No excuses: "Go in for sports!" - interview with world champion Alexei Obydennov

Youngster

- Hi, Nastya! Always happy.

- I had a reckless childhood. The more mature I became, the more I immersed myself in the subculture of "youngsters" of the late 1980s - early 1990s.

I am from a small industrial town in the Moscow region (Likino-Dulyovo - author's note). There are many factories and factories here. Therefore, all my friends are, so to speak, from proletarian families. Families where parents are constantly busy at work, and children are left to their own devices. Plus, it was 1990.

The country was falling apart - adults had no time for our upbringing.

- The only one from the company, I led a sports life. I studied somehow. All my interests were related exclusively to sports or family. In the summer he played for the city football team, and in the winter - for the hockey (bandy) team. I helped my mother in the country and around the house. The money was end-to-end.

- Truck driver. My father was a chauffeur. But worked on small machines. And my dream was big cars, traveling.

By the way, this dream has been amazingly transformed and materialized in my life. When an accident happened to me, I “closed” this dream in my subconscious. And then, at the age of 34, I was riding a bicycle and it dawned on me - after all, my dream came true! I traveled half the world, though not in a big car, but on a bicycle. But this twist of fate is even more interesting.:)

- About big sports. There was a serious bandy team in our city, and the coaches predicted a good future for me. I thought that I could somehow be realized in this direction.

After the injury, I had to give up these thoughts, because I understood that thinking about “unrealized opportunities” is a vicious circle, from which it is difficult to get out of it later.

- Of course, I realized the psychological background of all this much later.:)

Where did the predisposition come from then to draw the right conclusions and behave rationally, I do not know. But it so happened that I set myself the right mental barriers. That is, it cannot be said that I put an end to sports, but I distanced myself from it so as not to cause myself psychological discomfort.

Age probably played an important role. I was only 14. I did not yet realize the seriousness of many things. Plus, my friends did not turn away - they accepted me as before.

I was "lucky" that the tragedy happened at the age of 14, and not three years later.

Then I would probably already be asking questions of my future work, family. Responsibility for my own future would crush me. And so - the sea is knee-deep. I was a child, so I managed to get through psychological adaptation quickly enough and without serious problems.

Implementation

- On my way, people began to appear who supported me and guided me in the right direction. One of the first was Svetlana Evgenievna Demidova. She was a social worker, found out about me, came and said: "You can't get hung up, take a year off from school, then finish your 9th and 10th grade and enter the Russian State Social University."

She made it clear to me that my future depends on my head and on my desire to live. I took her words very seriously.

- Yes. There I met another good man. Vasily Ivanovich Zhukov is the rector of this university. Before admission, I got to see him. He told me: “Don't worry - you will take exams on a general basis. In social and domestic terms, you will not have any problems here. Everything depends only on you.

From this began the realization that any restrictions are not objective. They are purely subjective. These are purely my ideas about the surrounding society and the surrounding reality.

Studying at the university (and I lived in a hostel for 5 days, I coped with everything myself) instilled confidence in myself and my strength. I realized that I could be realized, because I have a mind, will and fire in my eyes.

- Rather, I understood that this was the initial stage of my adaptation. I received knowledge and skills that would later help me find some way. Which? There were thoughts of going to graduate school or a second higher education. But it so happened that, having received a diploma, I remained an employee of the university.

- Sport has not gone anywhere. As I said, I forbade myself to think about a sports career, but still continued to play sports.

Alexey Obydennov: "From the age of 16 I was engaged in bodybuilding …"

At the age of 16, I started bodybuilding. Just appeared "Lyuber", and it became fashionable to be a jock. My friends also caught fire - we started studying in the basement of our five-story building. They dug a hole, brought dumbbells and weights that they found at their fathers. I came up with special devices for myself - I tied dumbbells and "pancakes" to rags, put them on my arm and … I did it.:) It turned out that I can swing biceps and even triceps, not to mention the legs, abs and other parts of the body.

