Translated material
Individual approach
Missed a medal in the men's team tournament
The final of the team competition turned out to be a complete failure for our men's gymnastics team. As a result, the team consisting of Maxim Devyatovsky, Anton Golotsutskov, Sergei Khorokhordin, Nikolai Kryukov, Konstantin Pluzhnikov and Yuri Ryazanov became only sixth, scoring a total of 274,300 points. The gap from the Olympic champions, the Chinese, was about 12 points, and from the silver medalists, the Japanese, 4 points. The most unpleasant thing is that the Russians lost to the Americans who took third place by only one and a half points.Having successfully passed the qualifying round and finished third, our gymnasts could count on an Olympic medal with full confidence. Even if not of the highest standard. “We were so well prepared for this Olympics that it’s a shame to complain. And the mood was great. We worked so hard, but...” a frustrated Anton Golotsutskov told reporters after the competition. However, in his opinion, all the team’s efforts were undone by one athlete. The time bomb planted inside the national team went off at the most inopportune moment - at the Olympics. The role of the explosion detonator was taken on at the wrong time and in the wrong place by the absolute European champion Maxim Devyatovsky. It was he, according to the gymnasts, who became the main culprit for what happened at the Games in Beijing. The main one, but, unfortunately, not the only one.
“Some people from the team in the morning, before the final, began to say that they had no strength, no mood. I wouldn’t like to name names, but at the competitions everything was clear,” Golotsutskov gave his explanations. - Of course, I have no right to judge others. But before the start, the athlete should be in a completely different mood. After Pluzhnikov’s exercises on the rings failed, one of our team commented: “You don’t have to try anymore. Why did we even come here?” At that moment I understood everything. That man doesn't care about the others from the high mountain. This one will not work, give all his best. I immediately exploded. It turns out that some people work, while others don’t bother at all. In the final three times we had a chance to get into the top three, but we missed it ourselves. It turns out that this is the second time I’m going to the Olympics and returning from here with the rank of an extra.”
It was theoretically possible to predict such a scenario in team competitions in advance. This is not the first time problems with Devyatovsky have arisen. This happened at the last Olympics and at the World Championships. In Stuttgart, the athlete, citing injuries, left the team without medals. This time Devyatovsky stated that he had serious problems with his hands - calluses had been torn off. “Who hasn’t had them torn off? Calluses are not an injury at all. People come forward with fractures and torn ligaments. These are the Olympic Games,” another Russian gymnast, Yuri Ryazanov, responded sharply, and showed reporters his palms with huge bloody stains.
Team competitions imply that all athletes will act according to the principle: one for all and all for one. And the main reason for the defeat of the Russian team was that in recent years the coaches and athletes have failed to unite the men’s team. “Yes, we told the coaches that Devyatovsky should not be included. But it was their decision,” the athletes assured.
But it would be wrong to blame the 2007 absolute European champion Devyatovsky, who, however, made the most mistakes (three) for all the sins. He wasn't the only one who made a mistake in the final. “How to evaluate the result? Throughout our performances, we made a record number of “falls” - five, and this unsettled us. The main goal was to have a great start, but instead, after the first shell, we began to fall. On the last two - horizontal bar and floor - they tried to correct the situation. We got together. I think that we really could have been in the top three. As a result, they lost only one and a half points to third place. And this is equivalent to one fall. What happened is very difficult to explain. We were all ready. We did a tremendous amount of work before the Olympics. But there is such a thing as luck. Today we can say that we were simply unlucky. Third place was really ours. We ourselves gave it to our rivals,” added Ryazanov.
When asked by journalists about team spirit, saying that the Americans and Chinese seemed more united than the Russians, Ryazanov said the following: “We don’t have a team sport, we don’t have a team. If a person shows up and does it well, then he does it well for the team. So you don’t have to ask such questions.”
But questions remain. In particular, one of them is whether Devyatovsky will compete in the individual all-around after what happened in the team competition. Theoretically, he could have been replaced by another gymnast. However, the senior coach of the men's team, Evgeniy Nikolko, said that at a meeting of gymnasts, held in the Olympic Village, the guys expressed many complaints to Maxim. “He apologized, said that he did it unintentionally, that he was very worried. He asked to be given the opportunity to prove himself in an individual all-around event. Since we need this medal and Devyatovsky is ready for these Games, we decided that he should compete,” Nikolko said.