“The Saransk walking school is still the best in the world” – Lashmanova about her appointment as coach of the Russian national team

Russian Elena Lachmanova previously deprived of gold at the 2012 London Olympics in race walking due to doping, has confirmed her appointment to the Russian athletics team’s coaching staff for 2024, telling that she would train Russian marchers.

— It is a great honor for me to become a member of the technical staff of the Russian national team. I’m going to try to justify that confidence, I’m going to try to prepare the guys. However, I have a lot of experience. I hope this will be useful and help me in my preparation. At the moment I am working with the national team which is preparing in Saransk and we are working as a team with the rest of the famous athletes of the past. Of course, we also have more experienced specialists at our headquarters, higher than me in terms of status and merit, and we report to them. None of us can be called a head coach; we are all members of the technical staff. Maybe in the future I will receive some kind of separate set, but now there is no question of that.

— To what extent have all the sanctions that have continuously accompanied our athletics since 2015 hit the Saransk walking school? Are athletes today less motivated than back then?

— As for our team, that doesn’t exist. The motivation has always been there, and it remains there today. We have the best walking school in the world and the results of our athletes always prove it year after year. As was the case ten years ago, it is the case today: nothing has changed and all these restrictions have not changed the situation. I can only be happy for our center and in my new position I will try to maintain this status,” Lashmanova told the correspondent.