Alexander Bessmertnykh: “You won’t earn billions in cross-country skiing.”

He won his first Russian Championship in holey boots sealed with plaster, and professional skis were bought on credit. He ascended the most important pedestal, he was “deprived” of the Olympics, and he brought the country a medal that had been waiting for thirty years. This is the silver medalist of the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi, vice world champion in cross-country skiing Alexander Bessmertnykh. Today, the famous athlete sits down at his desk – he became one of the students of the Russian International Olympic University (RIOU) in Sochi, where sports managers of the highest class are trained. About sports, politics, doping and human capabilities in an interview with Alexander Bessmertnykh.

– Alexander, since we met at the Olympic University in Sochi, let me congratulate you on the start of the academic year. Why did you decide to study?

– The time has come. In fact, I heard about the Russian International Olympic University (RIOU) a couple of years ago from my colleague Olga Zaitseva. Olya said that managers of the sports industry are being trained here. But I decided for myself: “First, I’ll finish running so that my studies are real.” While you are training, it is difficult to carve out even two weeks to come to classes. I was preparing for the Beijing Olympics, but I got sick with covid, it was a difficult recovery, I realized that it was time to stop playing sports. I called Olga, found out all the details, submitted the documents, and here I am.

– What will you do after your sports career? Are you planning to become an MP?

– To become deputies, probably, you don’t need to study at the Olympic University. In fact, the end of a sports career for high-level athletes is a huge problem. Yesterday we had a meeting day, many of my sports colleagues who plan to study here have no idea what they will do. When you’re in a big sport, you don’t get distracted by anything at all. And on the one hand, you are no longer young, and on the other, you don’t know how much, you just “run” and live according to the regime – they fed, watered, and trained. For me, this transition, fortunately, was quite easy. For several years now I have been the head of the Ski Racing Federation of the Kemerovo Region. There is a lot to do, but even then, I “departed” for two months. I am very glad that in our country there is such an organization as the Olympians Support Fund. For example, I got to study at the Russian International Olympic University on a grant from this foundation, I can gain knowledge in order to further develop the sport. This is the coolest thing you can think of for athletes. Because to see sport from the inside and correctly, in accordance with all the requirements and standards, to organize some kind of event or to manage a facility are two different things. And such knowledge can be obtained in Sochi, which means there will be more opportunities for sports on the ground.

– Alexander, talking with you, one cannot but ask a simple question: “Sport is out of politics”? You were one of those who were first “deprived” of the Sochi-2014 medals, and then returned …

“Unfortunately, today, sport is already politics. At first, this whole story with Rodchenkov and the doping scandal seemed something absurd. One person, without any evidence, without any reason, says something, accuses someone. But gradually the flywheel spun. You know what they presented me with, why they forbade me to run – because my name appeared in some notebook at Rodchenkov’s. When we flew to the court in Switzerland, it was something completely incomprehensible. Questions were asked: “Admit that your government has changed the samples.” What to confess? I am a sportsman. My task is to run and pass the test. And I don’t have to check whether the lid is tightly screwed on, what will happen later with my analyzes. As a result, the medals were “returned” to us, the award, however, was lying at my house all the time. But it was forbidden to go to the 2018 Olympics in Korea. Most importantly, by that time, almost everyone who participated in the Sochi Games had already finished their careers, new skiers had come. Again, Ustyugov was forbidden to go to Korea, and four years later he went to Beijing. Paradox.

– There is an opinion that today athletes show such results that are simply impossible without medical science …

– I think that the human body has not been studied and human capabilities have not been fully explored. There is a lot of evidence that in emergency situations a person can show phenomenal results. Someone hid from the bear, jumped to an incredible height, someone ran at breakneck speed. And we are talking about the fact that some drugs are needed to also jump. Why can an ordinary person run 20 kilometers and feel bad, but an athlete runs a hundred kilometers and everything is fine? But after all, people train, improve, develop methods, calculate loads, which ones to give for the best result. And it is not necessary to say that doping appeared and we began to run better, jump higher. Most drugs help not to improve the result, but to recover faster. The same mildronat that elderly grandmothers take – will it help to run faster? In general, there is more absurdity in this whole story.

How do you generally assess the situation with international sports? Recently, our country has been playing under a neutral flag, do some people think that such competitions should be abandoned?

– We are now isolated until they “release” – there will be no international sports. And you need to go to the Olympics under a neutral flag. Everyone understands perfectly well who came and why, for which country he stands. And the fact that someone, on the TV screen, “smeared” something is not important at all.

– Legkov, Ustyugov, Bessmertnykh – the whole country knows the names of the skiers of your generation. Is there a change?

