Ryzhikova – about changing the coach and moving to the USA: If I had stayed at home, I could have ended my career

Ukrainian athlete Anna Ryzhikova spoke about new coach and his preparation for the summer season-2023. The Ukrainian moved to the USA to the new coach Lawrence Johnson.

“Last year, due to the war, a total of a month of training fell out. After the World and European Championships, I was approaching the need to change something. After all, it is difficult to train in Ukraine now. To show the results that I aspire to, I need stability. Yes, the coach I’m currently training with offered to work with him. I hesitated for a long time, considering this proposal. Leaving for such a long time, without a family, without anyone … Only my friend is here with me, she saves my psychological state. The decision was difficult, because I did not want to leave home. But the question was: either stay at home and end your career, or go and train further.

“I have and still have my Ukrainian coach Volodymyr Kravchenko. This move does not mean that we parted ways, and I left forever. It’s on time. I went to learn something new, and because of the war in Ukraine, I cannot work with him, because he is also tied to the house. He has a family, and it is now impossible to leave with him for a long time for a meeting. So this change happened.”

“Why did I come to work with this coach? There is a very strong group here, half of the finals of the Tokyo Olympics are training here. And when you train with the strongest, you reach out to them, you become one of them. They understand that competition in training gives a good result in the competition. Everyone is very friendly: they are friends, they help with advice both in training and just in everyday affairs. There are not only American girls here, but also from Panama, Jamaica, Great Britain.”

“In recent years, it happened that I participated in indoor championships. But now I have changed the training environment, I need to get used to the loads. The first months were very hard. Now let’s start working with barriers so that I don’t come here in vain. To reach the average results, I could be at home.

“We are already preparing for the summer season. It starts here earlier than ours, but by May I will definitely be here. This will be followed by selection for the European Games in May. Of the nearest competitions – local ones, but these are already like summer starts, and not earlier than in a month and a half, perhaps.

Recall that at the European Championships 2022 in Munich, Ryzhikova won bronze in the 400-meter hurdles.

In the 400m hurdles final at the 2022 World Championships in Yudzhin Ryzhikova, she placed eighth.