Competing with the best European juniors gives great experience and a clear understanding of the level of Azerbaijani young gymnasts, head coach of the national junior team of Azerbaijan in artistic gymnastics Gennady Kotelnikov said, speaking with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza on the sidelines of the XV Summer European Youth Olympic Festival in Baku.
The head coach of the national team said he is generally pleased with his team's performance. "Some work had been done before the competition, and almost all of what we had planned has been achieved. There are some minor issues that need to be worked on. I hope that our guys will get to the finals and try to win medals," he said.
"We are generally pleased. All the athletes performed with confidence and without gross mistakes, and that matters the most. That is, the result is visible: Samad Mammadli's score is slightly higher, but he is stronger, Mansum Safarov is good at some apparatus, and Aghakazim Rustamov still has some difficulties because he hasn't been training that long, but he also did a good job," Gennady Kotelnikov said.
"It is also important that all European countries are in Baku today, the best European athletes are performing at the competitions, which means that the result of our work will be clearly visible," the head coach of the national junior team of Azerbaijan in artistic gymnastics concluded.
The XV Summer European Youth Olympic Festival is being held in Baku on July 21-27. The festival will be attended by more than 3,900 athletes from 48 European countries. Athletes will compete in ten kinds of sports - gymnastics, athletics, basketball, cycling, handball, judo, swimming, tennis, volleyball and wrestling. In total, athletes will compete for 135 sets of medals.
