Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov interview - Lupita translates

Lupita translates a Sovietski Sport interview with newly adopted Russian MAG team member, former Ukraine Olympian, Nikolai (Mykola) Kuksenkov.

Nikolai Kuksenkov and his sister, journalist Irina.  Courtesy of Sovietski Sport

KUKSENKOV INTERVIEWED BY HIS SISTER JOURNALIST IRINA KUKSENKOVA

A STOLEN MEDAL

� Tell me, Kolya, when did you first ever think about going to live in Russia?
 

� Irina, it was a long time ago, when we were living in Belgium, where Dad was the national team�s coach. You entered the Journalism School in Moscow University and I thought it would be nice to go to Russia. I was still a kid and I went back to Kiev with our parents. Later I was seriously injured before the Beijing Olympics, I had surgery and a long recovery. You remember, I came to see you in Moscow, we went to different specialists. I didn't know if I would come back to elite sport. The doctors didn�t give a very promising prognosis. At the end, I watched the Olympics on TV. ?nd I lived for the following four years thinking of London.

� Before London, a new injury...
 

� I tore my foot joints when I was practising tumbling. The doctors questioned my participation at the Olympics, at least in vault and floor. It�s difficult to express that situation. I decided to recover and compete on pommel horse. I couldn�t miss a second Olympics.

When we arrived to London, Dad didn�t know if I would compete in the All Around or only on four events. We decided to remove difficulty and to try to make the All Around.

I worked for the team on the first day. We put on an excellent performance. Then came a scandal, that had never happened in the history of gymnastics � we were stolen our medal was stolen.

� What did you feel when you heard that the bronze medal was going to the Japanese team?
 

� You never forget this kind of thing. Injustice! I think I was in a kind of fog. We finished the competition in third position and the bronze medal. TV showed a table, where the Ukraine was third. Once the competition finished, the Japanese, decided, without respecting the rules, that the Ukrainian team had to fall off the podium.

The Japanese submitted their protest when the delay was over. Had the protest been submitted by any other country, it wouldn�t have been filed. A Japanese gymnast fell, hit his head on the pommel horse, yet that dismount counted for him. It�s ridiculous. Everyone who understands gymnastics was sincerely sorry for us. Who needs a sport where a good performance is not necessary, where you have to ask properly?

�Whom?
 

� In London I understood that sport is also politics and business. I thought that I would never compete again. Yet I overcame those feelings. And I decided to compete again.

� Did you compete in the all around throwing in the towel?
 

� I was in physical pain. I concentrated and did what I could. I came fourth, again off podium. In London I realized I had to change something. I thought again of moving to Russia.

A NEW PASSPORT

� You always expressed your uneasiness when your father was the national team�s head coach...
 

� Sometimes you don�t have the feeling he�s simply your father. By the way, Dad said he respected my decision. It�s true that he has now problems in the Ukraine�

� Who�s now your coach?
 

�Igor Kalabushkin, in Vladimir. He is an excellent specialist and a good person. Psychologically we fit one another. I like his sense of humour. I enjoy going to the gym to train with him. Kalabushkin was a coach to the late Yuri Riazanov. We were very good friends...

� ?nd why precisely Vladimir?
 

� Vitali Ivanchuk, director of the Vladimir School, had made this proposal to me some time ago. He invited both my father and me. I accepted, but Dad decided to stay.

� When will you show me the Russian passport?
 

�The Minister of Sport Vitali Mutko has already sent a letter to Putin about my documents. I�ve been told that I�ll get my passport in February.

� You probably know that in the Ukraine some people say you are a traitor?
 

� These people say so because they don�t know the situation of Ukrainian gymnastics. I had to pay for my surgery. They didn�t allocate funds for the national team. When you give everything, including your health, this is unbearable!

� Is it different in Russia?
 

� It�s like night and day! I spent three weeks at Ozero Krugloye [Round Lake, the Russian National Training Centre] and felt the difference. Everything is done for the athletes; you only have to train. A beautiful gym, numerous specialists, a special coach for pommel horse or high bar.

� How did your new teammates welcome you?
 

� Very well, I have known them for a long time. We spend three weeks at Krugloye. Then everyone goes home for a week. I go to Vladimir.

 
-      Which are your next competitions? 

-      The Russian championship is going to take place in Penza in March. Then in April in Moscow the European Championships. I wish I stay healthy and I can fight for a medal.

� You are being compared to G�rard Depardieu, who gave back French citizenship and took Russian...
 

� Of course, it�s pleasant, but it�s not a correct comparison. I�m Russian! You know that, contrary to Depardieu, we have roots in Russia. Dad is from the Moscow region; Mum is from Bashkiria. In the Soviet period people worked in different places in a huge country. After the dismantlement of the Soviet Union, not everyone came back home. I felt Russian all my life.

