The World Cup champions in Maia who kept us guessing in the previous post are Yaroslav and Seva Ossolodkov (USA) 🇺🇸
Behind their gold medal lies a story that never appears in the official protocols. We spoke with the guys about how their program literally fell apart over the past 7 months — and why their victory brought not joy, but total exhaustion.
Read the first part of our special interview:
1. How do you evaluate your performance at the World Cup — did everything go as planned in training?
Yaroslav:
Overall, we are happy with our performance. Of course, there are always small things that can be improved, but we managed to show most of what we had been working on in training.
Seva:
We are very happy with our performance! The last 7 months have been quite difficult for us. Yaroslav is growing, and many elements that used to be easy for us became impossible — for example, the cannonball Diamidov. Overall, what we managed to achieve at the MIAC World Cup was incredible!
2. Which element of the program was the most difficult to prepare?
Yaroslav:
The elements where I land on the floor are new for us. They are very different from what I’m used to — being caught in the hands. I’m still getting used to landing on the floor.
Seva:
Everything 🤪. Last year, we had an element: a one-arm Diamidov, then sit down and stand up. First, the standing up stopped working — so we removed it. Then the sitting down stopped working — we removed that too. Then the one-arm Diamidov stopped working. We tried doing it with two hands, but even that stopped working. It got to the point where even holding a handstand on bent arms became difficult.
There were many moments when we wanted to quit everything. But we decided to trust the process and keep going. We had to learn many new elements to maintain a decent difficulty level, and in the end, we managed to pull through and deliver a result at the World Cup.
3. What were your emotions after winning the first stage?
Yaroslav:
It was an amazing feeling because the months leading up to the World Cup were very tough. It was rewarding to see that all the hard work paid off.
Seva:
For the first time in my life, I had no energy after a victory. When I saw the score of the final Russian pair, I just lay down and closed my eyes. I felt completely exhausted.
This is only the first stage of the World Cup season, and there is still a lot of work ahead. However, when we got back to training, a new wave of motivation came. Right now, we are at a local competition in California, performing a much more difficult program.
"I just lay down and closed my eyes" — the price of gold can sometimes be very high.
But how do you find the strength to keep going after such exhaustion? And who are the people who didn’t let them quit at their darkest moment?
Find out in the second part of the interview. Coming very soon — stay tuned! 🔔