“I haven’t done figure skating for a year.” Junior world champion Lysenko on the transition to cycling

Junior World Champion Alina Lyssenko wins the most competitive form of Russian track cycling for the second consecutive year. Today, she is twenty years old and she has been cycling since she was only 17 years old. Before that, there was figure skating. Alina told about her journey and her new role.

– You have already fully experienced this transition period where the weight changes, the body changes. It was hard ?

– I experienced it in figure skating. There, in this regard, there was such a school that it was definitely for life.

I didn’t want to go back to professional sport after figure skating. Everyone in the family knew. It was a very painful subject, I left on a not very good note. It’s not that there was any kind of psychological trauma, but it all left a permanent imprint. She told her parents that she was tired, that she had devoted so many years to the sport, that she had not achieved anything and that she was disappointed.

How did you get into figure skating? Brother is a cycling trainer, dad was a cyclist.

– My brother was sent to cycling, and the track is next to the Krylatskoye ice rink. It could not be discussed – I was 2.5 when I started skating.

– Who did you train with?

– My first coach was Dudakov. He liked me very much, but then he left and I trained until the end with Maria Butyrskaya.

When did you start losing weight?

– At 14 it was the peak of it all. In short, I have never been skinny. There is no one for me to be thin. I’ve always had bulging arms and legs. Figure skaters are like figurines, but I’m not like that. I was nervous.

– What level did you go to?

– Up to triples, so that was the limit. I jumped well, but otherwise… Someone liked how I looked on the ice. I’m blonde, there was makeup, hair, dresses. But when I finished my career, I no longer liked my appearance on the ice.

– I have deja vu now. Literally the same story was told by Sasha Sayutina.

– She started speed skating! When she moved, I was still into figure skating. As far as I know, she has good results in skating now.

Did your parents expire when you left or did they take it badly? Figure skating takes a lot of effort and money.

Yes, it is very expensive. Dad calmly reacted to all this, because an athlete understood that this was all, the edge. Mom was struggling. I was 15, all this is not easy to perceive.

But I understood that at this age in figure skating, if you are not an Olympic champion and you are not on your way as a favorite for the Olympics, you can continue to stay only for the pleasure of skating.

Is Elizaveta Tuktamysheva a heroine?

– Yes. I’ve always liked the way he rides. It is an absolutely separate story, it is not even discussed.

– You’ve come a long way at the age of 20.

I don’t think it’s heavy.

– Figure skating is psychologically difficult if you practice at a high level.

– Yes, it’s hard. I gave up figure skating for a year. I tried to finish all year! She told herself that she had to pull herself together and move on. And she continued! This swing lasted a year, but at some point my nerves gave way.

What could not be processed?

– Many different factors. Already at the age of 13, I understood that nothing would work out. The coaches, the parents said that I had to stay, although now I understand that it was possible to finish two years earlier. Moreover, figure skating is a subjective sport. If a judge didn’t like you, then jump, although I don’t know where … Everything is difficult – you go out, you have done everything, but the score is low. I’ve never been into figure skating awards on a serious level. I have such a thing where the medals hang, and there are very few of them in figure skating, and that’s all level competitions…none.

– You are currently training with your brother. It’s not easy either, even if everything goes well.

But we find a balance!

“Nevertheless, it’s an interesting story. At 15 you left because it was too late to hope for anything, and here you are at 20, you are among the strongest sprinters with the prospect of a bright future. It’s a serious restart for someone so young in principle.

And it didn’t happen right away. After figure skating, I gained weight and my dad told me to ride a bike just for fun. I rolled in Moscow on the rings in sneakers, went to the gym, shook my abs and back. Those were all my activities – I just had to get back in shape somehow. Usually I was riding and wanted to circle the track in the hallway. For a long time I could not connect, but I drove, and according to my emotions, it was something unreal, as if I had won something cool. Then I tried to start running – I liked that.

At the same time, on the track, from the age of 2-3, everyone knew me as a figure skater sister. By the way, they even approached me and told me to give up figure skating and switch to cycling. I replied that I wanted to achieve everything in figure skating. When at the end I started to run, everyone, of course, was surprised. And it gradually increased.

– Did you win the world championship? How long after the switch to the track?

– I arrived at the end of 2018, in 2019 there were the first races, and in 2021 I won the championship.

– And now sit down without international departures.

– I tell myself that I am doing everything I can, and in the future – the decision is no longer mine. Plus, I’m 20, so I’m a bit calmer, but I still catch some kind of imbalance in this situation. There is still a chance to participate in the European Championship – I am still going through age.

– You said you weren’t going to go back to sports at all. What did you want to do?

– Lead a normal life, attend seven classes at school, train with a tutor, walk around the yard. My parents immediately said that I would not last long at such a pace, but I was sure of the opposite. I got high for two months. That’s all.

Everything was unusual for me. When I was engaged in figure skating, I went to school for a first lesson – training was from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. And here are seven lessons! Sitting on pins and needles after the third. Nobody understood why.

Because Alina is a born sprinter. The distance is not more than a lesson!

It took two months to come to terms with seven lessons. But I always wanted something else. And went dancing in “Todes”! Danced for six months. Thirty people go on stage, and to dance on the front line, you have to break through there – I did it, I danced two report concerts and left. Dancing is dancing, but after sports it’s boring, there’s no adrenaline.

– You came to a sport that, in general, is not only unpopular, many do not know about its existence, isn’t it difficult after figure skating and even dancing, where the emotional return is different?

— In our country, there are many non-competitive Olympic sports that a large part of the spectators know nothing about, except for figure skating and rhythmic gymnastics. There is no comparison with figure skating. Especially after the Sochi Olympics, when there was a huge push, given modern media. Enable even other sports, where skaters perform as guests. Of course, we would like our sport to be known. At least that. When they learn more about our sport, they will learn more about the athletes, or someone will ask, “Are you really riding the wall?”

– In the new sport, you have already achieved good results, given the level of competition in the women’s sprint. Was the Russian champion’s second title in the sprint harder than the first?

– It’s always harder, it’s hard to stay ahead physically and mentally. Especially in this form.

— Is the emphasis on a discipline? Do you like keirin? Contact the fight?

– No, it often ends very badly. If there’s an opportunity, I’ll go around; if there is no opportunity, I will not risk it again. My personal opinion is that the risk is not worth it.

– Isn’t that worth a multiple fracture of the ribs, like Dasha Shmeleva?

– Everything she went through in connection with this – just a hero. But then there were races of a different level, in which case it was perhaps justified – she already knows better.

– That is, you are not ready to kill yourself for a hopeful run in a keirin in the Russian championship?

– In “hope” – no. In the end, you can take risks. But again, I’m not going to jump in.