� I remember that you wrote Putin a letter, when you were a kid and we were living in Belgium. ?um has kept it. Now we laugh when we read it.
 

� At my Belgian school, the teacher told us about Moscow: misery, deprivation, abandoned children. I stood up and said that it was not true. Unlike the teacher, I had been in Russia, and had never seen this. Belgian kids humiliated us Russians constantly. I hit a boy and I had to go to the headmaster�s office. I came back home humiliated. I wrote a letter to Vladimir Putin, who had just become the Russian president. In my letter I explained how the Russians were perceived in Belgium.

� Don�t you have the impression that this letter from your childhood reached the President?
 

� And as an answer I�ll soon receive my Russian passport? Yes, probably. On my passport they won�t write Mikola, but Nikolai as my parents called me. Here you have a subject you can dwell upon!

Nikolai Kuksenkov was born in June 1989 in Kiev.

As a member of the Ukrainian team: European Junior Champion. Third in the European Championships (2011). Winner of the Universiade (2011). Winner of stages of the World Cup. Fourth in the AA at the London Olympics (2012).

At the end of 2012, got the Russian citizenship and will perform for the Russian team.

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Evgeny Grebenkin: we cannot replace the current members of our team

Lupita translates here the first interview of any significance with Evgeny Grebionkin, newly appointed senior coach of the Russian WAG team.  The article appears on the press website of the Russian Ministry of Sport.
 

The gymnastics national team�s head coach, Evgeny Grebionkin, has talked in an interview to FTP-Press about the changes in the staff, the specificities of the new season and the new Code of Points.

- Evgeny Anatolevich, what has changed in your work as the national team�s head coach?

- I�ve been working with this team for four years. The thing is that I have more duties now. I used to focus on bars, essentially. Now I follow the athletes on all apparatus. I have to organize the training process right now.

- How do you feel about the young gymnasts who have joined the team?

- So far it�s difficult to say something specific. Four years ago Mustafina, Komova, Nabieva joined the team the same way. It was tough for them at the beginning. Nevertheless, this year the young gymnasts don�t have competitions.

- There are new coaches working for the team �

- Exactly. We have two new coaches: an experienced coach Marina Bulashenko (beam) and a young coach Anton Stolyar (bars).

- Do you share your experience between yourselves?

- Our group is very friendly. We help each other because when you are following the gymnast, you can miss something. From the outside errors are easier to see.

- At the beginning of a new quad there�s always a new Code of Points.

- Yes, there are new combinations that add value to the score for execution. Beam will be scored more severely. The elements have not changed, but they will not be given bonus for the combination.  If Mustafina had a 7.1 start value, according to the new CoP, her routine will be worth 6.5.  This is why we have to look for elements that will add value to her routine.

-  What can the fans expect from our gymnasts this season?

- This season will be very difficult for the Russian national team. Everywhere the majority of Olympic medalists will rest. For instance, a lot of American gymnasts will not compete this year. Some of them have injuries. In our situation we cannot replace the team.  Our gymnasts will have to compete.  It�s difficult for them after the physical and psychological loads of the Olympics to resume training. Yet the girls are trying hard, and this is nice to see.

- Do you train for this year�s competitions or do you focus on Rio 2016?

- This year we are preparing for the European Championships and the Universiade in Kazan. Contrary to other years, we plan to have our first team competing there. We have four good junior gymnasts (born in 1998-1999). We�ll prepare them for Rio. Some of them are too young to compete in competitions for gymnast born after 1997. We plan for Shelgunova to participate at some stages of the World Cup for her to gain experience.

- Which control competitions are foreseen before the European Championships?

- First, the Russian Championships [editor : 1st to 7th March, Penza]. We will choose the team for the European Championships [17th to 21st April]. Then the World Cup stage in France [16th March] invites gymnasts who performed in the Olympic finals. Four more girls will compete in Cottbus [22nd to 24th March].

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'I hope we will prove that gymnastics can be both difficult and beautiful' - Valentina Rodionenko

Lupita has kindly translated the key points of this Ministry of Sport video which has been doing the rounds on the internet.




The national teams are currently training at Ozero Krugloye. They train 2-3 times a day. They have begun a new Olympic quad. Still, important competitions are ahead. Junior gymnasts are training with them.
 

Every gymnast has an aim: Rio, the Universiade �   For Mustafina the Universiade competition is the most important this year.

Their participation at this year�s competitions will depend on their condition.

Valentina Rodionenko: I hope everything will turn out well. We�ll fight for the medals. We have to. 

The team changed its working system and the staff.

Rodionenko: There�s a struggle. We are for more classical gymnastics, with an excellent level of execution.  The Americans show more athletic gymnastics. After 2000 our team lost its position and the Americans imposed their style. Yet, I hope we�ll prove that gymnastics can be both difficult and beautiful. 

