At 30, New Zealand’s top male gymnast, Misha Koudinov, has reinvented himself, brought in a silent coach, and is in the best form ever for the Tokyo Olympics. He tells Suzanne McFadden how he's pulled off his life-changing moves.
Misha Koudinov carries a green bucket full of chalk dust around the gym. He grabs a handful and rubs it into the parallel bars like a masseuse. It takes a minute or so to get the desired chalkiness.
It’s the middle of the day, and Koudinov has the Tri Star gymnasium, in Auckland's Mt Roskill, all to himself. He picks up a bottle of honey and pours the golden liquid onto his hands, then dips them back into the chalk bucket.
This ritual is called ‘honeying up’. Most of the best male gymnasts in the world do it. At a competition, you’ll see a dozen bottles of honey lined up next to the parallel bars, waiting to help the gymnast get the best grip.
Some prefer golden syrup, even melted gummy bears, to stick to the bars. But having spent three decades in a gym, Koudinov has found honey works best.
After going through the silent routine, Koudinov is suddenly up and on the bars, on all fours, then swings his body around into a handstand on one bar.
He dismounts and walks over to see his ‘head coach’ to go through the move again.
But his coach won’t utter a word. Well, his coach isn’t human.
It’s a tablet on a stand, that’s level with Koudinov’s chest. It records every move he makes, allowing him to go back over it, see what he needs to perfect.
At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, an anxious, almost obsessed, Koudinov was coached by David Phillips, who was an Olympic gymnast at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Phillips will still go to Tokyo as Koudinov's official coach if New Zealand's top male gymnast is selected for his second Olympics in the next week or so, having claimed the Oceania spot. But so will the tablet.
“Yep, that’s the head coach now,” Phillips says, pointing at the device. “I’m just the guy who moves the beat boards [for the vault] and lifts him up onto the rings.
“But I feel very privileged to have the opportunity of a support role. Misha is a complete athlete and in control of every aspect of his competition and preparation now.”
Koudinov is simply grateful to have someone by his side.
It’s one of many changes he’s undergone in the past four years. He’s training less, but achieving more. He’s stressing less and spending more time in his own company.
Koudinov turned 30 last week, works fulltime as head coach at the Tri Star Gymnastics Club, and is now a dad. His daughter, Mila, is almost one and has changed his view of the world.
He’s stronger than ever, pulling off moves that only a handful of gymnasts in the world can do – especially on the high bar. Skills that 15 years ago, he says, almost killed him.
Old dog, new tricks
The first time I met Misha (Mikhail) Koudinov, he would have been six years old. He’d just moved to New Zealand from Vladivostok; his father, Sasha, and mother, Alexandra Koudinova, both gymnasts in Russia, came to Auckland to coach the sport.
Misha was in the North Harbour gym each day after school and was soon joining in, with his dad his first coach. He was competing internationally by the age of 13, and was the youngest athlete in the New Zealand team – at 14 - at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.
In 2007, he became the first New Zealander to make a World Cup final, in the vault.
Koudinov has now been to four Commonweath Games and the 2016 Rio Olympics – a memory he struggles with. He was 16th on vault and 45th overall in the men’s individual all-round competition.
“With Rio, I was kind of dreading it. Especially in gymnastics, so much can go wrong,” he says. “I’m the type who worries; I get anxiety when I think about the future.”
But last year, after New Zealand’s first Covid-19 lockdown, Koudinov took a step back from serious gymnastics.
“For a little bit of time, gymnastics became something in the background,” he says.
“When I was growing up, it was so important to me. I can’t stress how much of a central point it was in my life, almost so that nothing else existed. So I decided take some down time, and find myself again.”
He started spending time in the outdoors, climbing mountains, walking in the Riverhead Forest. “I almost got lost overnight in there because I go off the tracks,” he says.
“I was spending a lot of time by myself, which I feel I still need to do to remain sane in this world.”
"The very best gymnasts can get to finals and bomb. That’s where Misha’s maturity is a huge asset. It’s easier for him to just enjoy the competition" - David Phillips on Koudinov's Olympic medal chances.
Koudinov didn’t leave the gym completely. He did one or two hours of training, instead of his usual four or five. “I’d pick something fun to do, something new on the trampoline, develop my air awareness,” he says.
“And I actually found myself progressing faster. It was like ‘Wow, I’m less agitated, I’m not putting as much mental energy into it, but I’m getting better. Maybe I should stick around a little more’.”
With this new attitude towards the apparatus, Koudinov began to pick up new skills. Skills he thought were beyond him.
“When I was 15, I’d given those skills a go, and almost killed myself. But as your brain, your mental acuity and your sensitivity develops, you have the tools to feel what’s going on - rather than blindly throwing yourself into big tricks,” he says.
The tricks he’s talking about involve ‘The Kovacs’ – named after Hungarian gymnast Péter Kovács, an Olympic bronze medallist in 1980. He was the first to master the daring move of a double backflip over the high bar, catching it on the other side.
There are now many variations – a Kovacs with a tuck, a pike or a layout and then a full twist. “So, I picked up these skills,” Koudinov says.
“The Kovacs was so far off my radar because my whole life I’ve been going forwards over the bar. There may be like two or three guys in the world who are competing double somersaults over the bar, forwards and backwards. It’s very rare. Now I can do it.”
