Almost a year has passed after the injury, tell me how your hand is now? Did she fully recover?

- Over the past year, my arm has recovered almost completely, at least the bone has grown together completely. The muscles did not fully recover, as did the mobility of the shoulder joint, I can say it recovered by 95%. Also, the innervation has not fully recovered, so far I can not fully extend my fingers. But there is definitely progress, and today I feel much better than even two months ago.

How was this year for you in terms of sports?

- This year was not very good for me in terms of sports. I was greatly crippled by the preparations for the Lviv Open tournament, because I heavily loaded the right hand, and practically did not touch the left hand. After pulling at the tournament, I started having problems with the back muscles on the left side and  I was literally skewed. But over the course of a year, I worked on this problem and already corrected this imbalance. After Lviv Open, I didn’t perform anywhere else and basically did light training. Also, throughout the year, in addition to training, I constantly went for massage and various rehabilitation procedures. In my student years I was engaged in volleyball for about 4 years and now I started playing again to use my left hand in various loads to better restore it, for the last 2 months I have been playing at the city championship.

Your injury was very serious, what difficulties did you encounter in the recovery process?

- The most difficult thing that I encountered this year is to overcome my fear of fighting at the table. I knew that preparing for Lviv Open is an illogical decision, because I needed to recover, but I understood that until I competed in competitions, I could not overcome the fear of going to the table, because I constantly remembered how my arm breaks. I could not even look at the struggle of others, it constantly seemed to me that now something would happen. But unfortunately, the speech did not help me, the fear remained and I continue to fight with it. I think I can handle it.

What shape is your right hand in? Do you plan to perform on the Zloty Tur?

- After preparing and paricipating at Lviv Open, I decided not to overload my right hand, not to work with large weights, because I needed to restore the balance between the left and right side of the body. Therefore, with my right hand I worked with such weights as the left one could lift. At the moment, the right hand is fully restored, but I can not assess in what form it is, because I haven’t been lifting large weights for about 5 months, so I think I am redy to pull with my right hand on a regional level. But I think that the right one with proper training will quickly get in good shape, it takes 3-4 months. Of course, I didn’t plan to pull on the Zloty Tur, I will be ready to pull no earlier than six months later.

- For the 2020th year I have many plans and goals in armwrestling. I will prepare my peak form at the end of 2020 and, of course, I plan to perform at the Zloty Tour 2020. I will start with the simplest competitions; I will slowly move forward and look at the form. This year I was very shocked, I gathered my strength for a long time to tune in and decide to continue performing, because this injury threw me back, perhaps for years. Therefore, in 2020, I will not gain, but try to return what I had, and then move forward.

As part of the Zloty Tur, the Top-8 finals will take place, which pair is the most interesting for you and who do you think will be the first - Vitaliy or Levan?

- In Top 8, for me, the most interesting pair in general was Evgeny Prudnik and Vitaly Laletin, I was waiting for their fight and I was very upset when Evgeny lost. I expected that he could win in a difficult fight. But it turned out that he could not oppose anything to Vitaly. At the moment, the most interesting matchup is Vitaly Laletin and Levan Saginashvili. If it were possible to bet, I would bet on Vitaly. Levan is physically stronger than Vitaliy, but in terms of armwrestling movements, I think Vitaliy is stronger. Having looked at Levan’s struggle, I think that his weakest place is exactly where Vitaliy’s strongest place is. I think that the first will be Vitaliy.