Head of the FHR coaching council: “There was no solid impression of the Russian team at the Olympic Games. It’s hard to win”

The head of the coaching council of the Russian Hockey Federation (FHR), Boris Mayorov, believes the Russian team’s victories at the Beijing Olympics are tense.

Earlier, according to the results of the council meeting, the head coaches of the men’s and women’s teams Alexei Zhamnov and Evgeny Bobariko received satisfactory marks for the performance of their team at the Games. Russian hockey players won the silver medal, and hockey players split in the quarterfinal stage.

“Our hockey has no such indivisible supremacy on the world stage. Look how Denmark, Norway, Germany, Switzerland have stood up. We can’t say we stand still, but their progress is more visible than ours. Our team’s performance was also considered satisfactory and the vast majority of the speakers – many of them were – the result. I can say that it has made it clear that it could be better.

In the end, I personally did not have such a solid impression of our team. Very tense victories against the Swiss and Danish teams. Oddly enough, in the match that was lost with the Czechs, the team looked better than in the game against the Danes, ”the player said. Mayorov, describing how it was possible to play against Finns in the final of the Olympics.

“We were told there was one defensive link and the other was offensive. I’m a guy with Soviet hardening and I think it’s necessary to ask in a team from any link, both defensively and offensively. Especially when playing Finns, I don’t think you have to just defend: From my point of view, it was necessary to break their systematic nature and that was the key to our success.

Zhamnov said that preparation was difficult because of the coronavirus. There were many restrictions both in Novogorsk and upon arrival in Beijing. Of course, this hampered the preparation, it’s always bad and any coach doesn’t like it when they have some external reason affecting the plan, ”TASS quoted Mayorov.