Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya is the head coach of the Russian national synchronized swimming team, the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Sports Training Center for Russian National Teams”, Moscow.
Born on June 5, 1950 in Arkhangelsk. Russian. She studied rhythmic gymnastics and became a master of sports. In 1971 she graduated from the State Central Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Culture (now the Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism) in Moscow. In 1971–1981 she worked as a rhythmic gymnastics coach.
In 1981, she began coaching the USSR national synchronized swimming team. In 1991–1992, he was the state coach of the USSR and Russia synchronized swimming teams. In 1992, the synchronized swimming team under her leadership took part in the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona (Spain). From 1992 to 1996 she worked as a synchronized swimming coach in Spain and Brazil.
In 1996 she returned to coaching in Russia. Since 1998 - head coach of the Russian synchronized swimming team. Under her leadership, the team achieved outstanding sporting results and won all the highest titles in this sport.
Over the years, the team has won all the gold medals (duet, group) at five Summer Olympics: Sydney (2000, Australia), Athens (2004, Greece), Beijing (2008, China), London (2012, Great Britain) and Rio de Janeiro (2016, Brazil); gold and silver medals (solo, duet, group, combo) at the World Championships (1998, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017) and European Championships (1999, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016), as well as at the World Cup and other competitions.
Her students are distinguished not only by their brilliant technique, but also, which is very important, by their will to win. Among her students: five-time Olympic champions A.S. Davydova, N.S. Ishchenko, S.A. Romashina, four-time Olympic champion A.N. Ermakova, three-time Olympic champions O.A. Brusnikina, M.I. Gromova, M.A. Kiseleva, E.R. Khasyanova.
By Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of April 20, 2014 for special labor services to the state and people Pokrovskaya Tatyana Nikolaevna awarded the title of Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation with the presentation of a special distinction - the gold medal "Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation".
Vice-President of the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation.
Lives and works in Moscow.
Honored Trainer of the RSFSR. She was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th degree (11/4/2005), Alexander Nevsky (04/12/2013), Honor (04/19/2001), Friendship (01/15/2010), medals, Certificate of Honor of the President of the Russian Federation (01/23/2010). 2014).
Winner of the National Sports Award "Glory" in the category "Best Coach" (2004).
Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation, head coach of the Russian synchronized swimming team,
Distinguished Physical Culture Worker Russian Federation, Honored Trainer of Russia, to Recipient of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV degree, vice-president of the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation, master of sports in rhythmic gymnastics
Synchronized swimming is the only water sport that has all the artistic advantages - colorful performances, organic movements, a combination of strength and grace.
In 1997, the Russian team climbed to the first step of the world synchronized swimming podium for the first time and has not left it to this day. During this time, more than one generation of athletes has changed in the national team. The head coach of the team, the incomparable Tatyana Pokrovskaya, led them all to incredible heights of sportsmanship. Under the leadership of Pokrovskaya, Russian synchronized swimmers won all the gold medals at five Olympics in a row (!). And there is hardly another coach in the history of world sports who trained 27 Olympic champions!
Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya was born on June 5, 1950 in the village of Solombala, Solombala district, Arkhangelsk region. Father - Ivanov Nikolai Ivanovich (1914–1964). Mother - Ivanova (Demina) Vera Antonovna (1914–1988). Spouse - Pokrovsky Alexander Alexandrovich (d. 2013). Daughter - Ekaterina (born 1972), lives in Brazil, works at the representative office of the Gazprom company. Grandchildren: Elizaveta (d. 2014), Ivan (born 2015) and Anna (born 2016).
Tatyana Pokrovskaya's father was born in Chelyabinsk, her mother in the village of Sukhtili, Chelyabinsk region. They met and got married at the construction of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works - the famous Magnitka. Before the war they had two children. In 1941, Nikolai Ivanovich went to the front, went through the entire war, was wounded several times, and met victory in Germany. Awarded the Order of Glory. After the war, Nikolai Ivanovich graduated from the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze, and the family lived for some time at a military unit in the Arkhangelsk region on the island of Solombala, where Tatyana was born. The youngest daughter, her father's favorite, she inherited his character - decisive, fighting, and nature gifted her with rare artistry.
In 1959, the family moved to Magnitogorsk. There, second-grader Tanya, who dreamed of becoming a ballerina, independently enrolled in the rhythmic gymnastics section, and a year later found a ballet studio. After some time, on the urgent advice of the ballet studio teacher, the parents sent their daughter to the Perm Ballet School, but living and studying away from her home turned out to be too difficult, and six months later she returned home.
Tanya Ivanova made progress in rhythmic gymnastics. In the 7th grade, she became a candidate for master of sports and played for the Chelyabinsk region team. Ballet still remained at an amateur level, and in the end Tanya decided to devote her energies entirely to rhythmic gymnastics. After graduating from school, she entered the State Central Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Culture (GTSOLIFK).
Student years are a happy time. Tatyana studied with excellent marks. The gymnastics coach immediately selected her for the group. In addition to the mandatory classes and training, there were also ballroom dancing and our own dance ensemble! In her 3rd year, Tatyana met her future husband. Alexander Pokrovsky is also a student at GCOLIFK, he studied a year older than her. A whirlwind romance began between the young people. A year later, Alexander graduated from college and went to serve in the army, and a year later they got married.
Tatyana had already played for the Moscow national team and had excellent prospects. In 1971, having graduated from the institute with honors, she could have remained at the institute as a rhythmic gymnastics coach, but chose to go to Moldova, where her husband had been transferred to serve, and began working as a physical education teacher at a boarding school. In this provincial school, special attention was paid to sports, and the children had good results in athletics. Tatyana Pokrovskaya, who studied athletics at the institute very superficially, had to show ingenuity in order not to lose her authority in the very first classes. T.N. Pokrovskaya recalls: “During the lesson, I showed the children such a start that they almost stood in splits. When we ran, I didn’t understand why my children were rubbing their noses in the path. It turned out that I had mixed up the distance between the starting blocks. And they didn’t even show it. We thought: maybe a person from Moscow knows more? Well, my husband explained to me what was happening. And the next day, as if nothing had happened, I say: yesterday we learned the training start, and now we will learn the sports start.”
