Figure skater Baranova: “I undermined Sokolovskaya’s confidence. And it’s all my fault.

Figure skater Sofya Baranova said in an interview with that she dropped CSKA coach Svetlana Sokolovskaya in the scandalous story with Elizaveta Nugumanova and Evgeny Rukavitsyn.

Baranova trained under Sokolovskaya at CSKA from 2010 to 2021. The last major tournament for the figure skater was the Russian Junior Championships in 2020, where she took 19th place.

In 2022, Baranova supported Nugumanova, who sharply criticized coach Evgeniy Rukavitsyn, after which his relationship with Sokolovskaya deteriorated. Today, 19-year-old Baranova no longer competes among professionals.

“I undermined Sokolovskaya’s confidence.” And it’s all my fault. Svetlana Vladimirovna goes to training camps at the headquarters of Evgeniy Vladimirovich Rukavitsyn. I rode with them in Kislovodsk for several years in a row. During the last training camp, I made friends with Liza Nugumanova. I was a little girl and I didn’t understand that there was no friendship in sport. Before the ice you can be friends, but during competitions you will cut each other’s throats.

At those training camps, I was recovering from knee surgery and really wasn’t doing anything other than double jumps. I fought like a herring on ice with a triple Salchow, and puberty began. Sokolovskaya had every reason to kick me out, I was incapable, but she gave me a chance. Liza Nugumanova arrived at the training camp two weeks after the start of work, it was already decided who lived with whom. She created… to put it mildly, a scandal, she said she wanted to live alone, like Dima Aliyev, who was part of the national team. Or she asked to be placed with at least one girl I was living with at the time. Sokolovskaya, laughing, called me and asked me to move because Nugumanova had set conditions. I wanted to meet the person who made me leave my room, haha. Lisa taught me a lot and told me a lot of stories about sports. Even then, bad rumors about Lisa reached me. I don’t like to judge by the cover, but everyone has their own path.

Soon a harsh interview with Nugumanova was published, criticizing Rukavitsyn. I knew that Sokolovskaya was kind to Evgeniy Vladimirovich, for her he was family. Lisa asked me for public support, I agreed and before publication I told one of the staff coaches about it and told him that I really liked everyone, but I wanted to support her . As a child, I believed in this holy friendship. She wrote on social media: “I saw how bad you were, how they called you names. » Now I understand that I did not completely know the situation. At that time, I was already done with sports.

Once I came to the coaches and did not understand their strange attitude – no one spoke to me. Two years after this situation, it turned out that Sokolovskaya was very offended by this incident. I thought that if I supported Nugumanova, who opposed Rukavitsyn, it meant that I was against her. It’s purely my mistake. I knew how she would react, but I didn’t think anything of it, it was a childish act. I love Svetlana Vladimirovna madly and I think she is right.

I’m no longer a professional athlete, but I still feel ashamed. I would like to contact her now. She loved me and always treated me well. She may also have been experiencing this situation for a long time. I tried to meet halfway, to talk, but no means no. If a person does not make contact, that is their choice. If you give everyone a second chance, constantly forgive (including me), they will sit on your neck, ”Baranova told .