April 12, 2001 - Roza Quoted in Article About Ekaterina Lobaznyuk! Betrothed to the Sport Gymnastics training base "Round Lake" is not far from Moscow. In there lives, or more precisely, toils our compatriot who won 2 silver and one bronze medals in Sydney - Katya Lobaznyuk. Our conversation turned out to be not just with her, but about her as well. Katya's mother, and personal coach, Lyudmila Leontyevna, turned out to be very talkative, and more important, very open. The room in which heroines of Sydney Olympiad live is very small. Just as the heroines themselves. You come in and you see two identical wee little things. "Everyone tells us" - it's as though the girls are reading my thoughts - "everyone tells us that on TV we look so big, but in reality we are tiny. Which newspaper are you from ?" "I am Katya's compatriot, from Altai". "Oh! So, you don't want me" - Lena Zamolodchikova, Katya's friend, neighbor and two-time Olympic champion sighs happily and leaves to go to the banya. Sunday on the base is bathing day. Four Alarm Clocks When Valery Fedotovich Dianov, another one of Katya's coach, brought me in the room for introduction, the girls were airing out the room. "You smoked it up and now you are airing it out !" says Dianov as he sniffs the air. He is joking, of course. Smoking is forbidden. If you are caught smoking, the punishment is indescribable - that's how scary it is. They have a great goal, they have discipline and schedule. The 'morning exercise' alarm clocks wake up Katya, and there are four of them. The balcony door is wide open, freezing air mixes with perfumes, tape recorder is playing the latest songs, TV is on without the sound. Zamolodchikova's hair is in curlers, she is well-manicured with sharp look in her eyes. Katya is sleepy and cozy, she looks like she just woke up and her hair is a mess. Their room is on the first floor, the balcony is so low that you can enter it from the street. Next to it, a huge red, curly-haired dog Abrek is on guard duty, he knows everyone by smell. God forbid, a stranger tries to enter the base. Because of his vicious temper, some people wanted to shoot him. But he is very useful. Before, boys used to climb in the windows to sneak into the girls' building. Now, nobody would dare to do that! Katya is bringing me to the gym to show her "golgotha" <<meaning "calvary" - same place, different names -yulia>>. The air in the gym is damp and there are "pik-pok" sounds emanating from the other end. Wow ! The smell of Olympic sweat ! And how hard-working are the athletes that on their day off they are playing table tennis ! But, on a closer inspection, we see that the sounds come from the leaking roof. That's why it's damp, that's why it's dripping. When it's raining, the coaches run around with basins, putting them under the apparatus. In this gym Katya has her own favorite beam. I was begging her to show me something on the beam, but she would not do it. Even when I looked for a place to take her photo, Katya refused to pose next to her favorite beam. Sneakers for double salto When someone asks Ludmila Leontyevna, "Tell us how Katya achieved everything, how you could not drag her off the beam, how much she wanted it", she calmly answers, "I was the one who wanted it. Katya ? Yes, Katya helped. God gave her talent. But talented people are very lazy. You always have to force them, while those who are not talented, to whom nothing comes easy, they are the ones who work hard and who have a burning desire. All Katya has to do is move her little finger but she rarely even wants to do that !" To get Katya to do her first double salto, her mother bought her sneakers, which were then a rarity. When Lyudmila Leontyevna was preparing to move from Central Asia to Altai, she started to train and stretch Katya more intensively. Katya always hated stretching - it was so painful that she cried. People around them were shaking their heads, "Why are you tormenting Katya so much ? Don't you feel pity for her ?" Lyudmila Leontyevna once exploded, "Shame on you ! You should feel pity for me ! How do you think I feel ?" Katya's mother confesses that now she is more maternal toward Katya than before. Now she feels pity for Katya. Before, she had no pity. Before, she just coached her. "My baby is tired" Katya was never allowed to think that she can quit gymnastics. Before the Olympics she threw a fit, "I don't want it and that's that !" She and her mom cried and talked during long walks around the base. Mom promised her that when the Games are over, I will let you go, you can rest, live at home, where there are no alarm clocks. 