Viktoriia Onopriienko on unexpected desicion I unexpectedly found some free time, for the first time in 16 years. In the past few days, I’ve learned a lot of “interesting” things about myself.
It hurts me (it would be strange if I felt otherwise right now, wouldn’t it?), but none of the drama people are writing about actually happened. Everything is predictable, as it has been in gymnastics before me and will be, unfortunately, after me. As they say: I am disappointed, but not surprised.
I want to say a few things, but it turned out to be quite a lot of words.
FIRST
In professional sports, the coach’s decision is a law, I cannot appeal it, but that does not mean I agree with it. I prepared and was ready for the main battle that every athlete goes through on their sports journey.
SECOND
It’s practically impossible to avoid injuries in sports; we all work through them. There are serious injuries, and there are those you shouldn’t pay attention to; you just need to give them a little time. The injury I sustained at the World Cup in June is not worth the attention it’s getting, much less to the point of sending me off for recovery. I’ve had serious injuries in my career that truly required recovery to avoid consequences, but those injuries didn’t bother anyone. By the way, I earned my Olympic license with such an injury.
There were also injuries that knocked the ground from under my feet more than physical ones; they hurt from the inside, unfortunately connected with the war. I know what it’s like to lose close people who went to defend each one of us, and these losses coincided with important competitions (World Cup-2023, European Championship-2023).
What am I getting at? I never knew how to give up or let people down, as my father taught me from childhood. Sometimes I would gather myself atom by atom, go out and fight, realizing my responsibility to the team and the country. And I achieved results, I won. Last year’s European Championship, where I won gold, was such a challenge for me. Why am I writing all this? I know how to pull myself together in different situations, how to negotiate with my body and manage it with or without injuries. So please, stop speculating about an injury that isn’t worth the attention.
Regarding instability, it appears in an athlete not from injuries, illnesses, or moral state, but from the devaluation of an athlete’s achievements, overall work, and when the main person who should be guiding you through the sports path suddenly loses interest and shows outright indifference.
THIRD
I have heard so many times, and continue to hear, that I took someone else’s place at the Tokyo Olympics, that it’s finally time to put an end to this issue.
In the Olympic cycle before Tokyo-2021, I was removed from two important competitions for two years in a row without significant reasons. One of them was a qualification for the Olympic license. At the 2019 World Championship, where we fought for the license, I was removed a day before the competition. Thus, I was deprived of the deserved opportunity to fight for the license, arguing that I was too young (I was 15 years old), but I was ready to fight.
Then there was the home European Championship-2020 in Kyiv, for which I was officially declared, prepared intensively, and which was significant for me as one of my first steps in the senior category. Besides, this European Championship was held at home, a rarity for such international competitions. But here too, I was removed a day before the competition, and they decided to include Vlada instead. I often replay that day in my head, analyze it, and repeatedly conclude that there were no reasons to remove me from the competition in terms of my preparation and readiness to participate. Everyone involved in this decision knows how it really happened.
Regarding the Olympic participation itself. You can only take the place of a gymnast who works on par with you or much harder and shows results, but then someone unfairly takes them and sends another gymnast instead. When the situation is exactly the opposite, how can it be considered as taking someone’s place unfairly?
How can a gymnast who wasn’t in the gym for a year, the entire main preparatory and training period before the Olympics, be deprived of a place in any competition, not just the Olympics? It’s impossible, to put it mildly. And doesn’t it seem strange that in the context of such circumstances, we say “Onopriienko took someone else’s place at the Tokyo Olympics”?
For example, how could I have taken Khrystina’s place, who worked despite all difficulties and showed results? It was simply impossible! Do you understand the difference?
We were young (I was 16 and Khrystyna was 17), but professional and strong athletes, and we did everything in our power at the time to represent Ukraine at the Tokyo Olympics with dignity, and we did it.
Somehow it happened that I was easily removed from the most important races for each athlete’s career, and in difficult moments for the team, I was thrown into battle, despite my age, injuries, or other “obstacles.” But it’s not interesting to write about such “dramas”, is it?
Throughout my career, I have occupied the place in gymnastics that I fought for myself, without stopping and without indulgence. And this place is definitely deserved solely by me and my work.
FOURTH
Why bump gymnasts head on? In the national team, each of us is strong and talented, we are selected from thousands and then hundreds of the best gymnasts in Ukraine, and about 10 of the best get to the national team hall every year. We always see competition in each other – it’s the norm, sport is impossible without competition. If a senior underestimated a junior, and the junior suddenly became convinced that she had beaten the strongest senior, both would be doomed to failure, sooner or later. In sports, you can never underestimate a competitor.
If every gymnast on the national team was selected based on talent alone, then every gymnast on the team would deserve to participate in the Olympics.
However, there is the path that a gymnast goes through during the Olympic cycle, the achievements she wins for the team during this period, the difficult periods for the team as a whole when its fate for the upcoming competition cycle is decided and it depends on the gymnast whether she will sink or swim, and many, many other daily titanic efforts. Not taking all these factors into account when selecting for major competitions is not only wrong, but also dishonest, because it looks completely un-sporting.
SUMMING UP
There were ups and downs in my career, there was an unrealistic amount of work and superhuman effort, there were moments when it seemed like I would not have enough strength to get up, but I did, there was a lot of injustice and there were definitely unrealistically good moments that are forever in my heart.
I want everyone who reads these lines to know that in my entire career I have never stopped, I have never had a rest, I have never let my head coach down, nor the coaching staff, nor my team, and most importantly, my country and fans.
There is no person in the world of gymnastics and sports whom I would be ashamed to look directly in the eye and to whom I could not answer for every word written in this post.
I want you to know that for all these three years of the Olympic cycle, especially during the war, I did everything possible and impossible to ensure that Ukrainian rhythmic gymnastics was at a high level, I secured Ukraine a place at all possible international competitions, I fought and won, I showed results, and no one will ever take this away from me – this is history.
My big dream was the Olympics, but my unbreakable Ukraine was the most powerful incentive to participate in it.
I WAS PREPARING AND I WAS READY TO FIGHT, YOU SHOULD KNOW THAT
I wish Ukraine only victories at any level. Today, everything is for Ukraine and everything is for Ukraine. For each of us, Ukraine must come first. We must remember the terrible price that our defenders pay every day. We must remember every day who makes it possible for us to live, work, train and compete. If not for our defenders, where would we be today?
We must pray that each and every defender will return safely to their families.
Whoever each of us is, whatever our position, position or rank, each of us is simply obliged to fight for a common victory for every Ukrainian. And we will never lose this fight, I am convinced!
I would like to appeal to my fans around the world: please do not forget that there is a war in Ukraine unleashed by Russia, which is killing, destroying and raping our people, our lives and our land every day. Don’t get tired of reminding your compatriots that #russiaisaterroriststate has no place in the modern world, and Russian athletes have no place in international sports!
I sincerely wish our entire Olympic team resilience, success and victories! I believe in you!
I thank the Armed Forces for everything! Blessed memory to all who gave their lives for our freedom… a terrible price… Glory to Ukraine and its Heroes! Ukrainians, we will survive, we will overcome, we will win!
P.S. there are so many thoughts in my head now and so many memories of gymnastics… many questions to myself, not all of them I can answer… but one answer is unchanged for me: if I were to rewind 16 years ago and find myself at my first Deryugin Cup, see Anna Bezsonova’s unforgettable performance with the ribbon, I would ask my parents to take me to gymnastics again without any hesitation!
And if today there is at least one little girl in the world who fell in love with rhythmic gymnastics after my performance, then I did everything right.
Tags: olympics russia ukraine war sport Ukraine
