Speed Skating World Cup Medalist Evgenia Lalenkova told that she did not believe in the opportunity to perform in international competitions in the next two seasons.
The International Skating Union (ISU) has suspended Russians from participating in competitions under its auspices amid the situation with Ukraine. Lalenkova, in the first big start of the Shavyrin Memorial season, has already won two distances – 3000 and 1500 m.
– This season, the Russian Cup is the basis of your calendar. Will all the steps go through?
– Yes. I love to organize competitions, and thanks to this, the speed is accelerating. Here on the Shavyrin I run five out of six distances. I run certain distances, because I specialize in those, and everything else – 500 and 1000 m – is for me, for speed, to keep circles. All this is work under the “one and a half”.
– Will there be an open ice rink in St. Petersburg during the Russian Cup?
– There is a roof there, but everything is blown out from the sides. Yesterday, when I was running 3000m and I was already covered, I thought – how can I run in St. Petersburg? I don’t really like open rinks.
– Do you think that at least at the end of the season you can have international departures on your calendar?
– I think I will not live long enough to see the international season as an athlete. Something is unlikely to happen this season and next season I don’t believe it already. Some federations allow it, others do not. If certain federations are allowed, the weaker teams immediately start playing and say that they will not compete with the Russians. That’s so low and mean of them.
How did you learn to motivate yourself in this situation?
– I’ve never had a problem with it. We don’t work so much to merge departures. I progress in relation to myself, in relation to my seconds, technical and tactical indicators, running with the right alignment of forces is important for me. Now we have to think about it. I ran 1500m at the Kolomna Kremlin Cup, I did everything so technically correctly that I enjoyed it immensely. The main thing for us, for adults, is now to develop technical and tactical moments, and for young people to catch up a bit.
Source : MatchTV
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