Adelina Sotnikova, “Not everything went smoothly during the Olympic season. In December, there were thoughts of coming to my coach and telling her that I’m done with figure skating.”
Adelina Sotnikova about struggles in the Olympic season.
original source: Moscow figure skater magazine
Adelina Sotnikova spoke about the difficulties she faced during the Sochi 2014 Olympic season. Here’s a translation of her comment.
“Adelina Sotnikova: The desire for success always motivated me, and I liked the state of constant battle with myself, especially when I managed to win. Even when a crisis occurred, I always gave myself time to fight before making any serious decisions.
When I started going through puberty and lost all my jumps, I remember giving myself time until August, until the national team’s test skates, to understand if I can regain my form. This was a difficult period because you constantly have to control yourself, just keep yourself in check.
For me, this was a psychological story, but I always gave myself time to fight, I set a probation period for myself. You probably remember that not everything went smoothly during the Olympic season. I then decided that I would skate until December and if I can’t overcome my difficulties by then, I will withdraw from the European Championships, Olympics, everything.
Even in December, there were thoughts of coming to Elena Germanovna (Buyanova) and telling her that I’m done with figure skating. If I don’t know how to skate, then why do it at all? I don’t think she knows about these thoughts I had.
But I gathered my willpower, realized that I had very little time left to fix my mentality, and decided that I generally had a good chance to go to the Games. Not necessarily winning them, just participating, but for this, I still had to qualify as we had four girls competing for two spots.
This thought that you cannot give up, that you have to prove to yourself that you can, and that there’s nothing to fear was decisive. Now it’s just talk, but then my head was a messy whirl, I was changing my mind several times a day. Emotionally, it was not easy for me to deal with all this.
But the Russian Nationals (which Sotnikova won – ed.) just showed that I can handle myself, even in this state. And I realized then that there is nothing to fear, you just need to befriend your own head, because in reality everything comes from the head.”
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