Valery Simonov, «Wings of the Bars»: «The goal was only one — first place»

«I was engaged in individual sports, after which sledge hockey appeared in my life»

— Valery, how did you get to know wheelchair basketball and the «Wings of the Bars» team?

— I was born in Nizhnekamsk in 1984, lived in the Novosheshminsky district, in a settlement called Sloboda Ekaterininskaya, and studied in Novosheshminsk itself. After finishing school, I entered a lyceum in Nizhnekamsk, worked at a factory and got injured at the age of 20 in a motorcycle accident, after which my legs lost mobility. In basketball terms, this is a «kopeck». I returned to Novosheshminsk in 2004, lived with my parents and underwent rehabilitation. In the first years after the accident, I focused heavily on recovery and rehabilitation, but then the grip eased a bit.

I looked around and, since I had always been interested in sports, I started looking for options to realise myself in Paralympic sports. At first, in individual disciplines: powerlifting — working with weights, arm wrestling — arm wrestling — I'm two-handed in this regard, plus swimming. At first, I represented the Novosheshminsky district at competitions, then I started representing Aznakaevo at Paralympic competitions within the republic.

— And how was the situation with what is commonly called an accessible environment at that time?

— It was difficult because all this was poorly developed, like everywhere, with ramps for exit. Fortunately, I lived on the ground floor. It was difficult with trips because at that time I didn't have a car or a driver's license.

As for the means of subsistence, I had some side jobs — there was basically no official full-time job then. Then sledge hockey appeared in my life for a year and a half, which was developed by Ramil Ilalutdinov, who previously engaged in Paralympic ski racing.

«I entered the sports academy, and graduated from the sports university»

— This is a person from the generation of Irina Polyakova, the legendary Paralympian of Tatarstan, who was the first in this direction together with Farida Safiullina. If I'm not mistaken, Ayrat Khamzin, a player of the Russian Paralympic national team, grew up in Almetyevsk.

— Maybe, I remember that at the time when I was still playing, there was a young guy in the team, still a high school student, who grew to the level of the national team.

We trained twice a week, some of the guys lived at the «Neftyanik» base, the local professional team. During that period, I got to know the director of the swimming pool in my native Novosheshminsk, and she advised me to study at our sports university, which had already moved to Kazan by that time and was in the process of reform: I entered the sports academy, and graduated from the sports university.

— In the specialty of «adaptive gymnastics coach»?

— No, «sports management». I didn't make it into adaptive gymnastics by competition, and I had plans to transfer at the end of the first year of study. Moreover, I talked to students in the adaptive field, heard invitations to transfer, but decided to stay in management because I was on good terms with my classmates.

Already during the training, we met Natalia Vladimirovna Kuleshova, our coach in «Wings of the Bars», and she invited me to play wheelchair basketball.

True, I had a hand injury at that time, after performing at the Tatarstan championship. I was already 34 years old, studying part-time, and at the time of the invitation I was in doubt because my hand was injured and I had no experience, but Natalia Vladimirovna reassured me by saying that there are older people in the team. I had no basketball before that, in our school we could only play volleyball and mini-football at most.

«I was able to take my wheelchair home to Novosheshminsk, where I trained for a month»

— «Wings of the Bars» were created at the turn of 2009–2010, why did your joining the team happen many years later? Hadn't you heard of its existence?

— I had heard of it, and I had even been invited to join it. One of the players of the first lineup, Andrey Chugunov, whom I met during rehabilitation, invited me, but at that time the issue was the lack of housing, as I remained a resident of Novosheshminsk. It should also be said that the accessible environment, which we all know about now, was not so accessible then.

— How quickly did you get used to the sports wheelchair?

— I think quite quickly, because by that time I already had skills in moving around in a household wheelchair. To make it clear, I'll say that at first it's really important to devote a lot of time to driving, reversing, changing lanes, and so on, because these are the basic skills in our sport. But it turned out so well that, with the permission of our mentor Sergey Anatolyevich Chistov, I was able to take my wheelchair home to Novosheshminsk, where I trained for a month, simultaneously mastering movement and ball handling. But we need to be objective: in my role, I don't work with the ball very often, because the requirements for my position include rough work, interaction with a big player, setting a screen for him, making it easier for him to move in attack. There are three of us in the team with such responsibilities, Alexander Ivanov and Elvir Fayzullin are also «kopecks».

— We're talking about 5x5, but how are things with you in 3x3 basketball?

