“As a child, I believed in this holy friendship.” The story of a CSKA figure skater who supported Nugumanova and lost the love of Sokolovskaya

The figure skater trained at CSKA under Svetlana Sokolovskaya from 2010 to 2021. She was the favorite coach of the Olympic champions, but lost confidence sharply after supporting Elizaveta Nugumanova, who sharply criticized coach Evgeniy Rukavitsyn .

Below is Sophia’s monologue about her difficult career and life after sports.

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I started figure skating at the age of three thanks to my mother. Then we lived in Vladivostok and I took my first steps there. Initially, only for health reasons, there were no sports goals, coaches were already instilling love for this sport.

I was six years old when the family moved to Moscow. I went to study at CSKA, and while still in the Far East, I realized that I loved figure skating. However, I only really started to appreciate it in the last year and a half of my career, when I started performing in more serious national and international competitions. I’ve seen how Europeans treat competitions: for them, it’s a show, a party. For us, it’s the intensity of passions, all for points, prizes and conviction in the future. This is probably due to mentality and competition; in Russia it is higher, everyone knows that. Our competitions are what you live for, not fun. In most cases we’re talking about children under 18, and then it depends.

My first coach at CSKA was Marina Efremova, the next was Artem Borodulin, and the first triple jumps were her merit. I was never a leader in any of the groups; There was nothing supernatural about me. I had to plow. My father went and arranged for me to train with Borodulin. Artem Igorevich is the engine that gave energy to athletes. And his brother Sergei Igorevich is a technician, he used fishing rods and worked on pirouettes.

The workload was not appropriate for my age. Everyone who rode was injured. Yes, a lot of it depends on the athlete. People often do not warm up well, perform elements without thinking, and are lazy. I’ve had a lot of stupid injuries myself: for example, I forgot how to jump a triple toe jump, tried to relearn it and got a microtear. Having worked with a number of coaches, I can say that everyone has a different approach – some using the stick, others using the carrot. I have always been constrained, I trained myself to meet my parents’ expectations.

Artem Igorevich made a mistake, after which he legally could no longer work at CSKA. His departure from CSKA was a forced decision, I don’t know if it’s a rumor or a reality, but there was information about falsification of documents on his part, and therefore the personnel department stated that he would not could no longer train. After he left, an unpleasant situation occurred: we paid for the training camp in Stary Oskol, he called our parents and told us that he no longer worked at CSKA and was moving to another club from the Moscow region, he invited us with him, but we did not transfer. Money for the collection was donated, but those who did not follow it did not see the collection. And the money was not returned to the families, although we asked for a little more than a hundred thousand rubles.

Young children become very attached to coaches. There were times when you came to practice, but the coach didn’t come out on the ice. Or you arrive at 7 am and Borodulin is simply not there, the administrator does not let the children go out on the ice alone. It’s a shame and unpleasant, but the coach forgot the tackles and morning workouts.

I moved on to Katharina Herboldt. Katarina Alexandrovna restored for me all the elements lost while working with Borodulin, including triple jumps.

After Katarina, I started working with Sokolovskaya. His favorite phrase is that everything should be out of love. Svetlana Vladimirovna never forced anyone to do anything. If he sees that the athlete is not working, he gives him complete freedom, you skate alone for an hour and a half. He watches for about two or three weeks – and if he sees that nothing changes… The outcome is obvious. And if he sees a desire, he will respect you and work. With her it is impossible to catch psychological trauma, there is no pressure. Athletes who work with Sokolovskaya are more conscious people, the smallest ones work with Liliya Biktagirova and when they grow up, they move on to Sokolovskaya.

If a child is forced for a very long time, it can lead to psychological trauma in the future. Almost all my friends were hurt because of the attitude of the coaches, except for Svetlana Vladimirovna’s students. I don’t want to list first and last names. I remember Sokolovskaya as a wonderful woman. It was a great honor to have been there for her and the technical staff. She treats her boys like sons and daughters, she likes boys a little more, she has spoken about it herself. I have never seen anyone with an attitude like his: a person who loves, cares and will always help, even if the situation is not sports related.

About one story, I betrayed his trust. 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 second chances and constantly forgive (myself included), they will sit on your neck.

After my “help” they communicated with Lisa for some more time, but now that has faded. Maybe it’s because I’m not as famous as his other friends. There is no benefit she could get from it. But I don’t blame him, no negativity. No one is jealous of his popularity, and certainly not me. Maybe now I’m slandering her, but why then does the whole world of figure skating speak negatively about a person? .. There is a reaction to any action; from scratch such an attitude would not be. This means that somewhere she misbehaved, and apparently more than once.

Sport gave me experience, knowledge, friends. Good contact with Anya Frolova, Masha Levushkina. I always communicate with Mark Kondratyuk, he is wonderful and versatile. For his birthday I gave him a vinyl record of Vivaldi – “The Seasons”, we sat at his house and listened. You can discuss absolutely anything with him, the person has an opinion on various subjects.

I finished the sport on time. I came out and told everyone straight up that I wasn’t having fun anymore, I was tired of proving it. Lots of tears and nerves. After finishing her career as a figure skater, she took up curling and was even invited to join the national team, but that year there was the Unified State Exam and she dropped out this adventure. I started dancing. She graduated with a third-class junior nursing diploma in year ten. I tried to work – in a jewelry company, as a waitress. Now I am studying at a financial university to become a psychologist. I started training at the age of 15, I still work with children, but later I decided not to connect my life with sports. This is an outdated stage. I want to move on.