Yuri Kaminsky: “I am no longer at that age to be offended by athletes who left my group”

Coach of the Russian national biathlon team Yuri Kaminsky shared how he reacts to athletes’ decisions to leave his training group.

— Here I see another problem, which I would call the problem of our entire biathlon. It involves… well, let’s say, looking for a technique, or something like that. Besides, it is not the coaches who seek the technique who must seek it, but the athletes themselves. They begin to decide whether what the coach is offering is right for them or not. From the point of view of functional training methods in our group there were no problems, the complaints of those who left were about shooting work. Whether it will be better now, I don’t know. It is difficult to draw conclusions from the first beginnings.

As for my personal feelings on this subject, I am no longer at that age to be offended by athletes. On the one hand, they can be understood. On the other hand, I assess my abilities quite clearly: what I can give to athletes and what I cannot.

Serokhvostov’s departure? I really wanted to make this guy an athlete who would compete on equal terms with Johannes Boe. But Karim Khalili also experienced a fairly good rise in speed during the Olympic season. I am used to being guided by facts and figures, and they said that Serokhvostov and Khalili also improved during their stay in our group in the rifle unit. For example, Karim, after the November-December period of the World Cup, which included nine individual races (!), ranked for him in a very high fifth place in terms of shooting indicators.

Here another question is rather important: what do athletes want? Unfortunately, they are often looking for comfort, which I don’t promise in a group setting. I don’t know how to achieve high results while working in a comfortable state,” Kaminsky quotes RT.

RT