— Last year I participated in the championship together with Viktor Kainov, Vasily Kochetkov, and Vladimir Kuchin, who have been winning the title of the strongest in this discipline for Kazan for three years in a row as a trio. It turns out that in the first year of their championship, our old-timer Igor Samartsev played with them, in the second year of the championship I was in their team, and this year Ilnur Zaripov played in 3x3 from our position. In addition to winning the championship, we also had a victorious participation in an international tournament when a team from Serbian Krajina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, came to Kazan.

«The goal was only one — first place»

— And how to explain these changes with the fourth player of the team, while the champion trio remained unchanged?

— Most likely, these are tactical maneuvers related to the fact that the disability figure of our players on the court should not exceed 8.5 points. And one big player already accounts for 4 or 4.5 points. The winning trio of Kainov and Kuchin (both 2 points), Kochetkov (4.5 points) needed a player with a score of one. However, it is necessary to take into account that a young player up to a certain age has a coefficient one point lower. So, in our case, Vsevolod Salin is registered on the court for less than one point, which he has. There is more room for maneuvering in combining his duet with another big player, Albert Bagamanov.

— The old-timers of the team, like Dinar Kamaliev or Igor Samartsev, witnessed the times when they were chasing the leaders of Russian wheelchair basketball, the then invincible «BasKI» team from St. Petersburg. Did you have a moment of rethinking when you realised that yesterday you were looking up to them, then eye to eye, and now you are ahead?

— No, I didn't feel that, because at the time of my joining «Wings of the Bars», it was already a team with championship ambitions. The goal was only one — first place, another thing is that it didn't succeed right away. I remember that when I joined the team, we even beat «BasKI» in the first round. But in the second round we lost, which is why we ended up one step lower in the championship. However, at that time I was already in the team, but I didn't go to the championship games yet.

— You joined the team quite late, it turns out, one of the last? After you, only Rustam Rakhmankulov came after the SVO.

— No, Volodya Kuchin, Vsevolod Salin, and Arthur Galstyan also came. The only thing I can note is that I am the last Tatarstan native invited to the team, because all the others represented other regions. We also had another Tatarstan native, Ilnur Zaripov, who has already left the team.

«Sledge hockey requires more amputees with a healthy back»

— With the current competitive environment with sledge hockey, it will probably be difficult to recruit people from the regions of the republic to the team, probably there will be more focus on other regions?

— I think we can still look for reserves in the republic. Sledge hockey is an ice game, and since I played it myself, I can talk about the cardinal differences. I am a «spinal», which means I have a spinal injury, and such people have nothing to do in sledge hockey, essentially. The thing is that there is not a wheelchair in the broad sense of the word, but a kind of sled construction, which is difficult to stay on when maneuvering, as a result, you fall all the time. We also have falls, but they are associated with collisions, while in sledge hockey you fall just while moving. Therefore, sledge hockey requires more amputees with a healthy back, who lack one or both legs. In the second case, it is even better for mastering sledge hockey, since the size of the sled is shorter, and they are more maneuverable.

But I'm talking about spinals with a coefficient of 1.2 points, and going higher on the coefficient scale, from three points, which are amputees, they are also in great demand in wheelchair basketball, as well as in sledge hockey.

— You were invited to «Wings of the Bars» first by Chugunov, then by Natalia Vladimirovna. Bagamanov was invited by a former teammate, Elvir Fayzullin was invited by Alexander Ivanov. It turns out that «word of mouth» is still more successful than other recruitment channels?

— Albert Bagamanov was invited by Bulat Galiev, who, at a time when he lacked playing practice, was loaned to a team from Lyubertsy, and now he is not playing. In general, the team is being укомплектовано in many directions. A year ago, I met a young amputee, told him about our team, it turned out that he lives in Yudino, and he had already been invited to play wheelchair basketball, but so far it hasn't interested him. The same Sasha Ivanov, again, invited another guy named Marcel, after seeing him in the group of low-mobility fans of «Ak Bars», which he himself is part of.

As for me, I am a big sports fan, I try to attend our teams' matches as much as possible. Recently, Elvir and I went to watch volleyball, it so happened that there were games of both the men's «Zenit-Kazan» team and the women's «Dynamo-Kazan» team that day. Plus «Rubin», the aforementioned «Ak Bars» and UNICS, which goes without saying, since we consider them our colleagues, being part of the same federation.