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An incredible story: Maria Filatova close to securing her Russian citizenship, finally

Lupita translates a 23rd January article from Sovietsky Sport. 

Maria Filatova looks likely to secure her Russian citizenship in February.  Good luck, Maria, from all of us xxx

This incredible story has been around for 17 years! Born in the USSR, two-time Olympic gymnastics champion Maria Filatova has tried to obtain Russian nationality. Now the end of this process seems to be nearer than ever.

Maria Filatova is 51. She was born in Leninsk-Kuznetski. In 1976 and 1980 she became Olympic champion in gymnastics. Many people remember a minuscule girl with funny bows in her hair, who won gold and glory for our country.

After the dismantling of the Soviet Union, Filatova worked first in Europe and later in the US. She now lives with her husband and her daughter in Rochester (New York State). Since 1996 she has been trying to be granted a Russian passport. So far she only has an old Soviet passport and a US green card, which don�t allow her to travel to Leninsk-Kuznetski to visit her mother�s and her coach�s tombs.

Aman Tuleev, Governor of the Keremovo Region, wrote to the Commission for Citizenzhip under the President of the Russian Federation. In autumn last year, he asked to grant Filatova with citizenship. The prestigious lawyer Aleksei Sinitsyn prepared all the documents.

� Before last summer, before we began to act, nobody did what had to be done in a competent way, � stated Sinitsyn.  You had to look for the law on citizenship and read it carefully. The mechanism to be granted citizenship for persons with special merits in the field of sport. In our case, governor ?man Tuleev submitted the President the demand to grant simplified citizenship to Filatova, who had special merits in the field of sports.

�When was this done?
 

� In October 2012 the documents were sent to the Commission. We wanted to play safe and we went to the archives of the Ministry of Sport, ?s well as of the Gymnastics Federation, where we got a dossier with Filatova�s merits and achievements. Therefore, we have the maximum amount of documents.

�Will the decision be taken by the Commission?
 

� The documents are sent to the President, but they�ll be studied by the Commission for Citizenship. In principle, this decision belongs to the President, the Commission is a counselling organ, created to express a position about the granting of citizenship to someone.

� To what extent is a positive decision likely?
 

� I think it�s highly likely taking into account that the information is not questionable. I don�t find any reason to deny her citizenship. If not to her, who else? I think everything will turn out well.
The next assembly of the Commission will take place in February. Maria Filatova will have then the possibility to become Russian.

� Thanks, Tuleev, he�s nice and smart! � Filatova said yesterday to �Sovietski Sport�  �  It�s nice that among civil servants there are some reasonable people. It seems that the majority of them don�t know the law and only keep passing the buck.

We all hope that this turns out the right way, and that Maria finally gets her Russian passport, the right to travel wherever she likes, but most of all recognition for her lifetime of hard work and all she did, and does, for Soviet and Russian sport.  

I thought it was the right time to share the gorgeous picture with my readers; it was a present from Maria, and I am very proud of it.

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Alexander Alexandrov to coach Brazilian WAG?

It seems that former WAG national coach, now personal coach to Aliya Mustafina, Alexander Alexandrov, is considering an invitation from the Brazilian Gymnastics Federation to take on the role of national senior WAG coach there as they prepare for the Rio Olympics.  Alexandrov would be working alongside his former colleague Oleg Ostapenko, junior WAG coach, who left the Russian junior team for Brazil in 2010, and would no doubt considerably strengthen the Brazilian gymnasts as they prepare for their home Olympics.

Nothing is certain yet: Alexandrov went on a fact finding tour to view training facilities and meet the gymnasts recently, and still has to make his decision. If he were to decide to go, he would be a significant loss to the Russian WAG team and in particular to Russia's only Olympic gold medal gymnast.  Alexandrov had recently confirmed that the Russian Ministry of Sport had asked him to stay in Russia and he appears on the RGF's recently published list of coaches.  However, the Brazilian Federation benefits from significant financial support as it prepares for its home Olympic Games in 2016, meaning that it can probably afford to make Alexandrov a very attractive offer.  I would assume that Alexandrov's decision is also likely to be influenced by his working relationship with the senior team leadership, Andrei and Valentina Rodionenko, and whether he feels he is likely to have the autonomy to give the best to his gymnast/s.

View the source articles here, here and here.  Google translates work pretty well, but we should wait for official confirmation of Alexandrov's final decision ...  this decision, apparently, is due tomorrow.  Do not hold your breath though, I have known such negotations to take weeks.

With many thanks to Bernard Abdo who provided the links at GymFever.

Alexander Alexandrov (third from left) during a recent trip to view training facilities in Brazil

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