They really liked her at school - she was young and cheerful! But I didn’t have to work here for long. In 1972, daughter Ekaterina was born, and Tatyana moved to her mother in the Urals, and soon settled with her husband in a new place - in the city of Elektrostal, Moscow region, where Alexander got a job. The apartment was not given right away. In the barracks of the metallurgical plant dormitory there was one kitchen for the entire floor, one shower for the entire dormitory. But Pokrovskaya was not afraid of difficulties. She learned all the wisdom of everyday life from her dorm neighbors.
Tatyana led a children's rhythmic gymnastics group, which at first was self-sufficient and did not have a gym. When the group began to make progress, Tatyana Pokrovskaya received a position as a rhythmic gymnastics coach at the Metallurg stadium, and after a while she took the children to regional competitions, where she surprised everyone with the unexpectedly high level of training of her students, who could well be candidates for master of sports , but until now they haven’t even performed anywhere.
Why did Pokrovskaya say goodbye to rhythmic gymnastics? In 1981, two talented gymnasts from her group, who already had the title of master of sports, without agreeing with her on their decision, went to train with N.V. Shibaeva (Honored Trainer of the USSR) to her school in the city of Zhukovsky. This offended Tatyana Nikolaevna so much that she transferred all her athletes to another coach, and she herself accepted the offer to try her hand as a choreographer in synchronized swimming.
By the early 1980s, the center of development and popularization of synchronized swimming in the USSR was Moscow, where a powerful coaching school developed through creative search and competition. Future honored coaches of Russia worked here: Z.A. Barbier (Moscow swimming pool), M.N. Maksimova (department of swimming of the State Center for Physical Education and Physical Culture). It was Maria Nikolaevna Maksimova, who noticed Pokrovskaya working with gymnasts, and invited her to her synchronized swimming school “Burevestnik”. Tatyana Nikolaevna plunged headlong into mastering a new profession, with her characteristic energy and dedication. She enthusiastically conducted training in the gym, and sometimes, when Maksimova was busy at the institute, she worked with the team on the water. Synchronized swimming, which seemed to her to be little like a sport at all, gradually became closer and more understandable. She learned to see the work of the athletes’ hands under water and realized how much depends on this work. It turned out that the task of a choreographer in synchronized swimming is akin to the work of an architect or engineer, erecting complex structures on an invisible foundation.
Tatyana Pokrovskaya brought with her into her profession the ability to compose artistic compositions, through the prism of gymnastics and ballet school, examining the artistic component - stretched legs, grace, beauty of lines.
At M.N. Maximova Tatyana Pokrovskaya learned a lot. She participated in the production of a composition for the duet of Maximova (Irina Potemkina, Tatyana Khaitser) - then the strongest in the USSR. When working with her own duet, she was not afraid to experiment and, without knowing it, she anticipated the global trend in the development of synchronized swimming techniques, trying to get athletes to perform choreography with both hands, although it was believed that a synchronized swimmer should have one hand as a support hand.
In 1982, T.N. Pokrovskaya ended up in the Trud team, where Z.A. worked as a coach. Barbier. A wonderful young coaching team has gathered here. The coach of the junior team, Elena Gryzunova, willingly advised Tatyana Pokrovskaya and taught synchronized swimming techniques. The duet, which Pokrovskaya trained independently, achieved significant success by entering the USSR national team.
In 1984, the state coach of the RSFSR Valentina Sergeevna Nemogaeva invited Pokrovskaya to coach the team of the Olympic Reserve School in the city of Elektrostal. Pokrovskaya got down to business with enthusiasm, went her own way in the work, invented strokes herself, came up with connections between elements. Almost all of her athletes were included in the RSFSR national team, and Irina Zhukova was included in the USSR national team.
Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya belongs to the generation of coaches who came to synchronized swimming in the first half of the 1980s, who were united by the desire to learn and achieve high results. The Soviet coaching school was developing rapidly, and Western coaches were happy to pass on their experience to Soviet synchronized swimming, which did not yet represent competition. Seminars were organized to exchange experience with foreign specialists. The USSR championships were held, attracting many teams and full stands at the Olympic swimming pool in Moscow.
In 1985, the USSR national team went to the European Aquatics Championships in Sofia for the first time. The group, which included Pokrovskaya’s student Irina Zhukova, was prepared for the championship by Z.A. Barbier, duet - N.A. Mendygalieva. The head coach of the USSR national team was M.N. Maksimova. Tatyana Pokrovskaya went with the team as a second coach. The debutants achieved high results at the European Championship: they came fifth in group exercises, and entered the top ten in solo and duet exercises. The first victory at the European level came to the Soviet synchronized swimmers in 1986 - at the European Cup in Holland, where Tatyana Pokrovskaya went with the team as a senior coach, preparing the group. The team included her wards - Vera Artyomova and Olga Belaya, as well as Irina Zhukova. Tatyana Nikolaevna was so worried that during group competitions she left the podium and walked around the pool. She didn’t immediately believe it when, after the free program, she saw her athletes running towards her with joyful cries of “We are first!” It was real jubilation!
At the V World Championships in 1986 in Madrid (Spain), Pokrovskaya also worked with the group. Her compositions were already more complex and mature, but the Soviet synchronized swimmers were still far from reaching the level of the favorites - the USA, Canada, Japan. The team took fifth place - second among European teams after France. In 1987, at the European Championships in Strasbourg (France), the USSR team for the first time won “silver” in the group and “bronze” in duets, two years later - at the European Championships in Bonn (Germany) - their debut victory came: Christina Falassinidi excelled in solo , the Soviet group and duet won silver medals.
