Nikolay Ivanov for the IAAF
8 February 2002 – Moscow
- The leading Russian high jumper from Moscow 20-year-old Marina Kuptsova has achieved
unbelievable progress. She participated in 4 international meetings during 7 days with 1
day intervals and showed unprecedented high level stability – 1.98 at “Russian winter” and
then 1.96, 1.96, 1.97. Only once she failed to win and took a second place. Even the great
Bulgarian Stefka Kostadinova could not do the same.
“It was a serious experiment just to find out how our new approach to training works and to see my limits in keeping the form,” says Marina. “ I could show better results but at some competitions stopped my jumps to save energy for the next meetings and to be prepared to jump over 2.00 at the European indoor championships in Vienna.”
This new Russian star was born into a Moscow sports family. Her father Gennadiy Kuptsov, who is her coach now, competed in the decathlon and discus throw but finished with the sport because of injury; her eldest sister Yelena was a discus thrower and her mother was also a thrower. Marina has a 12-year-old sister Katia, who is the next object of the sports ambitions of her father.
Marina was 3 years old when she began to swim and when she was four she showed outstanding results. But at 12 years old she became a very good basketball player and was selected to the team of Moscow. But she soon decided that team sports were not for her, Marina preferred to participate as a loner. She began sprinting and tried the high jump. Her father wanted to develop a multi sport base before Marina could concentrate on one main event. At her first competition she jumped 1.50 when she was 14 years old.
“Last year Marina was concentrated on finishing her studies at Moscow pedagogical university. But now she can devote all her time to training 2-3 times a day,” says Gennadiy Kuptsov. “Her present average height in training is 1.92 –1.94. It is enough for 2.00 in competition. She has a very strong character and can control her emotions. But she is not something out of this world she just knows how to jump in the right way. I see even more talented girls in Russia, but they do not know our secrets of the high jump.”
Gennadiy Kuptsov has become a self made coach of his daughter. He is an engineer and a scientist who declares that he has created a real mathematical model of the high jump in the process of training Marina .
“I try to do everything in a natural way, step by step we were getting rid of the weak links in her jump,” explains Gennadiy. “I made all vectors of her movements in the high jump. Sometimes I have used only my scientific intuition, the main rule was not to go against the law of physics. At the same time I tried to teach Marina as many movements as possible. But every new level of height demanded a new approach.”
Kuptsov says that his theory of high jump is not very popular in Russia because some coaches are badly educated and do not know even school level elementary physics. And there is only one thing he still has not explored in his event. He does not know how medical support and food supplements can influence jumps of his daughter.
“We are going the natural way just because we had no any money to get even vitamins,” says Kuptsov. ”It is an interesting experiment we have undertaken. I think that all other great high jumpers had at least some sort of medical support when they were reaching record marks and we do not know what can be done without all this support.“
Marina has become the object of constant doping tests in Russia: sometimes 3 times a month. The cost of each test is about 150 dollars, and once Kuptsov asked the leaders of the Russian team instead this senseless testing just give him this money to buy some vitamins.
“We know very important secrets of the high jump, it can help many other athletes. But I will tell about them only after Marina will finish with the sport,“ promised her father.