Friends of bodybuilding, however, quickly got bored. And I studied it right up to 30 years old. It was also a way to assert yourself.

I had the most beautiful swinging legs of any jock in town.

- Yes. When I was doing abdominal exercises in the gym, they came up and asked not to breathe so deeply, otherwise they had no time for classes.:)

- I started having health problems. I was engaged in bodybuilding without a coach - I read magazines, listened to the advice of self-taught people like me. No one monitored my health either before or after training.

When I was 30, I had to go to work in Moscow every day (2.5 hours there, 2.5 hours back). After work I went to the gym. Naturally, this was a large functional load. I felt that my health began to subside: I started having problems with my heart, spine, and ligaments.

I understood that I could not go to ordinary doctors - they would put me in the hospital and would be pumped out like a decrepit grandfather. Only sports doctors could look at me through the correct prism and draw objective conclusions. In 2008, I came to the Center for Sports Medicine on Kurskaya.

When I stepped over the threshold of this institution, my life turned 180 degrees.

No brakes

- Not only did they put me on my feet, in this clinic I met another wonderful person, the director of the center Zurab Givievich Ordzhonikidze, who opened the doors for me to professional sports. At the end of the treatment, he called me and said that I had a very serious potential in sports. You just need to choose some kind of Paralympic sport.

- By the will of fate, I got on the voyage. I came to the coaches of the children's sports school №80 - the family couple Alexander and Elena Shchelochkov. They believed in me, although at the age at which I came to them, it is already too late to start a swimmer's career.

Literally six months later, I completed the CCM, a year later - a master of sports, two years later I became the champion of Russia in the Moscow relay. I was fanatical about training, because I realized that this was my chance. I don't have time to swing. It is necessary to realize the opportunity that was given.

Alexey Obydennov - Russian Swimming Champion

- In sailing, I reached the all-Russian level quickly, but it was unrealistic to go international. The fiercest competition - in order to enter the national team, you need to be at least a prize-winner of the World Championship.

At that moment, they began to develop cycling. From scratch. My body was already adapted to physical activity. I had excellent anaerobic fitness (bodybuilding) and aerobic endurance (swimming). I assessed my potential and realized that in a sport where there are no athletes at all, I have a clear competitive advantage. The only problem was learning to ride a bike.

- I went. But I had a break from 14 to 34 years old. When I came to my coach Alexei Chunosov, he told me: “Your legs, of course, are crazy, but how are you going to ride?”.

There is not a single paracyclist in the world with the same injuries as mine.

There is one Chinese man who has amputated hands on both hands, but it is still easier to hold on with two, albeit “defective” hands. I have nonsense - one hand is missing completely, the other - partially.

At first I drove without brakes, I could not switch gears. There is a rowing canal in Krylatskoye, along which a track is used by coaches to accompany athletes. Chunosov put me on a bicycle and said: "Thirty meters before the end of the straight, drop the pedals, roll the scooter, turn around and back."

- After two weeks of such training, I went to the Russian Championship in Orel.:) There the U-turn was on the mountain - there was no need to throw the pedals. But during the warm-up before the start, I flew into the ditch. The traffic police ran up to me and rushed to help. I drove them away - God forbid the organizers will see, they will be removed from the competition. Fortunately, I went to the start, finished and finished second.

Alexey Obydennov: "At first I drove without brakes"

- The bike was gradually adapted. I found an American triathlete - Hector Picard. He has a very similar injury. I contacted him. The trainer and I began to adopt his devices. He gave me a lot of valuable advice at the beginning.

- In training, when you go downhill, it can be 70 and 80 km / h. The maximum I had was 88 km / h. Sometimes, the adrenaline goes off scale and you catch yourself thinking - "Why?". After all, you can go down more slowly and safer. But in racing it helps - adrenaline helps to disconnect from all strangers.