In 1991, Tatyana Pokrovskaya became the head coach of the USSR synchronized swimming team. This year turned out to be triumphant for Soviet synchronized swimmers: at the European Championships in Athens (Greece) they won in all three types of the program. Olga Sedakova became the absolute champion of Europe. In 1992, Pokrovskaya’s team (now called the CIS team) seriously declared itself at the Olympic Games in Barcelona (Spain), taking fourth place in solo and duet after the USA, Canada and Japan (there were no competitions in the group at the Olympic Games at that time). In the same year, at the Synchronized Swimming World Cup, the team in the group climbed to the third step of the podium.
Meanwhile, the time for the development of sports in the country was not the best. Leading athletes began to leave to work in various shows abroad. In 1993, Tatyana Pokrovskaya decides to leave for Spain to coach the Balearic Islands club team. Soon, her daughter Ekaterina, who graduated from college, moves in with her and helps her in her work as a choreographer and swimming coach free of charge, without a contract. The working conditions at the Spanish club were excellent, but a year later Pokrovskaya did not renew her contract. Neither the management nor the club’s athletes had the mindset to achieve great sporting results, and this was not Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s style. In the summer of 1995, without even seeing her husband, who remained in Russia, Tatyana Nikolaevna and her daughter were already flying to Rio de Janeiro to take up the post of head coach of the Brazilian national team.
After the comfort and peace of the Balearic Islands, Tatyana Nikolaevna and her daughter were quite shocked by the noisy, disorderly life of the Brazilian capital. Pokrovskaya immediately threw herself into work, her daughter actively studied Portuguese and soon found work in the tourism business. Soon, Pokrovskaya’s team formed a core of girls who were ready to go to Russia for their favorite coach. The President of the Brazilian Synchronized Swimming Federation provided full support. However, normal conditions for training were never provided. The national team didn't even have its own swimming pool. Despite this, Pokrovskaya was able to adequately prepare the team for the Pan American Games, where the Brazilian team took fourth place after the USA, Canada and Mexico.
Having settled on this worthy result, in October 1995 Tatyana Nikolaevna returned to Russia, to Moscow. The city has changed beyond recognition. First impression: a dimly lit hall at Sheremetyevo Airport, similar to a train station, with people sleeping on benches. The dull October weather after the colorful landscapes of Rio also did not add optimism. The homeland did not greet Pokrovskaya kindly - she was without work for more than six months. Finally, colleagues and friends (Polyanskaya and Nemogaeva) sounded the alarm. Tatyana Nikolaevna began working at the Trud school, where Valentina Alekseevna Teplyakova was the director, and her daughter Tatyana Danchenko was the head coach.
After the XXVI Olympic Games in Atlanta (USA), at which the Russian team took fourth place, the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation held elections for the team's head coach. Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya was elected to this post by a majority of votes. The first thing she did in her new post was to invite Olga Sedakova, a student of E.N. Polyanskaya, who was working in Switzerland at that time, returned to the team. The star of the Russian national team, which was undefeated at several European Championships in a row, has returned. At this time, a painful generational change began in America, Canada and Japan, and Russia had a great chance to become a world leader. Tatyana Pokrovskaya's first tournament as the head coach of the national team - the World Cup in China in 1997 - brought the team gold. M.N. worked with the groups in the team. Maksimova and O.I. Vasilchenko, with duets - E.N. Polyanskaya.
In 1998, Russians won the World Aquatics Championships in Perth (Australia), the Goodwill Games and the European Synchronized Swimming Cup. In 1999, they again won victories at the World Cup and the European Championships in all three types of the program. Olga Sedakova ended her sports career as an absolute world champion. The first soloist of the team was Olga Brusnikina. In the duet, Maria Kiseleva remained her only partner.
For the XXVII Olympic Games in Sydney (Australia), Tatyana Pokrovskaya trained the group herself, and the talented Elena Polyanskaya continued to work with the star duet Kiselyov - Brusnikin. Friendship, mutual support and complete unanimity reigned in the work between the two coaches. Already accustomed to the highest scores, Tatyana Pokrovskaya and her athletes went to the Olympics only for “gold” and got it - both in group competitions and in duet competitions.
After the Olympics we had to recruit a new team. Having achieved the highest sports title of Olympic champions, many still young athletes left sports, and Maria Kiseleva also ended her sports career. Olga Brusnikina agreed to stay and train solo. In the duet, under the leadership of Tatyana Danchenko, young athletes, world champions among juniors, Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova, trained. It seemed that the opponents would finally be able to catch the Russian team at the change of champion generations. During preparations for the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka (Japan), Pokrovskaya more than once heard skepticism: “At least you’ll get to the finals!” But she only strived for more. The result of the championship for the Russian team was first place in the group and in solo. Olga Brusnikina defeated the Frenchwoman Virginie Didier. A brilliant composition with the image of Scheherazade to the music of Rimsky-Korsakov became the final one in her sports career. In the duet competition, rising stars Anastasia Davydova and Anastasia Ermakova lost gold to Japanese athletes.
The following year, 2002, Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s already strengthened team won gold medals at the World Cup in Zurich (Switzerland) in group and duet (A. Ermakova-A. Davydova) and silver in solo (A. Ermakova). Russian synchronized swimmers showed the same results in 2003 at the World Championships in Barcelona (Spain).
