While some gymnasts prefer to take it slowly coming back from an injury, Oleg Verniaiev is running at full steam. He’s been competing almost every week since the middle of September and, despite getting additional injuries, withdrew from only one competition.
He gave an interview to the Ukrainian Gymnastics Federation in which he talked about competing at Worlds and his plans for the future.
Q: Your season ended up being quite difficult: injuries, surgeries and coming back to competitions. How was it?
A: This season turned out to be more difficult than ever but, at the same time, interesting and emotional. Coming back after the surgery in such a short period of time was hard, risky and even scary, but interesting. Everyone was surprised that I competed in the all-around at the World Championships. Coming back to competitions is always cool. I’m very happy. Frankly, I was coming to this competition with some sort of child-like emotions: joy and happiness. Of course, we sped up the recovery. Usually, you can only start training a year after the surgery but I started competing 8 months after the surgery and a month later competed in the all-around at Worlds.
Q: You’ve only competed a few times during this season before the Worlds this year. Was that the first time in your career?
A: Before Worlds, we always only have a few competitions, in contrast to the first half of the season which culminates in the European Championships. The active competition period begins after Worlds. But in my case, having the third competition of the year at Worlds was a first in my career.
Q: You came to Doha as one of the medal contenders in any case. What goals you and your coach set for this competition?
A: Our main goal at Worlds was the team, that is, to make the top-24 in order to try to qualify to the Tokyo Olympics. Of course, I really wanted to make the top-8 in the all-around and I definitely expected a medal on bars. We were mostly preparing three events: pommel horse, vault, and bars. I really wanted to compete well on pommel horse, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to. And I also made a mistake on vault.
Q: Was the fact that you did the all-around after such a long break and made the final important for you?
A: Honestly, I had lots of doubts, lots of questions, lots of pain, lots of fears. After making the all-around final, my coach and I decided to risk it and do all six events. And after I did my rings routine and got a score higher than in qualification, I thought: “Ok, I’m lucky today, I’ll push till the end”. But then I made a mistake on high bar and the rest didn’t go according to the plan, I didn’t have enough endurance, my physical shape wasn’t at the top. After that, it was hard to get myself together. Not because I threw the competition, it was just really hard.
Q: What were you thinking and feeling going into the parallel bars final?
A: I was only thinking about going out there and doing my 6.7 routine without large mistakes. And that was it, I wasn’t thinking about anything else. I knew that if the Chinese did his routine, I wouldn’t catch up with him but I also knew that in case of my successful routine, I’d be unreachable as well. I just needed to go out there and do my thing, which is exactly what happened.
Q: What can you say about your main rival on bars, Zou Jingyuan? Could you get to the same difficulty level? Are you preparing a new routine in order to fight for the gold next year?
A: He is very good, young, with lots of potential, and he’s already a champion. His difficulty is incredible and his execution is also very good. It’s realistic to catch up with him in difficulty, but that’s a grandmaster’s difficulty, and in order to do it, I’d have to step my game up and that takes time. Not a month or two but to do compete with this routine for a year or two. I will try to get to the Olympics in such a shape that would allow me to fight him as his equal.
Q: Tell us about the organization of the competition and the fans. It was the first time a Muslim country hosted such a competition.
A: The organization wasn’t bad. The Aspire Dome Arena where the competition was held is very large. By the way, we actually competed there in 2009 at Gymnasiade. In general, everything was fine except for the equipment by a Chinese brand TaiShan: the pommel horse was uncomfortable, the vault was hard and the floor wasn’t much better either. Many complained. And the whole time, it was cold in the training gyms because of the air conditioning. And, of course, there were barely any people. It wasn’t as exciting to compete there as in Europe where you get a full arena and that was a huge disadvantage. Otherwise, everything was pretty good.
Q: Now, let’s move on the Bundesliga competitions. For how many years have you been competing for the same club?
A: I’ve been competing for TG SAAR for 5 years already. I like everything, it suits me. We have very good guys, a good team, many Russian speakers. Being in their company is very easy and comfortable. They always help me and support me. Soon, there will be a mini-final in Cottbus, against the Cottbus club for which Igor Radivilov competes. It will be my fifth final but we haven’t won any yet. We will fight for the third place.
Q: In addition to competing in the Bundesliga, you’ve also participated in several other competitions. You got injured in one of them but still competed in the next competition. How serious was the injury? Is everything ok now?
A: This has never happened to me before. Honestly speaking, it was very difficult. Upon arriving in Milan, while leaving the bus, I twisted my foot so hard I even heard a crack. For the first ten minutes, I couldn’t even stand on it. Then, after arriving in Chiasso, the local physical therapists started working on it, they really helped me, I want to say special thanks to the head physical therapists at the Angelo Center. They worked with me before the practices and after the practices. They even offered to help outside the competition. Thanks to them, I was able to compete at the Artur Gander Memorial. But then, after doing a basic vault, I landed unsuccessfully and injured the foot I had the surgery on. After that, of course, competing at the Swiss Cup was in question but I managed to push through.
Q: What is the goal for you and for the team for the next season?
A: We only have one goal – to get a team that would be able to fight for the medals at the Olympics. For that, we need four strong all-arounders. Right now these are me, Petya Pahniuk, Vlad Hryko, and Zhenya Yudenkov, who’s recovering after an injury. We also have a very good gymnast with lots of potential – Nazar Chepurnoy, he’ll become senior in the Olympic year. The rest of our good juniors are still too young. I think that these five all-arounders, if healthy, can easily fight for a team medal at Worlds and Olympics. We have all the chances, we just need to work. I want to win a team medal at the Olympics. Coming back to my personal goals, I’d like to get my all-around results to the previous level, to raise the difficulty on each event in order to fight for the medals. But in this quad, the team is my priority.
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