Verniaiev: I’m always going for a medal, no matter what condition I’m in

Oleg Verniaiev came to the European Games just a few months after having surgeries on both legs and said he was just trying to survive during the qualification. However, he then went on to win silver in the all-around and on pommel horse and a gold on parallel bars. This was a huge achievement but the Ukrainian public is quite used to Verniaiev getting medals. One of the first questions Verniaiev got in the mixed zone after the AA final from a Ukrainian journalist was why his results went downhill – he won AA at the first European Games but “only” got silver in Minsk. The gymnast shut this line of questioning down right away:

“Going downhill is when you’re sitting somewhere on the curb with a bottle [of vodka], not when you’re winning silver at the European Games, so don’t compare those things. It’s a good result, and I was in a better shape and health in 2015, so it’s fine. For my current state of health, it’s more than wonderful, I’m happy. I survived, now I need to recover and compete in the event finals.”

“I’m very tired. Of course, you always want more but I’m happy. After all, I could’ve been left without a medal at all. I managed to bear it until the end, I did my floor, so everything’s fine. Of course, I had a fall on rings but what can you do, I lack strength and stamina. To train only for a month and a half before such a competition is not great. It can be ok when you’re generally in shape but not when you’ve only had surgery three months ago. We focused on pommel horse and parallel bars but also managed to get a medal in the all-around, so that’s nice.”

Verniaiev liked the organization of the competition:

“Generally, everything’s organized on a very high level, I don’t have any complaints about the arena. The equipment’s good, the gyms are good, it’s not too cold or too hot, there’s enough of everything, there’s no crowd in the gyms, so everything was planned on a high level.”

Verniaiev said he wasn’t really given a choice whether to compete at the European Games but he also felt like he needed to get back in the all-around really fast:

“I wasn’t asked [if I wanted to go]. There’s a team competition at Worlds, you know, so we need to qualify to the Olympics, to prepare the all-around. Without my all-around, or even without any other all-arounder on our team, we’ll lose at Worlds. So, we already need to work and to prepare and to believe in it as a whole team, and then we’ll manage to qualify.”

“I’m always going for a medal, no matter what condition I’m in. I even aimed at a medal at Euros, it just didn’t work out. I don’t travel to competitions as a tourist, I can’t do that. If I go, I need to do everything or it’s better not to go at all. This is my mindset. If you came, you need to do everything you can. So, that’s why I’m saying that I didn’t expect to compete in the all-around final. I thought that if I hurt myself, I’d have to withdraw from the all-around final because I have more chances for a medal on pommel horse or parallel bars and I need to save myself for them. Six events are much harder than two, after all.”

Verniaiev said one of the reasons his recovery is not going that well is the lack of medical help at the training center:

“Nothing’s good with my health. If only we had normal medicine at the training center. We don’t have doctors, we don’t have medicine, we don’t have medical centers, nothing. I come to competitions and people help me. Sometimes, it’s the Israeli doctor, and now I’ve also met a Ukrainian doctor who accompanied me today, he’s helping, but otherwise it’s a disaster.”

“In Ukraine, you need to look for doctors. And if I need to commute somewhere every day between practices, when I’m preparing for competitions, in this heat, it’s hard, even though I have a car. I won’t be able to rest between the practices, it’ll be hard. We don’t have medicine, we don’t have recovery specialists. In normal countries, you get recovery procedures between the practices, while at home, you check Instagram, sit for a bit, take a nap, and that’s it, off to the second practice.”

When asked if he’d get any prize money from the government for his medals from the European Games, he said he’s going to save the money in case he needs more surgeries in the future:

“I’m going to be saving for the next surgery, in case anything happens. Although I still owe money for the last surgery. The Ministry of Sports helped a bit with covering it but not completely. Not everyone can pay $17,000 for surgery. So, tell this to those who are complaining that we earned a lot of money at the Olympics. I paid for surgeries about $10,000 in 2017 and $17,000 this year – that’s where the money from the Olympics is going. You train, you get prize money, you pay for the treatment.”

Last year, some Ukrainian gymnasts talked publicly about having to take chalk from the chalk buckets at competitions in order to bring it home. Verniaiev also said in the past that he had to bring grips and tape back from Bundesliga competitions to his teammates at home. Now, he says, the main team is getting most of the things they need in gym and the funding is overall better but gymnasts not on the main team are still struggling and the equipment in the gyms other than the training center is atrocious:

“Well, we have chalk now, it’s more or less fine for the main team. But we can’t really fund, say, thirty guys and thirty girls. Those who are on the main team are more or less fine, while those who aren’t still need to work for it, like we used to. To buy it on their own or to bring it home from competitions, that’s a normal situation.”

“We modern equipment at our training center now but I’ll keep complaining publicly because we need more apparatuses. It’s great that we got new equipment in the past few years, we have everything now, but we also need to send equipment to the regional gyms. You can’t have only one gym in the country with normal equipment. We need to have three-four large cities with modern gyms, so that the guys could train on normal equipment and not on something that’s older than all of us together. Then we’ll have a stream of young gymnasts. Right now we have two-three young ones and what’s next? Nothing. That’s how everything can end. We’re not immortal either, we can maybe compete for another quad or half a quad and that’s it.”

The Junior Worlds were happening at the same time as the European Games and Verniaiev was extremely proud of the junior Ukrainian MAG team winning the team competition:

“The team is amazing, they did a great job. The did verifications together with us and even won the all-around at some. At the last verification, Petya was third, I was fourth, the juniors placed first and second. They’re working hard. Nazar can potentially make the Olympic team if he keeps working like that. It’s a pity that Ilia Kovtun is not old enough for these Olympics because if both of them were on the team, it would be very competitive. And more gymnasts are getting back, Hryko and Yudenkova are coming back from injuries, Petya and I, too. Nazar is getting to a high level but he needs to work on his mindset, he’s inconsistent. He doesn’t have enough experience plus, when you’re going to competitions as a junior, with just your coach, it’s one thing, but when you go together with the seniors and the head coach is nearby with his whip and carrot, it’s easier because the support of the older gymnasts affects you a lot. The juniors need to go to some competition or a camp abroad with us.”

Verniaiev was very happy with his high execution scores on pommel horse and also plans on changing the parallel bars routine in order to fight for gold at Worlds:

“I’m really happy with the deductions I got [on pommel horse], with the fact that I got 8.7 in execution. It means that we made the correct changes to the program, we’re on the right path and now we just need to upgrade the difficulty a bit and everything will be great. Until Worlds, I need to change my bars routine because it will be hard to fight even for the silver with the current one. People are upgrading, catching up – I need to upgrade, too. We have a new routine but it will depend on my shoulder because the new elements on bars are the ones that add a lot of load on my shoulder. So, we’ll see if the shoulder will be able to withstand it.”

Photo: Ukrainian Olympic Committee

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