The Russian synchronized swimming team approached the XXVIII Olympic Games in 2004 in Athens (Greece) as undisputed leaders. Tatyana Pokrovskaya, a maximalist coach, constantly demanded iron discipline and complete dedication from her athletes. The training lasted 10 hours a day, and the girls were ready for any difficulties. Therefore, when the music was turned off twice during the Russian women’s group exercise competition, this did not stop them from finishing their performance brilliantly. In Athens, Tatiana Pokrovskaya's team won gold in both the group and duet. In the decisive free program, performed to the music of Minkus from the ballet Don Quixote, Davydova and Ermakova again confirmed their superiority over their rivals.
In 2005, for his great contribution to the development of physical culture and sports, high sporting achievements at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in 2004 in Athens, T.N. Pokrovskaya was awarded the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree.
The Russian synchronized swimming team spent the next Olympic cycle, collecting all the gold medals at all European and world championships. The only exceptions were Natalia Ishchenko’s silver medals in solo at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne (Australia) and the 2008 European Championships in Eindhoven (Netherlands).
In preparation for the Olympics, Pokrovskaya considered all eight teams with which she had to compete as worthy competitors, without discounting anyone, and to be on the safe side, she indicated one “gold” and one “silver” in the medal plan. But they were in vain to play it safe!
At the XXIX Olympic Games in Beijing (China), Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s athletes once again confirmed the affectionate nickname “goldfish” given to them by fans, winning competitions in groups and duets. A. Ermakova and A. Davydova became the first four-time Olympic champions in the history of this sport.
However, Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya did not have to rest on her laurels. There was a generational change in the team. From the “golden” team of Beijing, besides Davydova and Ermakova, only Natalya Ishchenko and Svetlana Romashina continued their performances. Detractors kept saying: “Let Pokrovskaya not take the team to the European Cup, otherwise she will disgrace herself and won’t be given any place at the World Championships...” But the Russians went and won. The duet of S. Romashina and N. Ishchenko had no equal, and the group of young athletes was also second to none.
At the World Championships in Rome (Italy) in 2009, the renewed team of Tatyana Pokrovskaya won the technical and free programs. The coach decided not to field the team in the combination. A year later, the justification of the decision was confirmed: at the 2010 European Championship in Budapest (Hungary), the Russians no longer had equals in combination.
The 2011 World Aquatics Championships took place in China. But neither the native walls nor the new - closed - judging system helped the Russians' main competitors win. All the “gold” of the world - seven out of seven medals of the highest standard were won by the Russian national team! Natalya Ishchenko won six (!) gold medals and became the most titled world champion.
The fight with the Chinese women, who “breathed down” Tatyana Pokrovskaya at the World Championships, continued in 2012 at the XXX Olympic Games in London (Great Britain). And here again all the gold medals were rightfully awarded to her wards: Natalya Ishchenko, Svetlana Romashina, Anastasia Davydova, Maria Gromova, Elvira Khasyanova, Alexandra Patskevich, Daria Korobova, Anzhelika Timanina, Alla Shishkina. Based on the sum of the technical and free programs, the group scored 197,030 points.
Chinese and Spanish synchronized swimmers took second and third places. Anastasia Davydova became the world's first and only five-time Olympic champion, and the Russian team celebrated its fourth consecutive Olympic victory!
On April 20, 2014, by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation, Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya was awarded the title “Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation.” She became the first among the workers in the field of physical culture and sports to be awarded a special distinction - the gold medal of the Hero of Labor.
In 2013, the XV World Championships in Barcelona (Spain) were held under new rules for synchronized swimmers. Each element in the technical program was now assessed separately, for which a third panel of judges was formed. But for Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s team this did not become an obstacle on the way to the podium. After all, there is no one more technical than Russians in world synchronized swimming! Once again they won in all types of the program. Three-time Olympic champion Svetlana Romashina won gold for the team in solo. The duet Svetlana Romashina - Svetlana Kolesnichenko was recognized as the strongest in the world.
The next world championship was held in 2015 in Kazan. On the eve of the home championship in May 2015 in the Netherlands, Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s team performed at the European Cup, limiting itself to only the Olympic types of the program (group and duet), and won tickets to the Olympic Rio de Janeiro.
After a break due to the birth of a child, Natalya Ishchenko returned to the team and again joined the duet with Svetlana Romashina. In Kazan they became world champions. Svetlana Romashina eclipsed everyone in her solo with the new program “Pretty Woman”.
The group also won gold medals - so expected, but no less valuable. The Chinese synchronized swimmers took second place with Tatyana Pokrovskaya's team, and the Japanese team took third place.
The home world championship in Kazan is the 16th in the history of the sport, and for Tatyana Nikolaevna Pokrovskaya - the ninth gold medal in a row - went down in the history of synchronized swimming as revolutionary due to the fact that it was here that competitions in a new type of program - mixed doubles - were officially held for the first time -duet. The decision to include mixed duets in the competition program at the World Championships was made in the fall of 2014 at the congress of the International Swimming Federation. The athletes barely had six months to prepare. This news was met with skepticism by Russian experts, and the main skeptic, by her own admission, was Tatyana Nikolaevna.
But they decided to take the risk anyway. Alexander Maltsev was the only (!) male synchronized swimmer training at that time at the Institute of Physical Education. “It’s good that at least we have him. It’s good that he has a sufficient level of training,” Pokrovskaya said then. Mixed duet coach Gana Maksimova was more optimistic about the athletes’ capabilities, but she was in no hurry to assess the prospects of the new sport.
A partner for Alexander Maltsev was selected from the national team. Darina Valitova has been playing for the national team for a year now and became the European champion in the group. Tatyana Pokrovskaya didn’t really want to “give her away,” but in order to technically improve the duet, just such a partner was necessary.
The success of the Russian mixed duet at the World Championships in Kazan was another confirmation of the highest professionalism and experience of Russian coaches. Darina Valitova and Alexander Maltsev won the free program and lost to American synchronized swimmers Bill May and Christina Lam-Underwood in the technical.
