At the Ukrainian Championships you bravely fought with one of the top armwrestlers of the world – Eugene Prudnyk. Many think that you were the winner of this fight. What do you think?

Well, I have lost as it were. There are many controversies about this fight, but to win in a fight like this, you need to be physically stronger than I am and have better technique. Gene is a more experienced fighter, that’s why he beat me.

How did you prepare for the Europeans?

I almost haven’t trained. I just tried to stay in shape and regenerate after the Ukrainians. We had a lot of competitions in a short time: Ukrainian seniors, a month later juniors, and again in a month – Europeans. I had no time to train properly. I also had work, which gave me even less time to train. All that resulted in my bad performance.

After the fight with Eugene you had an injury. Has that influenced your performance at the Europeans?

Yes, the injury in my left arm has influenced my training. Because of that I couldn’t fight in left arm in Europeans, neither seniors nor juniors, because the injury got worse at the Ukrainians and there was no point to fight at Europeans.

There have been rumors that after the Europeans you have decided to quit the sport and move to Poland. Is that true?

Only the part about Poland. I am planning to go there. But not the part about sport, it’s a part of my life.

What are your future sports plans? Will you go to Malaysia?

No, I have no financing, and it’s not worth it to pay my own way, even if I were to win. I plan to fight in Zloty Tur, if I have time to prepare.

Nastia Gonczarenko