Shleikher's short-term plans: World Cup stage, national championship and World Championships

“Nikita is a machine!”

Representatives of the Ministry of Sports of the Republic Raif Vafin and Konstantin Gorbunov, Aquatika sports school headed by director Lev Kameshkov, the Diving Federation with numerous students holding posters “Nikita — the machine” in their hands — such a powerful delegation met at the Kazan airport. It was hard to guess why Shleikher is a “machine”, but I didn't want to argue with the guys who jump into the water from a height of ten meters several dozen times a day. Especially since Nikita did not object. He is a “,achine”, perhaps because the route that Shleikher and his mentor Dmitry Shlykov had to overcome to bring the bronze medal of the World Cup stage to Kazan barely fits in one line: Guadalajara — Mexico City — Barcelona — Dubai — Moscow — Kazan. Moreover, they got to Guadalajara after a successful performance at international competitions in Rostock, Germany.

“I wish they would open direct flights sooner, it would be much easier,” admitted Shleikher saying that he would now be consistently preparing for the final stage of the World Cup, the national championship, the qualifying round of the world championship and, in case of successful selection, for the world championship in Singapore. The route there has not yet been developed, especially since a collective trip of Russian “waterfowl” is expected to the place of swimming, jumping and solo-group combinations of synchronized swimmers. As Shleikher said, the federation's leadership is working on the issue of holding training camps before the world championship somewhere in the east of the country in order to acclimatize to performances on Asian time. Nothing new, many major starts of recent years, the Olympics and world championships are held in Asia, we have developed a clear algorithm for preparing for them.

“I am happy with the result, for the first time we performed well”

“We expected a tougher judging,” admitted Shleikher, “But there was nothing like that. The judging was quite soft.”

Dives are from the line of complex coordination sports, the results largely depend on the judges' decisions. Judges build their own hierarchy of athletes one way or another, and Russians have not been to international competitions for three years, and there were concerns that they would be placed lower in this hierarchy than they were before. But nothing like that was noticed.

On the other hand, 17-year-old Kirill Kozlov from Naberezhnye Chelny also became a bronze medallist at the Italian stage of the World Cup in springboard. And there the hierarchy issues are even more complicated, Kozlov is not yet as famous in the international arena as “Nikita the machine.”

“I am happy with the result, because we have a new pair with Ruslan Ternovoy on the platform, and for the first time we performed well. I was a little upset that I was not able to implement everything that we planned with Yevgeny Kuznetsov on the 3m springboard,” Shleikher shared his impressions.

Sintez jumpers started at the World Cup stage and the Eurasian Cup

Earlier, at international competitions in the German city of Rostock, Nikita Shleikher won two gold medals in synchronized diving. The representative of Sintez sports club won the 3m springboard with his long-time partner Yevgeny Kuznetsov, and on the 10m platform with Ruslan Ternovoy. In addition, he has a individual silver on the 3m springboard where he lost only to Kuznetsov.

True, these were international competitions in which the Chinese did not participate, and already at the first stage of the World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico, their participation lowered our athletes in the final results. Same Shleikher was 3rd in synchronized diving from the platform with Ternovoy, 7tg in the individual standings on the platform and eighth with Kuznetsov in synchronized diving. But in any case, this was a full-fledged return to the international arena.

Here, partners from Sintez club added medals following the results of the Eurasian Cup. Alexander Belevtsev became the winner in synchronized diving from the 10m platform with Ilya Molchanov, and Maria Polyakova came in 2nd with Vitalia Koroleva on the 3m springboard following the results of the competition in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.

Mazepin and Co. managed to return Russian athletes to the international arena

The return of the divers to international competitions took place under the auspices of the Federation of Water Sports under the leadership of its new president Dmitry Mazepin. The unification took place at the end of last year, as for the participation of businessmen Mazepin in the life of swimming disciplines, then, according to him, it happened before. Mazepin stated that his companies already spend 300 million rubles annually on water sports.

Since 2022, Mazepin headed the then created Association of Water Sports, about whose real activities at that time it was difficult to say anything. And his son, race car driver Nikita Mazepin, being suspended from international starts, primarily in the Haas team from Formula 1, in turn created another public organization. This was the charity fund “We Perform as One.” What is significant is that its last activity dates back to September 2024, that is, a month before the creation of the federation of water sports of Russia.

But this is in the past, and in the present we have an almost full-fledged return of our divers to international starts. It turns out that someone in Russian sports declared a return to the international arena, in fact, simply taking away major competitions from Tatarstan. And Mazepin pleased our fans by participating in the December World Short Course Championships, essentially returning everyone to world championships, except for water polo players. It's good when assistants don't make a fuss at domestic competitions, but get things done, like Vladimir Salnikov who is responsible for international contacts in the new federation.