Earlier, we brought you how Australia’s Brenton Rickard trains for the Olympics. Now, let’s have Olympic 800m champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy tell us something about his training:
I train twice a day, six days per week. With this I need 8 to 9 hours of sleep each night and one-and-a-half hours of sleep in the afternoon. On Wednesday or Thursday I usually have one practice, and instead of the second one I go to a banya, and on Sunday I have banya too.
Eight to nine hours of sleep? You’re luckier than me, Yuriy. But then, with all that running you’re doing, you do need more hours of sleep to recover physically. By the way for those of you who don’t know, a banya is a Russian sauna.
What other things does Yuriy do apart from training and visiting banyas?
I like to cook and used to cook tasty food, but my wife does not let me now. She says that it is the women’s job to cook, and everyone must do their job, and she does all cooking at home.
Aww. Come on Irina, give Yuriy some space in the kitchen. “Chef Yuriy” sounds good, you know. Anyways, how does Yuriy view the Olympics and his competition in Beijing?
The Olympic Games is a competition in which any athlete can win quite unexpectedly. And this is so because it takes place once in four years and it is hard to prepare from a psychological view point.Even distinguished athletes, such as Wilson Kipketer for example, the World record holder, the strongest athlete in the world in the 800m, was second in Sydney in 2000, though he could easily win. He was the strongest, in my opinion, in Athens but psychologically he was not ready. He wanted to win there very much and started his finishing kick too early. That is why, I think, he lost. This was his tactical mistake.
I do not know exactly who will come to Beijing. But judging by the winter season results the main candidates for getting into the Olympic final are Wilfred Bungei, Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, the Athens silver medallist, Yusuf Saad Kamel, and Abubaker Kaki Khamis, the Valencia gold medallist. He is young, only 18, but has got quite high result and good chances to get on the Olympic podium. But anything can happen.
Anything can happen indeed. But we here at the Olympian blog will be watching you Yuriy and the rest of the 800 meter runners. Best wishes to you all.
Oops, by the way, Yuriy Borzakovskiy is from Russia.
