Nadezhda Kosintseva: “I Have Already Thought About Changing the Federation”
Sunday, 03.02.2013 18:39
Nadezhda Kosintseva has joined us on Chess-News radio in order to clear up the situation around her and her sister’s refusal to play for the national team until it will be headed by Sergei Rublevsky. We offer you extracts from her commentary.
N.KOSINTSEVA: First of all I should say Tania and I can’t claim for the absolute truth, we can’t impose anyone our point of view. We are talking for ourselves only and about exactly our emotional perception of the situation. At the same time we understand that our attitude is objective for us but looks subjective for everyone else. Everyone gets the situation individually. Unfortunately, the Olympiad in Istanbul went for us in the atmosphere of a permanent psychological discomfort and all that in addition to the usual tournament pressure.
I can’t give you any specific examples of the methods Sergey Rublevsky has used, and which turned out to be intolerable for us. We didn’t offend after some particular game or match, I emphasize that we apprehended it all together. Some of Sergey’s deeds were taken by us as unacceptable. We are not going to give you any concrete examples. Firstly, this is the thing that happened inside the team and we hadn’t any discussion with Sergey, secondly, it concerns not only to us but to other members of the team and they still have a tournament ahead.
The conflicts started to emerge after Sergey began “shaking up” the team. I don’t remember after which round that has happened. At first the atmosphere in the team was more or less calm, but after we faced difficulties [after Russian team was surpassed by the Chinese national team – CN] the tensions grew.
We have played for the national team for many years, but we have never faced this kind of negative emotions during the past years. Unfortunately, they became so serious that we were forced to refuse playing for the team. Well, we had difficulties before; namely when Yury Dokhoian was our captain. There happened situations when we were severely criticized and we don’t hide that, nevertheless, those negative emotions were cooling down, just disappearing somewhere. Now they were too strong and nothing could overpower them. Maybe this situation could be changed if we have seen that the coach is interested in us, but unfortunately that didn’t happen, so nothing can be changed.
I don’t think Sergey could stay absolutely unaware of what was going on. It’s clear from his behaviour because he started making guesses on what could offend us. As Ilya Levitov has said he has called our dad. We together with our dad took the call as an attempt to influence on us and our behaviour. So, the conflict exists and Segrey was aware of the fact that we didn’t like something. On the other hand it could be taken by him as something unimportant, easy to forget.
It is strange for us that we still haven’t any serious talk with the captain. We could start the needed discussion already at the Olympiad. It could be started after the competition as well. Even if they were calling our dad not us, Sergey could do that. I don’t know why but he just abstracted away from this situation letting Levitov to carry the further discussion.
We expected him to contact us after we have sent them the reply letter saying we are not going to play for the team while Rublevsky is the captain. However, he didn’t show his interest… It’s hard to explain the situation to the people who weren’t there by using such delicate concepts as respect and disrespect or regard and disregard.
We had other coaches – Evgeny Najer and Alexander Riazantsev. I think they saw that something was wrong inside the team, at least they could see something was happening with two of us, but they didn’t try to solve the problem, at least in regard to us.
I’m completely aware of the fact that all of the team members have very complicated characters. It would be hard for us to find a coach which would suit everyone. the belief that this can be accomplished sounds as nonsense to me. In my view, useful would be organizing the Trainer’s Council meeting before the captain is chosen, where the players could participate in the discussion and express their position. There’s no sense in trying to organize the Trainer’s Council meeting after the things have reached a crisis point. I can’t name any particular candidature, however, I’m sure we could find a compromise.
This was first time for Sergey Rublevsky to head the team, so I believe saying that the Gold we have won at the Olympiad was solely his achievement is inappropriate. No one knows what could happen if China wouldn’t stumble over Kazakhstan. I mean our win wasn’t as consecutive as in Khanty-Mansiysk when we won all of our matches. It may also be true that we are holding out due to the previous preparation. Anyway, time will show.
It’s clear that we won’t play for the team this year. As Tania has already said we are out of the lists. Well, if the Federation will try to accept our position, we may return to the team, but at the moment we are no longer the members of the Russian national team.
When we announced about our decision we meant that we refuse playing for the team only because Rublevsky is the captain, however, after we faced all these emotions and discussions which appeared after our announcement… That’s why at the moment I can’t tell you what I exactly feel about all this. Right now I have no wish to play for this team. Maybe I will again have a desire to be part of it after some time. Anyway, now I don’t feel like that.
We are ready to play for the national team, but only if we feel comfortable as its members. If we don’t, I’m sorry, but we are not going to play. We have played for the team for many years and our performances were quite successful. We have brought medals, that’s why in our view we can do this with the clear conscience.
This is what Nadezhda answered on Evgeny Surov’s question if the sisters are going to change the federation:
N.KOSINTSEVA: What a provocative question! You know I have already thought about changing the federation, but this doesn’t mean I want or don’t want to change it. Time will show – this is my answer.
Source: http://chess-news.ru
Where’s Kosteniuk? Why isn’t she fighting to protect her teammates? Why is she so silent about this?
Smells like sexual harassment..how sad!
It’s strange that Kosteniuk does not say a word or stick up for her teammates. Without the Kosintseva sisters, she would have never won a single Olympiad medal. She has them to thank for that.
“…We have played for the national team for many years, but we have never faced this kind of negative emotions in the past. We had difficulties before, namely when Yury Dokhoian was our captain. There were situations when we were severely criticized, but those negative emotions cooled down, just disappeared. This time they were too strong and nothing could overcome them. Maybe this situation could have changed if we had seen that the coach is interested in us, but unfortunately that didn’t happen….” Sounds like the coach is one of those screaming win-at-all-costs gorillas.
The way this story is told reminds me about a joke by David Chappelle where he says something around the lines of “When a woman tells a story, they always fill it up with how they feel, but when a guy tells a story its basically, who, what, where, when and why” This is the jist of it and he made it sound a lot funnier 🙂
I’m a guy… so if there was sexual harassment… I want to know the what, where, when and why 🙂