100 days remained till the Olympics. Now, she is back, she was successful, she was flying high ! She was getting a lot of attention, people recognized her, she was given a dog as a gift. They also went to Egypt for a vacation, everyone had such fun! But now it's back to work. The workload is increasing, new routines have to be learned, skills repeated a million times. And she is starting again, "I don't want it, I won't do it !" Ludmila Leontyevna had tears in her eyes twice while talking to me. She can no longer control herself, "As soon as Katya and Fedotych [Dianov] have a fight, they take turns calling me. Either he is complaining or she does. And I am in the middle. Do you know how tired I am ? You can't even imagine how tired I am ! And they keep telling me: 'Another four years.' No normal parent will put up with this. Imagine you go to parent-teacher conference and they keep telling you, 'Your child can learn, but does not want to. Is capable, but does not want to...' And on the other hand, my daughter, 'He is berating me, he said this and that... I am afraid of him.' Normal parents go through this once a month, I go through this every day. But I know with certainty: there is nobody better than Fedotych and never will be. That's why we never let her win those arguments." "While I have enough strength and she is still a child, we will keep her in gymnastics. Gymnasts' emotional development is slightly delayed, they develop later. It's probably due to the physical workload, plus we do everything for them like nannies. They don't even think that it can be any other way. Now, Roza Galieva - champion of the team competition of the XXV Olympics - is training again. She is 26. Maybe she missed her coach's attention or maybe she got tired of doing everything for herself and not having someone think for her. She finally understood that she can always quit to work in a job that pays 1,000<<denomination not specified>>. She said, 'Let Katya know that she should work as hard as she can! I wish I was in her place!' Khorkina, for example, knows that gymnastics is her bread and butter and she does not know how to do anything else. But Katya does not understand it. Here is what she told me recently, 'Maybe it would be better if I was in Rubtsovsk, in a normal school and then I could become a simple nurse.' My baby is tired." Where can you lead a better life? Conditions on the base are far from royal. Famous Svetlana Khorkina can afford a splendid gym with all kinds of equipment, but she will never leave this place. Youngsters are trying to catch up with her, thinking up new skills, but her coach is trying to see and hear everything and he is always on top of the latest happenings. "All gymnastics is happening right here," Lyudmila Leontyevna rubs the air with her fingertips and smacks her lips, "Only a psycho loner would leave this place." Katya says, "Nobody is harrassed here. Whether you are a champion or a beginner - we are all equal, we all help each other, the whole team gets along." She simply has no idea how her mother felt when, during Olympics, she received a phone call, "Katya fell off the beam." Lyudmila Leontyevna for some reason thought that only her daughter fell and she was the reason why the team messed up. In that case it would be better if she did not return to the base. They would peck her to death. And another thing. On the base, Muscovites are considered elite. Katya is from Rubtsovsk. Now she has a name, but before she was ridiculed as 'country girl.' Once mom wanted to buy her a skirt, but Katya frowned. "I don't want a skirt. Girls are telling me that I have crooked legs." Katya reminisces about Sydney only when asked. She does not even see it in her dreams. She also does not like to think about the future. Dianov does not like to do that either, but he is joking: "In four years we will marry her off, let her cook borscht. Although she can't even cook!" For that joke, Valeriy Fedotovich receives a heavy slap on the back from his embarrassed pupil. As for Lyudmila Leontyevna... - Now she is capricious and throws fits, what will happen later ? When she falls in love, for example? - If she falls in love, I will have a talk with the boy. I will say, "Help us, darling. How you two are going to support yourself ? Can you make money ? Then help us !" And I don't think that he will refuse. Now everyone is looking for brides with cars and apartments. And why are you asking me this anyway ? What will happen later ? I can't even imagine her later. Maybe she will be teaching physical education in a sports college or health resort. - You have such prosaic dreams for her. She is a three time Olympic champion after all! - What can I do ? - tears come to her eyes for the second time. And then, with desperation in her voice: - And do you know what I want ? I want her to live abroad. Yes, I love Russia, but you have to be able to live. There, she will be respected as an Olympic champion. And here ? Do you know what some high Rubtsovsk official said when gifts for Katya were mentioned, "Too bad, Katya, that you live here." In the Kremlin For Katya, home is an apartment in Rubtsovsk, where her father, grandfather, grandmother and dog live. But she feels at home here, in the Round Lake. Where she toils, where she is not allowed to make mistakes, where she hears more scolding than praise, where it's never too much or good enough. Here is her favorite beam, her bed where she can warm up her tired bones and round-round lake. Round like a ring. Betrothed to the sport, doomed to the sport. Here she is, sitting in front of me, tiny girl with shaggy hair, the one which on a photo from the Olympic ball in the Kremlin is smiling in the first row between Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Matviyenko. And she is giggling and clapping her hands while telling me about it: "Your Putin is so small!"   Alecia Kazantseva Source: Svobodnyi Kurs/Altapress Special thanks to 'Yulia' for translation!