Head Coach of the Russian National Synchronized Swimming Team Tatiana Pokrovskaya said that the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation had asked the Ministry of Sports for the possibility of the mixed pair performing at the Spartakiad and considered the lack of such an opportunity a big omission.
The Spartakiad of the strongest takes place only in the Olympic disciplines. A mixed duo is not. Mixed pairs play for medals only at World and European Championships. In 2021 the World Cup did not take place due to the pandemic, now they are suspended from international competitions until the end of the year amid the situation in Ukraine.
The quadruple world champion performs in a mixed duo Alexander Maltsev multiple world champion Maya Gurbanberdieva and European Champion Olesya Platonova .
– The mixed duo will not be able to perform at the Spartakiade. Have you contacted the Ministry of Sports about this?
– They applied, and apparently they didn’t apply much. It’s a big failure in our job and, above all, in my job as head coach. We have such a beautiful mixed duo, with such a wonderful coach! All of our coaches are great — Gana Maksimova, Tatiana Danchenko, Elena Gryzunova, Ekaterina Piskareva, Marina Terekhova… We work closely with the medical staff.
And that’s how it happened. Their simplicity (Ministry of Sports) is that only the Olympic types of the program … After all, there is a conversation for the future – about the mixed pair in the Olympic program. And now the guys miss the competition, that’s our omission.
– Do the Friendship Games equal the World Cup?
– No, but the Spartakiad – yes. We just hoped it would be the Friendship Games. Other teams came to us – the team from Belarus has grown a lot. I thought the Vietnamese were going to drown, but they had a very good soloist. Serbia, the Donetsk team, the Kazakhstan team and our juniors, of course. The competition turned out to be truly international, at world championship level. We are there, the juniors are there, which means that the world championship has taken place.
Source : MatchTV
