Alexander Kuznetsov on criticism of neutral status: “Our patriotism as coaches now is to save athletes”

Honored Coach of the USSR in Cycling Alexander Kuznetsov believes that if you do not participate in international competitions, the risk of losing qualifications is high, and it is important for him as a coach to keep athletes.

Most Russians who have been granted neutral status by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) train with Kuznetsov’s team. As the coach noted earlier, the UCI didn’t set unacceptable conditions for the Russians to get neutral status.

“Many shout: ‘No neutral status is needed!’

– Nonsense. Now the most important thing is to keep the athletes, and every coach is responsible for making sure their athlete continues to do what they love. We do everything for our guys. They provided them with not a chic, but a normal level of competition at races in Italy, Spain.

– But you have to admit that there is a lot of negativity all around because of the neutral status.

“We have enough people in general who don’t understand much. Every athlete takes ten years to train, a sport takes decades to recover, and to lose it now is to fall behind for many years, it will be extremely difficult to catch up. There is a serious risk of disqualification, and we must not allow it. People don’t understand that. I think our patriotism now is to save people, their efficiency, their optimism, the growth arc of sports results, Kuznetsov told .