At the next European Championship in 2016 in London (Great Britain), Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s team again showed brilliant results. In all types of the program, except for the group free program, in which they did not participate, the Russians won gold. This time, the Russian mixed duet with an updated composition (Alexander Maltsev and Mihaela Kalancia) was unconditionally in the lead in both the technical and free program, ahead of their closest rivals - Italians Giorgio Minisini and Mariangela Perrupato - by three points. At this European championship, Tatiana Pokrovskaya’s wards brought the Russian team eight out of ten gold medals, which allowed the Russian athletes to become third in the overall team standings.
Before the start of the XXX Summer Olympic Games - July 24, 2016 - the IOC Executive Committee decided not to exclude the entire Russian team from the Olympics, leaving the final decision on admission to the Olympic Games to international sports federations. The full team of Russian synchronized swimmers was allowed to participate in the Olympics in Brazil.
Tatyana Pokrovskaya, in her own words, was very worried about the team members, for whom this was their first Olympic cycle. “It was hard for me to imagine,” she said in an interview with the R-Sport portal, “that suddenly Natalya Ishchenko and other more experienced girls would have white metal among the “gold.” Her anxiety was not caused by the level of training of the young athletes, but by the general situation around Russia’s participation in the Olympic Games, which could affect the judges’ decision. But the authority of Russian synchronized swimming is so great that there were no provocations against Tatyana Pokrovskaya’s team in Rio.
The composition of the team has not changed compared to the last European Championship. Svetlana Romashina and Natalya Ishchenko were added to the group. These currently the strongest synchronized swimmers in the world won gold in the duet and then in the group, becoming five-time Olympic champions.
Tatyana Pokrovskaya and her team in Rio de Janeiro won the fifth Olympics in a row. Their main competitors, as in 2012 in London, were the Chinese team. Athletes from Ukraine and Japan showed a high level in the technical program. On the second day of the group competition, the Russians were the first among the medal contenders. Their composition, entitled “Prayer,” was a combination of phenomenal complexity and beauty that left neither the audience nor the judges indifferent. The fact that they took a confident step towards Olympic “gold” could be judged immediately after their performance by the reaction of Tatyana Pokrovskaya, who, standing at the side in her “lucky” pink blouse, applauded her players. When the score became known - 99.113 points, any fight for gold medals could be considered over. Chinese athletes took second place, and the Japanese team won bronze in a serious competition with Ukrainian synchronized swimmers.
After the Olympics, Tatyana Pokrovskaya gave her consent to continue working with the national team until the XXXII Olympic Games, which will be held in Tokyo (Japan) in 2020.
Tatyana Nikolaevna is not one of those coaches who are always confident in themselves and insist that their students are the best. She constantly says: “We are the weakest!” And this is one of the secrets of her success. “Sport is a struggle, there are always surprises. We have to work - more than others. Look ahead - further than others. Cooking new things before others,” she says.
T.N. Pokrovskaya is an Honored Worker of Physical Culture of the Russian Federation, Honored Trainer of Russia, Master of Sports in rhythmic gymnastics. Laureate of the Slava sports award in the category “Best Coach” (2005). Vice-President of the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation.
She trained 27 Olympic champions. She trained masters of sports of international class: silver medalist of the European Championship in synchronized swimming (duet, group) I. Zhukova; silver medalist of the European Championship (group) O. Belaya; silver medalist of the world championship (duet) Yu. Beloglazov; European champion (group) V. Artemova.
Hero of Labor of the Russian Federation, holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree, Alexander Nevsky, Friendship, Honor.
Tatyana Pokrovskaya has a Yorkshire terrier dog named Daniil. He is present at all training sessions. The team calls it anti-stress and the brand of the Russian synchronized swimming team.
– Tatyana Nikolaevna, is it true that you were not going to connect your fate with synchronized swimming?
“I can’t stand swimming in the pool either.” I don’t like this water - I disdain it. You go back and forth, back and forth - it irritates me. I only swim in the sea. Or in the ocean. But I’m not a very good swimmer, to be honest. I don’t like my head to be in the water, I don’t breathe correctly... And I wouldn’t connect my life with synchronized swimming under any circumstances. I still can’t understand how it’s possible to hang upside down in the water and not even be able to see what your legs are doing.
– Have you ever asked your girls about this?
– I asked... They laugh and claim that they can see their legs. I say: you don’t know how the audience reacts. And they: well, we’re diving up... You know, once on “Round Lake” I tried to hang upside down. The water in the pool was cloudy, and I didn’t even understand where the bottom was and where the top was. She began to panic, like a caught fish. The girls caught me, and I still remember this horror: God, how scary! And they still manage to feel their movements with an accuracy of a degree: an angle of fifteen, a slope of thirty...
– You also have such a frightening term - falling asleep under water. I was told that there were cases when athletes actually fell asleep there because they held their breath too much...
– When we were just looking for ourselves in synchronized swimming, there was such a fashion to lengthen the ligaments. That is, most of the program will work underwater. We all rushed then. The Russian school is generally different in this regard. Nowadays synchronized swimming is being taken away for relief - they say you can’t hold your breath for too long, but we still stand our ground. I remember when we started doing this, the Americans came up to us and said: let your children breathe, why will they just come up like fish, catch the air and go back under the water... Yes, there are cases when athletes cannot swim out and they have to be caught , they really do happen. But this rarely happens in training. Mainly at competitions, in the compulsory program. When the already difficult breathing is paralyzed by excitement... This is a very difficult sport. That's why I say: how do they bear all this? This is not clear to me. Unclear.
– And this comes from a coach who won the Olympics twice...
