¡Rest in peace Gennadi! You left many things to this world and we
will try to continue your legacy.
When I met Gennadi he was
coaching at Tenero, Switzerland. He was
the coach of the Swiss Team. It happened
that I was there and watched his pupils training. It was before eight in the morning and the
pool was used by the Swiss team. I
stopped to watch them swim. I sat at the
only chair and desk right at the swimming pool.
Gennadi appeared around eight and asked me what I was doing on his
desk. I apologized and said that I was
just watching his pupils swimming. I
asked him if I needed to go and he said: “you can stay.” I stayed for two weeks watching his work
which he explained in details. At that time,
I was familiar with the work of Paul Bergen, Bob Bowman and the rest, but
Gennadi was too far away from them. A
different concept regarding swimming. He
was coaching Daniella Ryf and Ian Thorpe when I was there. Gennadi told me about the communication with
Paul Bergen during the cold war; Bergen was USA national coach, and he was the Russian
swimming national coach. Gennadi was the
Russian 1,500 meters swimming champion at one point. During the two weeks, he mentioned the
problems he had in Australia where he was coaching. At Tenero, he was swimming daily to keep in
good health, keeping a healthy diet and giving up drinking.
Gennadi’s art work was
Alexander Popov. He said that when he
started coaching eight-year-old children -800 children sent by the Russian
State, Popov and V. Ekimov were in the bunch.
A cyclist was needed in the Russian team and a decision was made to send
Ekimov to practice cycling. “Eki,” as
Lance Armstrong used to call him, went on to win three gold medals, twice time
trial Olympic champion. Ekimov was one
of the Lance Armstrong’s domestiques in
the US Postal Team.
Every drill Popov practiced was with the intension of swimming with the whole body. The concept of “swimming on the wave” created by the swimmer was emphasized in Popov, as well as, the kayak swimming. His way of thinking was of an engineer, because he was trained as an engineer. He believed that we needed to observed the marine animals to learn more about swimming. I let you see a documentary of Popov and Gennadi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BrRIZFk7O4&t=987s
Thanks Gennadi! Our children benefit from you without knowing
you.