He was also scared off as a 15-year-old, when he attempted the double backflip and landed on his kneecaps. “I got a pretty big shock. After that, I was like, ‘You know what, let’s not do this one’.”
It’s not the first time Koudinov has pulled off a risky manoeuvre. In 2017, ‘The Koudinov’ was added to the Code of Points for the high (or horizontal) bar by the International Gymnastics Federation after he performed the element at that year’s world championships in Montreal.
Phillips, the general manager of Tri Star, has watched in awe as Koudinov’s philosophy towards gymnastics changed.
“It was really great to watch Misha just play in the gym. It’s really uncommon for a mature elite athlete to have that sense of fun because they’re very much in the space of ‘train, perform, achieve results’,” he says. “But it was play with a purpose. At the end of it, Misha has added significantly valuable skills.”
Koudinov first stuck ‘The Kolman’ - two back somersaults and one full twist over the bar - in competition at the Auckland-Manukau championships earlier this month. While the small crowd may not have realised the magnitude of what Koudinov achieved, his fellow gymnasts did.
“At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about,” he says. “You’re around guys who are training like you, wanting to learn new skills, and there’s a mutual respect. They think ‘Wow he’s learned this, maybe I can too’.”
Tears of joy
The moment Koudinov realised he’d won the Oceania championships on the Gold Coast last month, he burst into tears.
“I didn’t think it was a reality for me to score that well,” he says. “There were four other Australians competing [for the Olympic continental spot], so there were tears from some of them as well.
“I was so happy because in six out of the six apparatus, I virtually did the best routines that I’m capable of doing. The additional result was icing on the cake.”
His dad was in the crowd to witness it. “I made a connection with him,” Koudinov says. “The audience thought I was boasting to them, but I was trying to get his attention.”
It wasn’t what Koudinov had expected. Two weeks before, he’d competed in Christchurch and his total was more than six marks lower than what he achieved on the Gold Coast.
“One mark in gymnastics is a lot. For example, one little step is 0.1 off your score, so one whole mark is 10 steps,” he explains. “It was absolute shock.”
Now Koudinov waits to hear if he’s made the New Zealand Olympic team. But he says he’s ready this time.
“I’m in a 100 percent better mental state than I was in Rio. I feel I’m more equipped to enjoy the experience and I’m not too concerned, hit or miss. That gives me more space to hit,” he says.
He’s also excited to return to Japan. He’s fluent in Japanese having studied the language (as well as economics) during his four years at Ohio State University, where he became an All-American gymnast with Ohio’s Buckeyes. He also speaks Russian and Chinese, which he learned at Westlake Boys’.
If Koudinov gets to Tokyo, could he be the first New Zealand gymnast to win a medal?
“It’s an outside possibility,” Phillips says. “His scoring potential, particularly on parallel bars, firmly ranks him in the top 16 in the world.
“So he has every chance of making a final, and then it’s really anybody’s. The very best gymnasts can get to finals and bomb. That’s where Misha’s maturity is a huge asset. It’s easier for him to just enjoy the competition.”
Phillips sees a “lightness” in Koudinov’s focus now – the desire to perform with excellence is still there, but he now has an ability to move on if something goes wrong.
“There have been more talented athletes than Misha, but the refined way he approaches gymnastics, I’ve never seen it before,” says Phillips. “I was never like that; I was too emotional.”
At the Oceania champs, Koudinov endured a long wait before the high bar, as the judges deliberated over another gymnast’s routine. The Kiwi had gone through his process and was ready, so he simply sat down.
“Other athletes would pace, feel more anxious,” Phillips says. “But Misha now has the ability to find his calm wherever he is.
“It’s fascinating to watch because it’s so unusual to see that maturity - gymnasts don’t usually stick around that long. They wear out.” Phillips retired, “sore”, at 22.
The more efficient gymnast
Koudinov laughs at a memory he has as a kid, saying he would still be competing at “50 or 60”.
He’s unlikely to be the oldest gymnast in Tokyo. In 2012, four-time medallist Iordan Iovtchev of Bulgaria made a record sixth Olympic appearance at the age of 39. In 2016, Romanian Marian Dragulescu, then 35, missed out on a bronze in the vault on a countback.
“I’m very happy I’m still able to do what I do, and privileged that I still have a body that allows me to do that,” Koudinov says. “I do take care of myself – diet, sleep, meditation, walking.”
He coaches at Tri Star after school through to 9.30pm, so trains earlier in the day. He’s halved the training he was doing as a teenager. Being a dad to Mila has made him “more efficient”.
“The late nights, the lack of sleep, you really need to know what you need to get done, and do it as fast as you can,” he says. He’s indebted to his partner, Dennise Hassan, also a gymnastics coach, and her mum, Cynthia, who helps with Mila.
Now that he’s in a good place – mentally and physically – Koudinov isn’t ready to finish yet. He’s already looking forward to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
“I get excited thinking about the Commonwealth Games; they would be my fifth. I’ll definitely be trialling out for them,” he says.
“Life is good, and it’s only going to get better.”
* Koudinov is expected to be one of three athletes in the New Zealand gymnastics team, with trampolinists Dylan Schmidt, who was seventh in Rio, and first-time Olympian Maddie Davidson.
