Despite being an Olympic silver medalist and multiple European winner and medalist in the all-around, Oleg Verniaiev had never won an all-around medal at the World Championships until last night.
Verniaiev qualified to the all-around final in 8th place with a score of 84.299. This and his injuries did not quite make him one of the favorites for a medal in the final. However, after Verniaiev was unable to qualify for any event finals, he focused on giving his best in the all-around. While Ukraine qualified in 4th to the team final, they were quite far behind the third place, Japan, and decided not to give a fight. Verniaiev did only one routine – on pommel horse – in the team final and the spotlight was on Yeugen Yudenkov and Vladislav Hryko who compete on all the events:
“Judging by the scores, currently, it would be extremely hard for us to fight for a top three place. I’m not in the best shape and neither is Petya. We decided, since there was likely no chance, to downgrade a bit in order to save us for the finals. And the guys need more experience, so they competed on all the events. Zhenya did really well both days. Vlad, of course, had a few mistakes but he’ll learn from them. We will be preparing to compete as a team for the European Championships.”
Verniaiev feels like not making any event finals was still an important learning experience for him:
“Any experience, whether positive or not, is always important. First, I was baffled that I didn’t make any event finals, but then I started thinking and realized what was the reason. It wasn’t because I did something wrong, but you need to understand that I’ve had injuries. I’d managed to do it at the European Games but couldn’t do it here. I’m not in the shape I used to be in. Before Rio, I was able to train without breaks for four years and was always in shape, but now all these ups and downs are breaking the flow.”
In the all-around final, Verniaiev decided to upgrade on five out of six events, adding 1.4 in difficulty across the events. He feels like downgrading distracts him and leads to more mistakes, so easier routines did not make sense for him:
“Again, after the qualification, I saw that the more I downgrade, the more I try to save myself, the lower I fall. So, yesterday, we decided that I’d do my full routines. If I came to the high bar and saw that I was low in the standings, I wouldn’t do keep doing the full routines, I’d do easy ones. My experience shows that when I downgrade, this always ends up being the difference I needed. So, I went all out on every event where I could. I don’t think it’s the case for every athlete, but for myself, I know the more I slow down, the worse it is for me. Before Rio, I was going full steam ahead, so everything was working out for me. I think we’re going back to that now. I can do it while I’m still young.”
When asked if he ever thought about retiring after the string of injuries, Verniaiev said he did:
“Such thoughts were with me all the time after all the injuries. This is the sport – while you’re stepping away, someone else comes. You see how much everyone upgraded. Before, I could be in the top four or five with a fall. Now, everyone has improved and I need to catch up and do my full routines. I’ve had such thoughts but they are gone. I think they won’t be back again and we’ll be preparing for Tokyo. Every time you come to the gym after an injury, when you have 5-6 extra kilos of weight, when you don’t want to do something but they make you, when you’ve seemingly achieved everything but still yearn for something – it’s very hard. The most difficult thing is do make the last step, when you’re almost there.”
He had the highest difficulty in the all-around final but plans to upgrade even more for Tokyo, barring any injuries. He also has six or seven competitions before the end of the year (he hasn’t decided yet regarding the seventh) but thinks it’s better for him to compete a lot:
“I’m really happy I’m coming back. I’d rather be tired than not compete as often. I love competing.”
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