Alina Zagitova: I know the price of victory

Posted on 2019-12-13 • 6 comments

 

More from Alina Zagitova’s press conference about the pause in her skating career.

by Pavel Kopached and Maria Selenkova for sports.ru dd. December 13th, 2019

photo by Reuters

Alina: I want to have a motivation to go compete. Now a feeling that I want to go on the ice and show maximum … there is such, but still it comes from training. To win, you need to get up at 6 in the morning and work at the rink until 9 in the evening. I’m tired of this regime and I want to take part in shows for a while, see what I can do there, I want to find a desire to compete, zeal for it.

I know the price of victory and how to prepare for it. This is a tremendous work. Probably an athlete who went through this will understand me.

Now have everything in my life, but something should always be lacking. I to return the condition when I want to compete. When I trained after the Games, I also wanted to quit, but I realized that I like trainings. It was a very difficult period, and so is this season. Coaches helped me a lot, they found words of motivation.

Before the Olympics, there was a twofold situation. I wanted to run away from the camp in Novogorsk and I did not want to. At the beginning of the season, athletes always have a difficult moment when they need to get all the elements back, the program is very difficult. When I am in Novogorsk, very difficult moments happen there. And these walls reminded me of poor trainings. Bad training is about falling, and pain, and new boots, and calluses from them, and when you make two jumps in the program and you are already exhausted. Of course, this is difficult, but you still do not understand how your season will turn out, and you must go to the competitions completely ready. And when two jumps fail, you start to think about it.

I have already won everything that is possible. Probably proved to everyone, that says it all. After the Olympics, I won also the World Championships.

I even wrote myself an official promise that I promise to go to competitions, to Worlds: I undertake to skate well and do everything in my power to perform at this competition. Federation even has it. Then I wrote a promise that I would perform at the Japan Open and two Grand Prix. I did it. Since I’ve written, I kept my promise. Since I haven’t written about Grand Prix Final, I did not have such motivation. Now I’m not ready to write the next promise yet. Because I do everything that I write. At the moment I am not ready to go to the Russian Nationals.

Quadruples must be mastered at a younger age than 17 years. Our sport is getting younger. It was necessary to learn them before the Olympics, but there was a risk of injury, then my jump content was enough for me. And then I began to grow up, discoordination appeared, and at that moment the main thing was to keep all the jumps in order to perform them cleanly and well.

Coaches are my family in sports. Only we know what we went through. There were difficulties, there were joyful moments. I’m not going to leave them, we continue to work together.

Now I prepare for Tatiana Navka’s show. Come to see, I have the role of the Sleeping Beauty there.

I am in the process of preparing for the exams: Russian, mathematics, biology. Most likely, I will graduate from a sports institute. My whole life revolves around sports. I will learn to be a coach, most likely.

I want to thank the Sambo-70 school, which makes it possible for teachers to work with me on Skype. In the Olympic season, I had only training, I did not study at all – I studied with the teachers even on vacation, in order to prepare me up quickly for exams.


 

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6 Responses to “Alina Zagitova: I know the price of victory”

  1. Anu Salow says:

    this interview shows that Alina is not only beautiful and talented athlete but an intelligent young woman. All best luck, Alina Zagitova <3 <3

  2. Anu Salow says:

    So, so clear and mature thoughts and formulations from a young athlete. Alina, you show beauty, talent and intelligence we all can take example. Thank you, Alina Zagitova <3 :)

  3. Egor says:

    Alina Zagitova will take part in the ice show by Olympic champion Tatiana Navka in Moscow. The show will last from 27 December to 7 January. Alina will perform the main role. More information on https://navka.show/

  4. OlgaLV says:

    The key words are- she has won everything that is possible. What else an athlete can wish in his carreer? Only to take care of his own health! I wish her good luck in the future. Brilliant girl.

  5. Seruleane says:

    Thank you for everything, Alina! It has been a pleasure to be your fan. You fought and fought, and I wish you success and happiness in your future endeavors. If you ever decide to come back to competition, well, I will be rooting for you too!

  6. Veronica says:

    Thank you Alina! You dazzled me in Europeans’18. Well deserved victory at the Olympics and Worlds’19. I love you, and wishing you health, success and happiness God bless you, always!

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