Grudin, the former coach of the Russian women’s national team, who is battling cancer, said he had no contact with the RBF.

Former women’s head coach Russian national team basketball Igor Grudin who is currently battling cancer, said in an interview with that he currently has no contact with the Russian Basketball Federation.

Grudin led the women’s national team from 1994 to 1995 and from 2004 to 2008. Under his leadership, the Russian team won gold, silver and bronze at the European Championships, became second at the Championships of world of 2006 and also won bronze medals at the 2008 Olympics. Grudin ended his coaching career in 2009. Currently, the 78-year-old specialist lives in France, where he is being treated for cancer.

— Were the doctors able to determine where this infection came from in your body?

– Difficult. First of all, it’s not genetic. That means it was the way of life: constant stress on top of the natural stresses in coaching, especially at this level. It’s even worse when all these intrigues add up, when we see that we are being silenced and that we can’t do anything.

I was not alone, all this was happening before our eyes. We have a public body, the executive committee of the basketball federation. However, when we saw each other, they smiled at us and patted us on the shoulder, but when it was necessary to speak somewhere, to say something supportive, almost no one did it. It was also depressing.

Now they will say: “Oh, Grudin, what is he saying there? He left on his own. ” Before that, I already knew that a replacement was being prepared for me in the national team. It was even embarrassing to tell them: “Leave me alone, I will prove it now, I will win the Olympics . » But since I turned out to be useless, since they thought that Grudin was not suitable for the national team, it means that I free up the position for others.

— Which former athletes and leaders are helping?

— There are contacts and they are rather friendly. Well, I don’t need any help, I can take care of it myself. I never applied. When there were questions, he said everything was fine, no help was needed.

— Are the Russian Basketball Federation and its president Andrei Kirilenko in contact with you? Are they aware of your situation?

– No, not in contact. It seems to me that they don’t even remember or know who I am.

– You are an honored coach…

“I didn’t apply myself and there was no call from there.” And Kirilenko… Natalia Vodopyanova is the general secretary of the federation, she was part of my team at the Olympic Games, but I have no contact with her either. The most important thing is that I myself did not turn to anyone, I did not ask anyone for anything. I am an independent person, I don’t need help. Of course, it would be much nicer to have contact, friendly participation, but this is not the case. Sometimes I even have the impression that this attitude is perhaps due to the fact that today we say “but those are the ones who escaped”. But I didn’t run away anywhere, I went to work in another country. And when they invited me again, I came to work in Russia with pleasure. And there I found myself almost out of despair and because of the treatment. That’s it,” Grudin told .