Valentin Maslakov: we will address to “The Russian Olympians Foundation” with request to equate the Team European championships to the Personal

On June, 21, in Portugal town Leiria the first in History Team European Athletics championships finished. The German team won, and gained in the overall result of 40 male and female disciplines - 326,5 points. The Russian team, which was considered as the favorite, took only the second place, losing to Germany 6,5 points. The head coach of the Russian Athletics team Valentin Maslakov commented the results of the team to the Agency of sport information “All Sport”.

The emotions are contradictory, - Valentin Maslakov noted. - We have both successful events and obvious failures. Some of them I can’t name other than a catastrophe.

- So, is the second place a success or a failure?
- It depends on your expectations. To be honest, we didn’t expect our competitors would have put the strongest staff. When we arrived to Leiria, compared the stuff of all the teams and thought that in the worst situation we could take the fifth-sixth place. Everybody, really everybody put their first numbers. In comparison with us.

- And why it happened?
- Because, people in the All-Russian Athletics federation (ARAF) recently have become too democratic. We always put ourselves into the athletes’ position, we allow them to compete at those competitions, which are more favorable for them, and not those, which are necessary for the team. Yes, the Team European championships isn’t the commercial competition, they don’t pay money for the victory. But it doesn’t stop the foreign athletes. We will change this situation. Both with a whip and spice-cake.

- Do you have any ideas?
- First, we improve the team discipline. We know the ways how. Second, we are planning to address to “The Russian Olympians Foundation” with request to equate the Team European championships to the Personal. We wish the athletes to receive the correspondent grants for their victories and medals. If our suggestion is confirmed, I think there won’t be any problems with forming the team for the next year.

- Anyway, we could win this year, if we didn’t fail in some kinds.
- I agree with you. About 40 points we lost practically out of the blue. Two Zero points, and two more last places… Nobody, say, accuse young gays in long jumps, triple jump, 800 meters, who took 6-8 places. On the contrary, we even thanked them, because they did their best. But the participation of some athletes appeared to be low the critics. Mostly, I am talking about the throwing group. We can use different epithets - from the fail to catastrophe. I say even more: if men throwing have had problems for a long time, but for the moment we lost also women throwings. Practically, except javelin thrower Maria Abakumova, I can’t even name anybody. We don’t have women throwing at all for the moment.

- And how could it happen?! A couple of years ago we constantly pretended on winning in hammer and discus, regularly won medals in shot put - in the level of normative of master of sports. The member of the national team in discus throw shows result 46,25 - it is 5 meters worse of the winning throw of our first Olympic champion Nina Ponomareva, which she made in 1952! Did you really have nobody to put?!
- As people say, you may laugh, but in most cases we don’t really have any choice. Personally I think it as a consequence of a short-sighted policy of former heads of the team, who counted on groups of only two coaches, who gained the best forces in throwing. You know their  names - Beloborodov and Litvinov. There is no competition in the team, and when these coaches, because of some reasons, stopped their work in the team, vacuum appeared.

- What are you going to do?
- Unfortunately, it is not the matter of one season. We have several serious conversations on this theme with the ARAF President Valentin Balakhnichev. At the following meeting of the Headquarters of the Olympic preparation of the ARAF we will discuss the complex of the concrete measures. It is the organization of the training camps and seminars, selection of the perspective young people, organizing of the tournaments and grants just for throwers. But I will repeat once again, it is not the matter of one day. Unfortunately.