“Even though I don’t understand the girls’ feelings, I can see a lot from above.” It would seem that your legs are sticking out above the water, and that’s all. What else can you see? I once thought so, but now you grasp everything at the same time: how they stroke, how they hold their breath, how they work with their hands. Everything seems to be the same - only their legs are above the water, but by their movement I can even tell from afar what mistakes they are making down there. This all comes with experience.
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– I am a very impulsive coach. And my biofield is probably very strong. When I scream, the equipment sits next to me, so I really don’t need a microphone.
- Do you know that your girls are afraid of you?
- I know. Even those who are not yet in the national team, but on the way. They know that I have very serious discipline. And the fact that they will have to work in a way they have never worked before.
-Are you a fanatic?
– Do you think that you should be born a coach?
- Definitely.
– It’s still unclear how you were able to master a sport that was not yours so thoroughly. Or do you not care who to train?
“I came at a time when anyone, if they wanted, could become a coach in this sport. Synchronized swimming was a child back then. We all walked by feel. And I had very good teachers - Marina Maksimova, Zoya Barbier. Synchronized swimming in Russia began with them. After rhythmic gymnastics, where I worked as a coach, it generally seemed to me that this was not a sport. The most interesting thing is that my husband convinced me to do it. He was then working at the Moscow Sports Committee and wanted his fanatically devoted wife to be at home more often and look after the child. So I had nowhere to go.
– And the husband miscalculated in the end?
- And how! At one time (he was a military man), I, like a Decembrist, went to serve in Tmutarakan. She worked as a physical education teacher in a regular school. By the way, I have very good memories of that time. Although the school was provincial, they paid very serious attention to sports. The children had very good results in athletics. Well, I showed such miracles - you can stage a comedy. I was a gymnast and took part in athletics at the Institute of Physical Education from time to time. If only they gave the test. Well, during the lesson, such a start showed them that they were almost standing in splits, spread out. When we started running, I didn’t understand why my children were practically rubbing their noses into the path. It turned out that I had mixed up the distance between the starting blocks. And they didn’t even show it. We thought: maybe a person from Moscow knows more? Well, my husband explained to me what was what. And the next day, as if nothing had happened, I say: yesterday we learned the training start, and now we will learn the sports one... Who knows, maybe we would have stayed there, but I always wanted more. I already knew for sure that I would be a coach. And I was accustomed to working in such an exhausting mode since childhood.
– The head coach of our “artists” Irina Viner once noticed that in the same women’s sport, they have a boa constrictor on the left and a cobra on the right. You can expect anything at any moment. Is it difficult for you in this sense?
– It’s no more difficult than in a men’s team. Believe me, there are plenty of intrigues there too. When our two duets (Anastasia Ermakova - Anastasia Davydova and Olga Brusnikina - Maria Kiseleva - “NI”) fought among themselves, everyone said: what a situation, how terrible! But there was nothing like that. I heard that sometimes no one put razors in boots, like in figure skating. The situation was, of course, a little nervous. But the coaches and girls behaved very well.
– So, having lost the selection, Brusnikina and Kiseleva went to complain to Fetisov?
- You understand, they have a grudge. They returned to the sport for the sake of a duet, and suddenly the rivals, very young, cross the road. I, too, perhaps at first believed more in Brusnikin and Kiselev, and it was a surprise to me that the young ones won. So anyone could do this, out of resentment. But there were no provocations in the group. Masha and Olga are generally smart people. We survived this difficult moment. And Ermakova and Davydova turned out to be not so rough. Both are laughing. And the fact that there was such competition only benefited everyone.
– What does this “Glory” award mean to you?
– The fact that they recognized the work of our entire coaching team in my person. It’s good that our work is beginning to be valued no less than the work of athletes. Still, the work goes on as equals. The athletes may have a lot of physical wear and tear, but the moral wear and tear of the coaches is much greater. Our work gets on our nerves terribly. And thank God that they began to understand: a lot depends on the coach. Because no matter how talented you are, there is no coach - and there is nothing. But it happens the other way around. In good hands and without talent you can become an Olympic champion. I had one girl on the team - Vera Artemova, so when she came to us, the diagnosis was: scoliosis, moving into the fourth stage. And this is not an isolated case. And now there are children in the national team who have achieved everything only through perseverance and the work of their coaches.
– Did you prepare for the World Cup with a calm heart, or is every tournament like the first for you?
– There are coaches who are always confident in themselves and say that their students are the strongest. And it always seems to me that mine are the weakest. And this does not allow you to calm down. Even girls sometimes raise me. They always say that you, Tatyana Nikolaevna, exaggerate. But I am like a distorting mirror. You have to click them on the nose. Now, I answer them, at the European Cup, for example, we beat the Spanish, but we haven’t seen our main competitors, the Japanese, yet. I remind them all the time: our rivals are growing. Let it be “on us”, but they are growing. And everyone is working seriously now. And Spain, with whom we came into contact at the training camp and gave it all our secrets. The Americans, who after the recession have now risen again and also adopted our course. The Japanese, who climb everywhere and have simply amazing working conditions. In general, we need to build the sport of the future. Just like in China. Because in the near future, not only those who have brilliant coaching staff, but also those who work in good conditions will win. Here we, as an elite team, of course receive all kinds of help and support from sports organizations, but for now we only hope that someday we, two-time Olympic champions in group and duet, will still have our own pool at home...
Opokrovskaya's opinion
Denver 17.06.2010 03:47:45
The creature is mocking the girls! She even hates the pool! Such coaches should be driven to hell!
The death of two-time world champion in synchronized swimming Olga Larkina, which occurred in early December, shocked everyone involved in this sport. The 20-year-old girl was just beginning her ascent to the top and was considered one of the main hopes of the national team on the way to the Beijing Olympics. No one could even imagine that a terrible disease was dormant in this strong, beautiful body. An Izvestia correspondent tried to figure out how this could have happened and why the terrible diagnosis of “aortic aneurysm” escaped the attention of doctors who regularly conducted medical examinations.