Although, of course, paracycling is a rather traumatic sport. Probably, only mountain skiing is more extreme. But there is snow and you can group when you fall.

So, athletes in cycling are really fighters.

If you are not a fighter, then you will not come to this sport, and if you do, you will quickly merge.

Armada

- Not only. Now, for example, there are 13 people in the national team. These are handbikers (manual bicycles), tricyclists (tricycles for children with severe cerebral palsy) and we are "classics". "Classics" compete both on the track and on the highway. Handy and tricyclists - only on the highway. 20 paracyclists is probably a ceiling that will be difficult to break. Because cycling requires a serious material and technical base.

To assemble a group of 5-6 people and provide it with a training process, millions are needed (bikes cost from 100 thousand for the initial and up to 500 thousand rubles for serious tasks, plus an escort car, plus a rate for a trainer and mechanic, organization of year-round training at training camps and participation in competitions, plus a full-fledged bike base with a full-fledged box …). Which of the Russian regions is ready for such investments?

With the development of the same swimming - there are no problems. What does a swimmer need? Pool, glasses and swimming trunks. Cycling is much more expensive. It is insanely difficult to develop this sport in our country, all the more massively. This is not swimming or athletics, where the material, technical and organizational investments are several times less.

- There is a huge number of handbikers in Europe. For one championship in Germany, annually 150-200 people apply. They have a different system. High pensions, many good roads, so almost anyone with a disability can buy a handbike and train on their own.

- You need to train all year round. This is the first thing. And secondly, training in Russia will not give me the level of training that will allow me to qualify for medals. In Europe, it is possible to ride 1, 5 hours on a plain, 1, 5 - on a mixed profile, 1, 5 - a mountain within one training session. In Russia, in fact, there is only a track - there are not so many roads of different profiles. There is Sochi, but there is crazy traffic, there is Adygea, but there are broken roads.

- Sponsors. Rather, now the training process rests on three pillars: the federal level (support from the Ministry), regional (support from the Moscow Government, for which we stand) and business.

Now we have created the first Russian Paralympic cycling team - this is the Armada project. Its general partner is the research and production corporation Uralvagonzavod, we have been cooperating for the third year already, and this has significantly influenced the success of the team.

We have a working model that allows us to train world-class athletes. Who do not just go to competitions, but bring medals.

- Of course. All for her. A month and a half ago I was told - "You will become a champion in Mexico, but do not forget, the main goal is 2016". Now, after 3 months of preparation for this competition (2 in Cyprus and 1 in Italy) and the start itself, you need to rest a little. But already in June, preparations will begin for the World Highway Championship, which will be held in August in the States.

In general, the schedule is very tight. August 2013 - World Championship, highway. February 2014 - World Championship, track. August 2014 - World Championship, highway. February 2015 - World Championship, track. September 2015 - World Championship, highway. February 2016 - World Championship, track. August 2016 - Olympics.

- Difficult topic. I was not at home for 2 months, and on the 1st of the day I was already flying away again. When I'm at the training camp, loads, like sulfuric acid, burn out all extraneous thoughts in my brain. They say to me: “Oh! You've been to Italy. And I have not been to Italy, I did not see anything there - in the morning I got up, ate, left for training, arrived, fell into bed, got up, had dinner, went to bed. And so every day.

But it’s even harder for my wife. I have a sport that burns everything out, and my wife only has everyday life. It's also hard for my daughter, but for her every visit of dad is a holiday.

- This is my chance. I can realize myself 200%. I can benefit not only the family, but also the country.

Don't put your career and making money first. Go in for sports! I am glad that now many have understood how important sport is, what benefits it brings and what horizons it opens up. Therefore, many even after work go to the gym. And for those who have not yet understood this thrill, I wish to feel it as soon as possible. Sport helps you find a lot of interesting things in yourself, introduces you to interesting people. I went through it myself.

- Thanks for your project!