Oleg Verniaiev surprised everyone with a speedy comeback after two ankle surgeries. At Euros, he made finals on both events he competed. He then also competed at France’s Top 12 league and is now preparing for European Games. In an interview to UA:Pershiy channel, Verniaiev said that compared to the last quad, the preparation for the Olympics is extremely difficult because of neverending injuries and he is currently not sure whether he will be able to restore all-around in time for Worlds. Although knowing Verniaiev, even if he comes to Stuttgart after not training all six events for a year, he’ll still end up competing in the all-around.
Verniaiev said:
“The difference [with the last quad] is gigantic because before Rio, I was preparing and going forward at full steam, but now the injuries are preventing me from doing it. It’s much harder, the preparation is much worse. But there is still a year and a half ahead, we’ll see how it goes. If I’ll manage to get my shoulder stronger in the next half a year and it will stop hurting, then I’ll have enough time to prepare well. If not, we’ll see, perhaps, we’ll remove something and focus on specific events.”
“Each competition is part of the preparation for the Olympics. The most important one will be the World Championships, the Olympic qualification. I’m doing six events. Without those six events it’s hard for the team, same as without any other all-arounder. If any of the all-arounders can’t compete, that’s it, it means that the team is going to “bleed”. We have a limited number of people. It’s possible to cover for missing routines on one or two events but if an all-arounder is out, that’s it. The Olympic qualification is very difficult.”
“All the guys are working and trying hard, they understand that we can qualify as a team or only one or two people will qualify individually. And, I’ll say honestly, this is very hard. Last year, when I haven’t really processed it yet, I thought everything’s simple, but the rules have changed, everything has changed. It’s really hard. Petya Pakhnuyk is working hard. He now needs to recover from all the injuries completely and get back to his full all-around difficulty. He’s an important player for our team. Bars are bars, but we all need to recover the all-around now. In order to qualify on bars, you’d need to win a medal. But for the team, we just need to compete cleanly, and then four people will qualify. As my coach says, everyone needs to think about themselves, to improve on their events, and then the team will be great”.
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