Ivan Stretovich had a long recovery from the wrist injury he got in 2016. He was only able to make a major team for the first time since the Olympics this year. Surgeries, growth spurt and coaching issues were among the obstacles he had to overcome to become a part of the gold-winning Russian team in Stuttgart. Stretovich talked to R-Sport about his comeback.
Q: After the Rio Olympics, you had to overcome a lot and some fans and specialists even thought you were done. How hard was it to get through all of it?
A: It was extremely hard. But I believed in myself – how can a person and an athlete not to believe in himself? Of course, I understood that some stopped taking me seriously. The most important thing was that my family was always by my side during that time, it was their support that gave me strength to fight all the difficulties and to fight through the long recovery. Generally, everything happens as it’s supposed to in life. To put it bluntly, I needed to fall into a waste pit in order to climb out of it and become a World champion. We’ve overcome all the difficulties.
Q: Were there moments when you felt like giving up?
A: Of course. Especially, when I would I place fourth, those were the hardest hits for me. I would tell myself: “But I’ve done everything, I’ve recovered, I’m trying, and I’m fighting!” There were such misses in the all-around, too, when it seemed like I did everything but still was fourth. How come? I guess it wasn’t time yet. I would beat myself up over it, look for the problem in myself, but then I would get myself together and move forward, despite anything. I changed coaches, that was the most important thing. It was a crucial moment. I used to train with Vladimir Viktorovich Kochnev, but now I’m with Vitaly Nikolayevich Bubnovsky [who coached Aleksander Balandin]. He believed in me, he got me to such a place where I’m ready to go out and compete at any moment. My mental state is completely fine.
Q: When did you start working with the new coach?
A: I started working with him after the European Championships which was not the greatest competition for me. I made the high bar final but fell. I ended up training for this competition by myself. So, Vitaly Nikolayevich, Andrey Fyodorovich [Rodionenko], Valery Pavlovich [Alfosov], and I decided that I needed to change coaches. He believed in me, I believed in him. Under his coaching, only after a month of training, I went to the Universiade in Naples and won four medals. After that, there was the training camp in Japan and right after, the Russian Cup and the second place in the all-around. I beat Artur Dalaloyan who was the reigning World all-around champion, and David Belyavskiy. My coach and I did it together and then we started preparing for Stuttgart. We’re moving at full speed, no low gears, only forward. Everything in life happens for a reason, so you need to believe in yourself and never give up.
Q: That’s a very mature approach.
A: After the Olympic Games, I realized that when you’re on top, everything goes great. But the moment you get injured, everyone forgets about you – friends, acquaintances. Even in your own city, no one really needs you anymore, there’s little support. I got a taste of all this and started seeing people differently. I don’t trust many people. I adhere to the principle that you can’t rely on anyone but yourself.
Q: After the surgery, you went to Novosibirsk. Were you afraid that you wouldn’t be invited to the national team anymore?
A: I actually didn’t think about it at all. Something else was the most difficult. After the pins were taken out of my hand, I came to the gym and realized that I grew taller and gained weight while I hadn’t been training. And I forgot almost everything. I felt that I got heavier, I lost speed, and I realized that I needed to learn everything from scratch. But I found strength to do that. Gymnastics gave me a lot, I needed to believe in myself even though I felt like giving up. Some people told me: “Stop, why continue, you’ve achieved everything already.” But I never stopped believing in myself.
Q: It’s very noticeable how you’ve matured in the past three years. Did the difficulties make you stronger?
A: Among other things. When people put you on a pedestal but turn away from you the next day… The saddest thing is when the coach doesn’t believe in you either and says: “You don’t need this, stay at home.” Why? I don’t want to stay at home, I want to compete.
Q: In the past, you used to often lack consistency. But in the team competition in Stuttgart, some crazy level of confidence emerged in you, especially at the defining moment on high bar. Where did it come from?
A: From my coach, this is all from him. We started working together in June, only four months have passed, but the work has changed radically, from warming up to the second practice. I started paying attention to every little thing, let’s take conditioning. In the past, I basically didn’t condition. But now I come to the gym at 7 am for that. The work and my attitude towards it have changed because the coach believed in me. I realized that I could do it, that I’m not just some gymnast, I’m a silver Olympic medalist, Merited Master of Sport. I’d done it before, so why wouldn’t I be able to repeat it? If Vitaly Nikolayevich didn’t agree to coach me, everything would be different.
Q: On which events can you upgrade for the Olympics?
A: On pommel horse, I can definitely add 0.3 in difficulty. On floor – 0.2-0.3 as well. On high bar, my difficulty right now is 6.3 but I can do 6.5. On bars, perhaps, I can add 0.2. Of course, for the Olympic Games, we will be upgrading. There are things to work on and to strive for. Even compared to the European Championships, the difficulty I did in Szczecin was 5.9-6.0, now I do 6.3. It can take some people years to add 0.1 or 0.2 and we managed to add two times that in three months. And this was just on high bar. We’re on the right path.
Q: Talking about the Olympics, do the talks about possible ban for Russia for the Tokyo Olympics worry you?
A: That’s the first time I’m hearing about it, honestly. I’m serious. I try not to read stuff like that. Back then [in 2016], there were also talks, we actually flew in without knowing whether we would compete. But we came ready and did everything. We changed history for the first time there and did it the second time here on Wednesday by becoming the first World team champions in the history of Russia.
Q: Third time coming soon?
A: Everything will happen in its own time. Even this competition showed: after bars, we were behind the Chinese team by 1.5 points. But we went out to compete on high bar and mentally squashed them. We couldn’t give up, we had nothing to lose. And they started to get cautious in order to keep the score gap which was their undoing, while we went full out.
Q: There’s such crazy level of competition on the Russian team. In addition to you, there are such strong all-arounders as Nikita Nagornyy, Artur Dalaloyan, and David Belyavskiy. Does this competition play an important role?
A: The competition motives you. When you are training with the best ones, you try to catch up with them and become one of the best. When you’re alone in an empty gym, you have no one to look up to. What happens here: one did a new element, another wants to try it too. Each one tries to catch up with the others. There was a huge leap in Russian gymnastics, wasn’t it?
Q: To put it mildly.
A: That’s because everyone started believing in themselves. There’s this atmosphere on the team – everyone is here for each other, there’s complete support. We are as one, that’s all.
Photo: Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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