Svetlana Makshtarova: My dad told me: "Don't even think about it, just go to Baku"

World Cup in Trampoline Gymnastics and Tumbling in Baku was the first international tournament where Azerbaijani gymnast Svetlana Makshtarova paired with Veronica Zemlyanaya, and that's why she's even more happy about winning silver medal, she said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.

"I'm very pleased with our performance. I didn't expect such result. My previous partner and I paired for two and a half years and we never got such result. This was our first competition together, and we performed really great," she said.

According to her, it's much harder to perform in pairs than in individual program. "People always say that individual program is more difficult, but I always found it difficult to perform while pairing with someone, because when I fall, I'm not only failing myself, but also my partner," she noted.

Svetlana Makshtarova was bord in Belarus. "My father is from Belarus, mother from Kazakhstan. I train with a coach for 17 years already, he is current head coach in trampoline gymnastics in Azerbaijan. In 2014 Azerbaijan invited him, and next year, when I returned from the training camp, he said: 'Sveta, I was invited to Baku, if you agree to come with me - we'll go there,' adding that he didn't want to go without me. I came home and told my parents that there's such proposal, and without even thinking my dad said: 'Don't even think about it, just go to Baku'," she said.

"Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation really helped me. They supported me as much they could. And now I'm doing the best I can," she concluded.