"It taught me to be tough": why Ukraine brought only one weightlifter to the Olympics, but expects at least a silver medal in Paris 2024

Ukraine is represented in weightlifting at the 2024 Olympic Games by only one athlete, Kamila Konotop, but she is the athlete who can fight for victory in the weight class of 59 kg. This is the opinion of Natalia Skakun, the coach of the national team and the country's first Olympic champion in this event.

In a conversation with OBOZ.UA, Skakun explained why Ukraine has such a small representation in Paris in the always medal-winning weightlifting sport and recalled how she herself competed in Athens with a fever.

- Yes, only one athlete will compete in our sport in Paris. But Kamila Konotop is already a very experienced athlete, a world championship medalist and winner of the European Championships. This will not be her first time at the Olympics. Since she took fifth place at the last Games, I hope that Kamila and the coaching staff have made every effort to ensure that she gets at least three medalists in France.

- How did it happen that in weightlifting, which is always a medal event, we have such a modest representation in Paris?

- Because every time the Olympic Games are over, the selection rules become stricter. Earlier, when I was competing, it was much easier to get to the Olympics because our sport did not have personalized licenses.

Currently, in order to qualify for the Games and win a license, you need to compete in five major competitions of different classes. And each time you have to lift the kilograms that will be in the world's top ten. It's very difficult because these competitions last for almost two years. It's all about intense training and heavy loads.

And we are all human, sometimes an athlete even has a slight runny nose or the covid. And the illness does not allow the athlete to prepare well for any stage. It is very difficult.

- It's just that when you watch the European Championships, it seems like we have so many girls among the medalists, even two in the same category on the podium, if I'm not mistaken. And then, all of a sudden, only one athlete is competing for the Olympic medals.

- Yes, but now it is very, very difficult to get that particular name license. In Europe, Ukraine is really one of the strongest in weightlifting. But in the world, we need to work even harder to get ready and be in the top ten. Apart from Kamila, Svitlana Samulyak, Anastasia Manevska, and Anna Davydova were close to making it to the top ten.

These were the candidates who were also ready to compete for the Olympic awards. But if you missed one of the stages, you automatically dropped out of the selection.

- So during these two years, the girls had no room for error at all?

- Yes. The main thing was to be in the top ten in the overall competition. And after all the stages, we looked at the fact that if there were two participants from each country in the top 10, they could also be excluded. Only one athlete from a country in a particular category. Because we have a lot of them.

And some countries that didn't qualify at all by ranking, they can give individual licenses to expand the geography and have at least one representative from the national team participate in the competition. And Kamila is our second-ranked player. And we hope that nothing will stand in her way at the Olympics.

Of course, we would like to win a gold medal in Paris, but a silver medal is also good. As long as there is a Ukrainian flag on the podium.

- Yes, we really wanted to. And we hoped so much for Iryna Deha at the last Olympics, but unfortunately, one attempt was great, but the other didn't work out.

- Unfortunately. It happens sometimes. You train for many years, go through constant preparation and training camps, your personal life fades into the background, and when the moment of the peak comes, sometimes there are injuries, and, as I said, the slightest illness, some kind of flu, and it can ruin everything. Just like I did at the 2004 Olympics.

I also could not compete in Athens because I was traveling to the Games with a fever. And the coaching staff had to make a decision directly in Greece. When I arrived there in this condition, my personal weight dropped by 2 kg, but we decided that I would still compete and, thank God, everything worked out. And I really hope that our Kamilka will be awarded.

- When you watch Kamila's interviews, she seems a little closed off. Or just focused on something of her own.

- Maybe it's for those who don't know her. This is her defense mechanism. Otherwise, she is a cheerful and friendly girl. She started training very early, you know, and her personal trainer Valery Nikulin taught her to be so tough. Maybe from such a young age she is a little bit closed off and tries to open up less to anyone or tell them something.

Sometimes, when we were going to a quality competition and they wanted to interview me, my coach Rykov would say, "Don't tell anyone anything. It's better to do it later, when the job is done. He had some superstitions of his own. And so he tried to tell me not to give an interview.

- But sometimes it seems that Konotop is such an "iron" athlete - when she goes up on the platform, she doesn't seem to be worried at all, she is absolutely confident in her abilities.

- You understand that an athlete has to keep their emotions inside, both psychologically and physically. Even if something hurts her, she will know just like I do. She went and knew she had to. It was necessary for the country.

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