"Girls often complain about pain"
The ill-fated December 2 was no different from other similar days at the national team’s training camp in Ramenskoye. The synchronized swimmers are just beginning to prepare for the new season, and therefore their loads are far from the maximum. The morning session looked like an easy workout. The girls first swam in the pool, then spent an hour practicing the acrobatic entry into the water, which begins any performance, and then, to the accompaniment of music, began to compile a program. 15 minutes before the end of the workout, Olga complained of pain for the first time.
She swam up to me and said that her back hurt,” the head coach of the national team, Tatyana Pokrovskaya, who has seen everything in her time, clutches a handkerchief in her fist and periodically applies it to the corners of her eyes. “Our doctor gave her a pill, and Olya continued working - fortunately there was very little left until the end of the lesson. After lunch, the pain did not subside, and Larkina again went to the doctor. He gave her an injection of baralgin and massaged her back. I allowed Olya to skip the evening training and stay at the hotel. There were no traces of any dark thoughts - when performing acrobatics, girls often complain of pain.
By the evening, Olga’s health had noticeably worsened. As luck would have it, the team doctor was away in Moscow at that time, and there was only one masseuse left on the farm. Complaints of severe back pain alarmed her, and she called the medical department of the Sports Training Center. Its leading specialist, Irina Rodionova, six months ago, before being promoted, she herself worked as a doctor for synchronized swimmers, and knew all the athletes first-hand.
It was about six o’clock in the evening,” Rodionov restores the chronology of events. - They told me that Olya was sick, they described all the symptoms. Several diagnoses immediately appeared in my head: gastritis, inflammation of the gallbladder or kidney stones. We agreed that they would give her no-shpa and call an ambulance. I didn’t believe in the seriousness of this case, but I decided to hospitalize the girl just in case.
Olga was taken to a local medical center, but an hour later she left. Now no one can say exactly why it was decided to change the Ramen hospital to the Botkin hospital. Either the athlete didn’t like the interior, or she wanted to go home and change her clothes. Be that as it may, she fell into the hands of doctors again late at night.
At the Botkin Hospital they immediately took Larkina seriously: they took blood tests, took an X-ray of the lungs, ultrasound and gastroscopy, checked the liver and gall bladder. An entry was made in the registration journal: “The patient was admitted in satisfactory condition.”
On December 3, new tests followed. It was a little worrying that it was impossible to make an accurate diagnosis: the liver was fine, the gallbladder too, the pancreas again seemed to be normal. To check the patient's veins, doctors were going to inject a contrast agent into her blood. The procedure was scheduled for Monday.
During the day, Rodionova spoke with Olya on the phone. The pain remained, but it seemed to have become softer.
The communication session, which took place at 18:00, also gave no cause for concern - everything was normal.
The last conversation took place around 21:00 - the girl complained that the pain had become noticeably stronger.
Early in the morning of December 4, Irina Rodionova was awakened by a telephone call. On the other end of the line was Olya’s mother Marina. “They asked me to come to the hospital urgently. Do you know what happened?” - she asked anxiously. Rodionova began to frantically get ready. When she was about to leave the house, the phone rang again.
"The operation was unrealistic"
This death shocked everyone who had anything to do with synchronized swimming. People could not believe that “ordinary” pain could lead to such an outcome. The team's training was stopped for a while, and the whole team came to Olga's funeral at the Southern Cemetery. Larkina’s personal trainer, Larisa Malysheva, had a back pain from all the worries - for several days she couldn’t even get out to work. And Pokrovskaya still holds on to her heart.
After the autopsy, doctors will make a final diagnosis: rupture of the thoracic aorta. The scientific word “aneurysm” is most often heard in their conversations. An aneurysm is a rupture of the aorta that occurs due to thinning of the walls. The disease is much more common in older people - their vessels are usually thinned by atherosclerosis. In young people, aneurysm is much less common - one in thousands, tens of thousands. The chances of surviving with such a diagnosis are very slim. Even modern American reference books provide sad statistics: only 25-50% of young people with an aneurysm can survive more than five years.
It turns out that Olga Larkina was doomed. Nature, having endowed her with a tall, over 180 centimeters tall, slender figure and chiseled legs, which people came to admire from neighboring sports schools, did not take care of a reliable circulatory system. But the heart refuses to accept this, and endlessly goes through possible options for salvation. The athletes’ relatives also don’t want to believe that her end was predetermined. At the wake, Olya’s grandmother, they say, directly told the coaches: you didn’t save our girl!
Indeed, was this death inevitable? If the team doctor had been present at the training session in Ramenskoye, the decision on hospitalization could have been made much faster. If it weren't for the feverish rushing from one hospital to another, the doctors would have had a few more hours to make a diagnosis. An extra half day, which in the end was not there, perhaps it was they who decided the patient’s fate. And the endless “if onlys” beating in the brain...
However, experts believe that the delays that arose did not play a fundamental role in the fate of the athlete. Irina Rodionova shrugs:
Even if the doctors were able to make the correct diagnosis, they simply would not have time to prepare the operation. To do this, you need to turn off your heart and have a huge supply of blood. And then, who would do it?! An ordinary surgeon cannot do it; here you need to call a specialist. All this required at least a day or two; A few hours wouldn't solve anything. Plus, don't forget, it was the weekend.
Those who claim that the girl was “harassed” during training are also unlikely to be right. We repeat: at this time of year the loads simply could not be high. Impacts from entering the water (the team was just practicing acrobatics) can provoke the rupture of a congenital aneurysm. But this could happen from any shock - in transport, for example.
