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Skier Ustyugov brought Vyalba. The demarche of the champion goes beyond all limits!
Photo: © RIA Novosti / Pavel Bednyakov
The Olympic champion of Beijing, even having overcome all the difficulties, does not change himself. Public criticism of the coach, Vyalbe’s emotions and unpredictable pre-season.
Sergei Ustyugov was never a good boy, and Elena Vyalbe always spoke openly. This fiery tandem of the leader and skier of the national team was on fire starting from Sochi-2014, but in Beijing it came to a good denouement. Elena Valerievna entrusted him with the last stage of the golden relay race, rewarding him for all the previous suffering.
It seemed that from that moment peace was to come, but it lasted only five months. The Olympic champion freaked out and left Yegor Sorin’s training camp, and Vyalbe did not keep it inside herself. Now our skier will actually train without a mentor.
A quiet life is too boring for Ustyugov.
Kramer’s only student
At the Olympics in Beijing, the wards of Markus Kramer, although they lost internal competition to the skiers of Borodavko, did not stay away from the golden feast. Stupak and Ustyugov won gold in the relay races, Yulia also grabbed bronze in the team sprint. The goals set by the main Russian assets of the German specialist were achieved.
Marcus wanted to continue working in the team, but there were well-known bans, bans and other sanctions that deprived the eminent specialist of the physical opportunity to work in our country. We have lost a respected and familiar with the Russian environment coach, and his students were forced to look for new groups. Maltsev and Stupak decided to go for a promotion, trying their hand at competing with Bolshunov, Nepryaeva and other Borodavko athletes. But Ustyugov stood out.
Sergei agreed with Markus to advise him at a distance. Thus, the 30-year-old athlete became the only one in our national team whose personal trainer was not physically present at the classes.
Online, of course, is very relevant in our time, but still, cross-country skiing, and almost all other sports, is a practical activity. The athlete should be observed in his real working conditions, and not just read the diary, look at the tests and check the data of the heart rate monitor.
However, Sergei assured everyone that this plan suits him. The German wrote a training program for his skier, and to comply with the formalities, Ustyugov was attached to Yegor Sorin’s group. At the beginning of 2018, our young coach just left the Kramer group to start an independent career. Now Ustyugov has left him. The circle is closed.
Didn’t agree
Sorin worked with Kramer for three years. During this period, the main skier of the country and one of the strongest in the world was, of course, Ustyugov. Therefore, Yegor knew perfectly well the nature and features of working with the two-time world champion at that time.
Before the start of the current pre-season, only the lazy did not say that the Ustyugov-Kramer tandem looks strange, given that the German will not be able to deal with Sergey the way he used to. The mentor led the Italian national team. But the Khanty-Mansiysk athlete decided on this. Sorin, according to old memory, took Ustyugov to him. It is significant that Borodavko, according to Vyalbe, immediately refused Sergei’s candidacy.
Once agreed, we must work. However, the skier, who was ambitious and a little capricious in terms of personal self-organization, did not succeed. A couple of days ago, Elena Vyalbe said that Ustyugov went to self-training with the KhMAO team. Considering that he did have one training camp with Sorin, the situation did not look strange. Well, you never know, just plans have changed. But the instigator himself added fuel to the fire.
The Olympic champion admitted that there were no clear agreements between him and the 37-year-old coach. Ustyugov wanted Kramer to be the main one in this trio, but there were situations when Sorin indicated the training time, with which Sergey did not agree. This did not suit Yegor, he made comments to the athlete, which, in turn, no longer suited the skier. As a result, parting, but with an unpleasant bitterness, since it was Ustyugov who publicized these internal nuances of communication with Sorin.
The only group of the Russian national team that was ready to accept Sergey is no longer an option for our champion.
“He doesn’t like everything”
As always, what was on the tongue of the fans was clearly expressed by Vyalba:
We all know his whims, he doesn’t like everything. How much he trained with Sorin – two weeks. I think his statement is incorrect. We all know Sergei. In what sense? His whims, he doesn’t like everything, he needs complete freedom, but she doesn’t exist in the team, ”said the president of the FLGR Match TV.
It is unlikely that anyone was surprised by such harsh words of the three-time Olympic champion. It hurts something else. Why did Ustyugov, who made it clear to everyone that he was not aiming for another Olympic cycle, decided to go against everyone?
Previously, his behavior could be justified by the troubles of a great athlete, he showed a high level in the international arena, and the coaching issue was irrelevant. With the looser Cramer mode, our skier felt good.
But now there will be no World Cup, there will be no native Kramer, and we will have to compete within the country, within our community among people on whom the Olympic champion openly and publicly pours negative. To turn everyone against you and overcome these difficulties – is this the leitmotif of the last years of Sergey Ustyugov’s career?
Source: Sportbox
I have been working as a sports journalist for about 6 years now. I currently work as an author at Sportish, which is a sports news website. I mainly cover sports news and I love writing about all aspects of the sport. I also have experience working as a broadcast journalist, so I have some great insights into how sport is reported and presented.