Gennady Sartinsky, the personal coach of Oleg Verniaev, gave an interview about Oleg's performance at Euros.
He talked about how Oleg had basically no time to prepare for Euros, as he was sick with strep throat between Stuttgart and London and had only three days of preparation between coming back from London and leaving for Cluj. According to Sartinsky, the Russian coaches and gymnasts knew about Oleg's health issue and counted on him to have a bad performance at Euros hoping that Russian gymnasts would be able to beat him.
One of the reasons Oleg keeps going to all these competitions is publicity and promoting gymnastics in Ukraine. Every time he wins a medal the news outlets in Ukraine write about it, which brings more attention to gymnastics (and, hopefully, more funding, as a result). Between the competitions or when no medals are won, there is no coverage of gymnastics, media simply forget about it.
He says the first day of the event finals was especially hard on Oleg because he had no time to recover after the all-around final. The second day was slightly easier, because Oleg only performed three competition routines the day before. Competing in all of the event finals was quite complicated since Oleg needed to warm up between them, but he also needed to participate in the medal ceremonies instead of using this time to warm up. He also, apparently, doesn't really eat right before or during the competition, so by the time the EFs were over on each day, he was absolutely starving.
By Worlds, Oleg is going to upgrade all routines except for vault and rings.
He talked about how Oleg had basically no time to prepare for Euros, as he was sick with strep throat between Stuttgart and London and had only three days of preparation between coming back from London and leaving for Cluj. According to Sartinsky, the Russian coaches and gymnasts knew about Oleg's health issue and counted on him to have a bad performance at Euros hoping that Russian gymnasts would be able to beat him.
One of the reasons Oleg keeps going to all these competitions is publicity and promoting gymnastics in Ukraine. Every time he wins a medal the news outlets in Ukraine write about it, which brings more attention to gymnastics (and, hopefully, more funding, as a result). Between the competitions or when no medals are won, there is no coverage of gymnastics, media simply forget about it.
He says the first day of the event finals was especially hard on Oleg because he had no time to recover after the all-around final. The second day was slightly easier, because Oleg only performed three competition routines the day before. Competing in all of the event finals was quite complicated since Oleg needed to warm up between them, but he also needed to participate in the medal ceremonies instead of using this time to warm up. He also, apparently, doesn't really eat right before or during the competition, so by the time the EFs were over on each day, he was absolutely starving.
By Worlds, Oleg is going to upgrade all routines except for vault and rings.
I really hope Verniaiev and the new Ukrainian seniors on both the men and women's side can build Ukrainean gymnastics back up. I always remember the Ukrainean gymnasts dating all the way back to Tourischeva for having beautiful gymnastics.
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