– Yes. There are and will be. Who knew Bolshunov in 2017? We then ran together at the World Championships, he took places around the 15th. And a year later he went to the Olympics and brought medals. There is a galaxy of athletes behind Bolshunov, we have a good healthy transition. The most important thing is that there is no braking, like the Swedes or the Swiss have now. They lost several strong skiers of the older generation, and everything is a failure.

– It turns out that children’s skiing is developing in the country, from which future champions grow?

– In fact, a lot of children go skiing. In the regions, this is one of the most accessible sports, it is completely free for the time being. You come to the section, they give you skis, boots, poles, and as you grow older, you start buying professional equipment. Our most painful transition is after school. University sport in Russia is dead. But in our region, we have two thousand children skiing, of which there will always be a couple of promising ones who can be reached.

— And to finance… You said that you ran your first Russian Championship in holey shoes… How is it now with the financing of sports?

– I then bought these shoes from a friend, three hundred rubles. He sealed it with a plaster, fled, won. But, in fact, now nothing has changed.

– Which exit?

— I tend to the club system, which works all over the world, in our country it is only gaining momentum. Species where there is sponsorship money are developing. Where only government funding is in decline. It turns out that there is a sponsor, there is money, there is a result. In Europe, all sports for children rests on the parents. We also, only everyone consoles themselves with the hope that someone, somewhere will help. Although it is worth saying that the state helps us a lot. There is no such state support for sports as in Russia anywhere in the world. The Italians trained with us that year in Estonia, when they saw that the entire Russian team was “taken out” abroad, they were shocked. After all, this is 150 athletes, a lot of money. So a lot of money is spent on the sport of the highest achievements. The situation is worse in the regions that protect the budget and receive funding from Moscow.

— Why do our national teams train abroad? There are no conditions in the country?

Did you see Spitsov recently gave an interview? We were at a training camp in the Elbrus region, there is no roller track, we rode along the road. He runs, a girl drives behind him in a car and curses him. What for? This is the attitude of people towards their own. And we are talking about the training process. There are also infrastructure issues. The highlands are poorly developed. The only base at an altitude of 1800 meters is on the Semitsky Pass in the Altai Territory, but there are no conditions there, it has remained since the times of the USSR. In Sochi, there is not enough height – here the Laura center is located at 1300 meters. So we need to build, our country is not poor. Besides, there is a place. In Tyumen, for example, they built the world’s best training center for skiers. It is filled with regional teams all year round.

– It is clear that sports are hard. Then what is it – money, fame, or, after all, some kind of inner desire?

– The prize money is actually not that big, especially in cross-country skiing. Sports are very different, hockey, for example, in terms of money and prize money, is different from the same walking. Cross-country skiing is not a sport where you can earn billions of rubles. This is your life’s work, you love it. When you go to the start, you don’t think about money at all. You think that you have been going to this all your life, you want to prove to the whole world that you are here for a reason. It’s not about the money. Few people in sports think about them. Since childhood, the result has been in the first place for you, you want to become better, not because you will be given a chocolate bar or a medal for it.

– How did you get into the sport?

“My father was a skier. When I was born, he worked as a coach. My father took me and my brother to training, just so that they would not sit at home. After the ninth grade, I already wanted to connect my life with skiing, I went to the Olympic reserve school in Leninsk-Kuznetsky. I can’t say that they immediately told me: “You will be an Olympic champion.” I was just an average guy who skied. The result came to me only in 2012, when I “dropped in” for the first time at the World Cup in prizes, in 2014 at the Olympics.

— You took second place at the Sochi Olympics and became vice world champion in 2019. Is second place good or is something missing?

— Any pedestal is, first of all, an unforgettable experience. Especially at the Olympics in Sochi. These are my first and only Olympic Games, in my native country, my relatives were in the stands. The most offensive place is the fourth, you are one step away from the pedestal. In general, any medal is a lot of factors. For example, at the World Championships in 2019, I was less than three seconds behind the leader. So, after joy, you begin to think – you could have been the first, to look for where the flaw was, to try to eliminate it.

– Then the last question. What would you wish to young athletes who are going to the start today, maybe in holey shoes? What is the secret of the Olympic podium?

– In diligence. Never look at anyone, go towards your goal, it doesn’t matter if you have holes in your shoes or not, the main thing is the desire to move forward. Many will say that everything is wrong. Even my relatives asked me: “Why do you need this? Look, your father is an athlete, he didn’t achieve anything, he works in a mine.” But that didn’t stop. And it shouldn’t stop. I remember as a child walking after a workout with skis and met a bunch of friends at the entrance. They clicked seeds, rattled. I also wanted this. It’s more pleasant than freezing snot on the ski track for two hours. It was a temptation and had to be overcome. What gave me strength was that I had a purpose. And then I came home after the 2009 World Championship. I look – the same boys, they are already over twenty, and they are also standing there, with the same seeds. Nothing changed. And then I realized that all my sacrifices were not in vain, that’s what it was all for, these snot in the cold.