Denis Gribanov: "The main thing is to enjoy the process"

SV Agent asked me to give a masterclass in my home town — I couldn’t refuse. I gave a short talk and then took part in some practice rudder races. I was happy to share my knowledge and designed the course so that the "green" guys would also come. I liked it all: they came very motivated, with burning eyes. Some things they already knew, some things were new to them. The most important thing is a burning eye and interest, without which success in any business is impossible.

Two things are important at the beginning of a sailing career: enjoying the process and having achievable goals.

Then, based on the experience gained, you can set goals — for the month, for the season. "I want to become captain", "I want to overtake that guy over there", "I want to win the club championship", "I want to win the Russian championship". Gradually, step by step, without breaking yourself and without overreacting, go from goal to goal and enjoy the process. Then, in time, you will get the result and a deeper understanding — what do I want to get out of the sail? What is it all for?

I was born and raised in Gelendzhik. I got into sailing thanks to a classmate — one day he invited me to go sailing at the yacht club, it was in the fifth grade. So I went sailing.

My first coach was Yuri Stepanovich Korobov. The first two years I was engaged in omoryachivanie — I went to the club of young sailors, which instilled in me a love for sails and the sea. We learned to sail on optimists.

A little later, after two years, the coach gave us, the beginners, the task of being the first to reach the buoy and return. And that is what we did, we went the distance. I won that race, the first in my life. I was hooked on sport, I wanted to take part in competitions and win them. On the coach’s instruction I moved to another section, to his son, Andrey Yurievich Korobov, and I started sailing directly with him.

It was not an easy time. We grew up in the 1990s in conditions where there was not enough equipment. The newer you got a boat, the more you took care of it. We sanded down wooden Optimists and painted them ourselves. It was a lot of painstaking work, which made us think: if you carry this Optimist, you should never hit it, because you will have to sand it again. And if your Optimist is intact, not banged, it goes faster. And if it goes faster, you have a better chance of winning. That school helped me a lot, as did a lot of my peers.

I started missing training and I was ashamed to go and tell the coach that I was a truant, so I stopped sailing. At the same time I started playing volleyball. I loved it! Then the summer holidays came and we stopped training. I missed one, the second, the third, I was ashamed to go to the gym again, I was afraid to look the coach in the eye.

Just then my sailing coach came to the school to pick up my classmate and saw me: "Gribanov, why don’t you go to training? Come to training tomorrow! If I hadn’t met him at school, I probably wouldn’t have come back to sailing. I was also motivated when my classmate’s coach brought a school excuse and told him: "You're going to a competition and you won’t go to school for a week! I immediately asked, "Wow, you can do that?" and he replied, "Yes, but you have to train hard. So come on, come to training and Rusik (Denis' classmate — ed.) will go to the competition". And from that moment on I started sailing all the time. By the way, I was also involved in the theatre studio.

Yes. But it quickly came to a point where it was either the drama studio or sailing. Sailing won out and I had to say goodbye to the drama studio.

No regrets. If we could go back in time, I would probably have done the same.

I started out on an "Optimist", then I moved up to a "Kadet" (a class of yacht, a two-man boat for beginners — editor’s note). I became a helmsman, I really liked sailing a dinghy. When I was on the Cadet, we went to the Russian Championship with the city team. These were the most important competitions for us. We were lucky that they were held in Anapa — we could not afford to go far away. We lived in a tent right in the yacht club, we had no money for a hotel. That’s when I saw the "470" (Olympic class of yacht, two gliders — editor’s note).

Yes, like a Formula 1 car. I mean, there were other Olympic classes: the same "Lasers" (Olympic class of yacht, single-handed — ed), but I liked the "Seventies" best. Unfortunately, our yacht club was poor, the maximum we could afford was a "Luch". And even then I knew that if I trained hard I could win the Russian championship on a Luch". And then what? At that moment it was not enough for me. I wanted to win something more serious, to compete on an international level. "Luch" could not give me such an opportunity.

