Exclusive interview with Krisztián Berki – The Champion of the Pommel Horse and Life
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An Olympic Champion, 3 times World Champion, 6 times European Champion, a loving dad and husband. This is all Krisztián Berki, our great gymnast champion. I met him in the Central Gymnastics Hall after one of his trainings. He is currently preparing for the Hungarian Championship. He told me about his preparation, about his career, his ups and downs, and his family. He was so friendly and genial that I felt like I’ve known him for a long time.
Journalist usually colour the sentences with ‘he smiles’, ‘he laughs’ or ‘he said happily’, but if I tried to give back how cheerful he was and happy he seemed, these would overflow all of his answers. Imagine him smiling while reading his answers.
DailyNewsHungary: How is your preparation for the Hungarian Championship and the World Championships going?
Berki: I hope it’s going well. Actually, we have a little more time until the World Championships (held in Glasgow from the 23rd of October until the 1st of November) so we can make the necessary corrections. Concerning the Hungarian Championship (held in the Central Gymnastics Hall between the 11th and 13th of September), I hope that I will be able to do an exercise that shows how much we’ve been working on it in the last three or four months.
DailyNewsHungary: Unfortunately, you had to leave out the European Championships due to your shoulder injury. How much did this effect your preparation? Have you recovered completely from it?
Berki: Surprisingly, my recovery was quite quick and smooth. I was lucky because the operation itself went well; they let me out of the hospital the next day. Of course, for two months I only did physiotherapy; we tried to boost my shoulder and gain back my strength. I still trained before the operation because I tried to keep my level. Thanks to this, I didn’t really fell back that much. Two months after the operation I could exercise on the pommel horse again.
DailyNewsHungary: Let’s go back to the beginning a little bit. Why gymnastics and the pommel horse?
Berki: It’s not a secret that it wasn’t my choice. I like to say that gymnastics found me. When I was a child, I used to play a lot in our backyard and one of our neighbours was a trainer and he saw that I was a kid full of energy. He talked to my parents and they brought me down to the gymnastics hall to see what I was capable of. To be frank, the first two weeks were a nightmare, I came and went home crying. Slowly, I got used to the environment. My parents’ support played a big role in this; they always brought me to the trainings. I was only four and a half years old, which is an age where parents have the impact on whether a kid starts a sport or not. I started working with my trainer, István Kovács, early on with who I still work together. And why the pommel horse? It’s thanks to an early ankle injury, which made the landing off the other apparats hard. I started training for the pommel horse and I did great at competitions so it seemed to suit me.
DailyNewsHungary: How do you deal with the fact that your sport is of the ones where the evaluation happens by points which leads to the judges choosing sides sometimes?
Berki: It’s hard because there are always favourites and some judges will lean towards the competitor of their own nation. Although, I think that throughout the years Hungary achieved great titles, had and has big talents and maybe that is why I usually get good points. The judges accepted what we do and it is important to show what we can do as a small nation. We worked a lot for this.
DailyNewsHungary: While the other gymnasts were nervously strolling up and down before the final in London, you simply slept for a few hours. Have you always been this good at situations like this or is it the result of mental training?
Berki: I do a lot of mental training with my sport psychologist, Ágota Lénárt. She taught me different exercises which I practice regularly. During the preparation its 70% physical training and 30% mental training but it’s the opposite during the competitions. Also, I’m a person who loves to compete and show how much effort I put into an exercise in the previous months. This is what happened in London, I knew I had to concentrate and be there in mind.
DailyNewsHungary: What happens in your mind while performing your routine? Is it possible to think, are you counting the seconds or just doing the moves automatically?
Berki: When I’m at bigger events the moves come by themselves because they have settled into a rut. If I’m well prepared that 50 seconds feel really short. I say that a good exercise is one in which the time flies by. I know that it went well if it felt short. It had happened to me before that I was counting the seconds, I reached 40 or 45. Also, sometimes I have to correct a move, and then I need to concentrate on that.
DailyNewsHungary: London 2012 has already come up, let’s get a little nostalgic. You got the exact same score as Louis Smith who was competing in his own country. Even so, you won the Olympic gold medal with your higher score for the execution of your routine. How did your bear those minutes?