform well in the finals.
Gennady Sartynsky said that the main motivation for bringing Verniaiev back so fast was to ensure he stays on track in his preparation for Worlds:
“We didn’t expect Oleg to come back so fast, it just happened so. We spent very little time preparing, but we tried. If he missed this competition, it would take him another half a year to recover. Because he competed here, we’ve already tried to do his full routine on pommel horse and to do parallel bars. If he didn’t come here, he would be left alone at him, it’s not the same kind of preparation and everything would be delayed. But this way, he went into the competition mode right away.”
For Ukraine, whether Verniaiev will be able to come back in AA will be the deciding factor in whether they’ll qualify to the Olympics as a team. They also had a plan to have Igor Radivilov qualify a nominative spots via World Cups but later realized that they need Radivilov for the team qualification as well. It seems that while the final decision is up to the gymnast, Radivilov is very likely to compete at Worlds (and thus become ineligible for earning a nominative spot if his team qualifies to the Olympics):
“For this season, our main expectations is to qualify to the Olympic Games. For that, we need to train and to have Oleg fully recovered. Even if we make it to the Olympics as a team, theoretically, only Oleg and Igor can bring us medals. So, we need to keep them in shape and to prepare them. It’s a difficult decision – whether Igor should go to Worlds or try qualifying through the World Cups. But it’s not so easy to qualify through the World Cups either. There’s a Korean gymnast there who’s currently ahead of him. He has two golds and Igor has two golds, but the Korean gymnast has higher scores, so, if he wins one more World Cup, you know… The next option is that Igor can qualify via event finals at Worlds if we don’t qualify as a team.”
Sartynsky said that he expects Radivilov to add more events to his rings and vault, and then he can potentially be on the Tokyo team (if Ukraine qualifies):
“If there will be three all-arounders and Igor, it will be very hard to fight for the medals if he’ll do only two events. He needs to add floor and he’s actually training high bar. He competes on both floor and high bar in Bundesliga. So, it will depend on which priorities everyone has. Especially, since we still don’t know what’s going on with Oleg, will he be able to compete AA, because he has both his shoulder and the legs injured and we’re only training the arm events right now. And if Oleg will be able to do only two events, there’s no team without him. We can train these two events until the fall, he’ll go out and win a medal. Or if he doesn’t, he can still qualify to the Olympics. Perhaps, he won’t be in the top 3 in the event final, he’ll take fifth or sixth place but he can still qualify a nominative spot.”
“Our gymnasts who want to compete as a team and qualify as a team need to understand that Oleg can’t carry everyone else on his shoulders, all six events, fighting after all these injuries. Everyone needs to plug in and work on it, otherwise, what’s the point? It would be easier for all of us if Oleg qualified by himself and Igor did, too, and Pakhnyuk can qualify through the all-around. We would get three nominative spots and that’s it. So, it all depends on people’s priorities. My priority is the team but I can’t train and compete in place of the gymnasts. And if we want to qualify as a team, people who want to be on the team should make effort, all of them, Oleg and the rest.”
“We have another option for an extra spot if we qualify as a team – one non-nominative spot can be won at the All-Around World Cups. But on our team, only Oleg can fight for this spot. So, it means that Oleg again has to earn a spot for someone else. It’s ok but it means that everyone has to put their efforts in it. And we still need to have Oleg recovered. He only started training a few days before Stella Zakharova Cup, it’s amazing. And despite all this, he still made two finals here. It’s just that his routines are still not well-oiled, it’s hard for him. But he’s a fighter and a competitor, he knows that if he goes out there, he always have to fight for it.”
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