Larkin needed to be saved not in December 2005, when the flag on the clock almost fell, but many years ago. Moreover, athletes at the national team level regularly undergo a full medical examination. However, it turns out that an in-depth medical examination - abbreviated as UMO - is not a panacea for all ills. Doctors have to examine 3.5-4 thousand athletes who are members of the expanded rosters of various Russian teams, and it’s hard to keep track of everyone. And, as always, there are not enough funds allocated for these purposes. The cost of UMO for one athlete seems to be not so little - about 5 thousand rubles. But, given the high cost of medical services, with this money it is possible to do only the most necessary: take a couple of tests, do an ECG with fluorography, and have an examination by specialists. There is neither time nor money for such subtleties as checking the circulatory system.
There is another side to the coin. For any professional athlete, losing the opportunity to do what they love is a real tragedy. When most of your 18-20 years have been spent on sports, being forced to miss even a few workouts is perceived as a serious loss. The coaches remember how Olya suffered when she broke her little finger during one of the classes at the beginning of the year. “She was so worried that she would be expelled from the team, she was so eager to get back into the pool,” they say. In the end, the athlete was given a special splint made of waterproof material on the damaged area. You should have seen her shining eyes when she got the opportunity to rejoin her teammates.
“I just can’t imagine how it would be possible to tell Olechka that for health reasons she should leave the sport,” states Tatyana Pokrovskaya. - Moreover, I have already had such cases. So, several years ago, our girl, on the orders of doctors, ended her career: she had only one kidney, the second was in its infancy. And she had just begun to reach the peak of her career, won the world championship... What tears, what emotions! Then for a long time I heard behind my back accusations of bias. They say that it was not the medical prescription that was to blame, but my bias.
"Almost every female athlete has serious health problems"
However, all these are emotions. The leaders of the Russian Synchronized Swimming Federation in the “Larkina case” intend to rely only on verified facts. “We are now conducting an internal investigation into what happened,” Federation President Igor Kartashov told Izvestia. “We most likely will not punish anyone. We just want to figure out how this could have happened. This is necessary to avoid repetition of such stories.”
Most likely, the main outcome of the investigation will be the holding of a medical conference with the participation of doctors from all national teams of the country and invited specialists. It will certainly once again emphasize how important it is to pay close attention to diagnosing the health status of athletes. But will these spells help in conditions where there are simply no possibilities for a full diagnosis? Now it’s no secret to anyone that the health of the vast majority of Russian athletes leaves much to be desired. The experts themselves do not hide this. “Almost every one of our girls has one or another deviation,” admits Tatyana Pokrovskaya. “If all of them are kicked out of sports, there will simply be no one to compete.”
Many athletes in the West are in the same situation. But they have long learned to control the condition of their stars using medicine. Widespread, for example, are special sensors that are attached to the chest and allow one to check the activity of the cardiovascular system at home. In Russia, after completing a series of exercises, athletes feel the pulse on their arm in the old fashioned way. You can say absolutely correct things a thousand times, but until they are put into practice, they will be of no use. And we will only have to wait to see who will become the new victim of some “rare” disease that cannot be detected with a banal X-ray or stethoscope.
Sergei Grinkov’s heart also failed him
The death of top-level athletes from cardiovascular diseases is not such a rare occurrence in Russian and world sports. The tragedy of Olga Larkina brought to mind a similar incident with two-time Olympic figure skating champion Sergei Grinkov. In November 1995, a 28-year-old athlete died of a broken heart right on the ice. Later, doctors discovered atherosclerotic narrowing of the left coronary artery in Grinkov. A few years later, also during training, the heart of the Togliatti Lada hockey player Vyacheslav Bezukladnikov could not stand it. In September 2001, basketball player of Kazan UNICS and the Russian national team Yadgar Karimov was found dead in his room. Doctors determined that he died of sudden cardiac arrest.
They always talked a lot about her on the eve of the Summer Olympics: after all, Tatyana Pokrovskaya is a world-class coach, and it is thanks to her and her girls that our country has received the highest award for the fourth time and is a recognized leader in synchronized swimming throughout the world. That’s why the documentary film, released on Channel One on August 6, paid a lot of attention to her.
One could even say that in “Rio 2016. More than sport” Pokrovskaya became a central figure. And not in vain: Russian athletes once again proved how strong our school of synchronized swimming is, receiving gold medals and all the highest possible scores! This is an absolute world record in this sport.
By the way, the girls have a tradition of throwing their coach into the water of the pool. It’s good that in Brazil morals were not as strict as in the UK, because in London, at the 2012 Olympics, they were not allowed to express their gratitude in this way.
The absolute victory for the synchronized swimmers was brought by the most complex production “Prayer” - the heart-stopping music and the girls’ movements were so mesmerizing that everyone watched the performance with bated breath. And then the space literally exploded with applause.
When Tatyana Nikolaevna was asked why she staged this particular program at the Olympic Games in Rio, she replied that it was in memory of her granddaughter Lisa.
Last year, a terrible tragedy happened in the Pokrovskaya family: her beloved granddaughter, 15-year-old Lisa, passed away. The cause of the girl’s death is said to be an incurable disease, but there are no exact data, as well as photographs of the head coach’s granddaughter, on the Internet - Tatyana Nikolaevna does not want to expose her grief to public discussion. And 2014 was a difficult year, Pokrovskaya lost her husband. I even thought about leaving the sport, leaving my career... But the team begged her to stay. After all, despite the fact that many consider her harsh, even cruel in her treatment of athletes in the pool, Pokrovskaya received her position well deservedly. And over a 35-year career in this field, she was able to bring synchronized swimming to unattainable heights. And the fifth victory in a row at the Summer Olympic Games is the best proof of this.
Now the plans are to prepare a new, no less complex program for the next Olympics - in 2020 in Tokyo. Russian synchronized swimmers will once again surprise the world - how could it be otherwise?