And as fate would have it, I met my current coach, Mikhail Valeryevich Zabolotny, who was already in charge of the 470 class. He came to Gelendzhik once, invited me, called me and said: "I'm resuming my work as a trainer, I want to do 470, I’ll train, let’s join the team…". From that moment I started working under his guidance, it was in 2004. I joined a crew with Yura Polonik, I had a skate from Sochi. We got a boat, sailed with him, trained, came fourth in the Russian Championship. With him we went to an international regatta in Turkey and came second. That inspired me too. Of course, the level of the regatta was very low, but it was my first competition abroad.

At some point we parted ways with my helmsman. I didn’t have a boat of my own. I wanted to race on the 70 so much that I called Mikhail Valeryevich and said: "Coach, I really want to race, I am ready to race even as a helmsman. Why not?

Everything was in my hands. I could not say no, I could say "no, I will be the helmsman". But at that moment I realised that either I would race as a helmsman and continue my career in the 470 class, or I would just stop sailing.

At that moment my friend from Anapa, Vova Chaus, had just switched from Optimist to 470. We formed a crew and the serious adult work began. We tried to get into the youth team, then the main team, the Russian national team.

When you work in a team, you have to remember and realise that other people depend on you. It makes you more responsible. You are responsible for your partner, for the coach, for your overall result. You are an integral part of the process.

We managed to find a common language, to build common goals, for which I am grateful to Vova Chaus. The eight years we had with him were very good, we had great success. There was a desperate desire to perform and show results. Everybody did their job and it brought results.

In 2012 we lost the Olympic selection to the Sheremetyev brothers — Misha and Max. At the time, Vova said he wanted to finish his career as a professional racer. I am grateful that he told me this honestly. So I started racing with Pasha Sozykin.

I had known Pasha for a long time, since childhood. We used to race with him on "Cadets". Pasha raced on almost all classes of yachts: from Optimist to catamaran Tornado. Everything except the 470. So I called him and offered him to try the 470 class. He supported the idea and came to Gelendzhik. From that moment Pavel and I started training and racing together. We started getting better results every time. In 2013 we won the Cup of Russia. Then we won the Russian championship and became the first number one in the national team.

Our goal was to qualify for the Olympics. We wanted to fight for high places at the Olympics, for a medal. And in 2014 we got the Olympic licence after finishing 10th at the World Championships. It was a great success for us — to be in the top 10 at the World Championships.

None of this would have been possible without the support of our sponsors, to whom we are very grateful: Sergey Bezruk bought us a new boat in 2014 after we won the Russian Championship. It was on this boat that we won prizes at the European and World Championships. I am also very grateful for the help of Lanfranco Cirillo — he also helped us a lot by buying a boat in 2017 and actively helping us before the 2016 Olympics.

Mixed sailing is a slightly different sport. I’ve known Alisa Kirilyuk for a long time, she’s a strong athlete, talented. She is strong in spirit, has a mad will to win and always fights to the end. She can give a lot of boys a run for their money: she is easy to prepare, perform and train with.

That’s why it was easy for me to sit in a crew with her and get good results straight away, thanks to her experience and talent and my vast experience. It was enough for us to get used to each other. There were difficulties, of course, but we are professionals and everyone knows their role. There is a common goal and we are working towards it, discussing and preparing. It is good when people are on the same wavelength. The worst thing is when one person wants to show the result and the other does not, and he does not talk about it. Then it turns out that one is holding the other back.

It is a part of life that I am used to. Of course there is a routine. Something gets boring at some point, but you have to be philosophical about it.

My goals in life overlap with sailing most of the time. When you achieve a goal, you get moral satisfaction.

Of course, time takes its toll, and I can’t say that I’m getting stronger physically as the years go by. There are young ambitious guys whose eyes burn, maybe brighter than mine. But I can’t say that I don’t have a goal. To do something else — why not? That’s also interesting. But to say that I’m going to leave sailing completely — of course not. There are many different projects, many directions in both professional and Olympic sailing. I don’t rule out that I might even do some coaching. But still — it’s all related to sailing.

Actually it is interesting to race everywhere — in Sochi, in Gelendzhik and in Petersburg. For me, as a professional, it is important to be able to show results in all conditions and in all water areas.

But my favourite place is still Anapa, and it’s a shame that things aren’t going so well with the yacht clubs here at the moment. There are different conditions here, the wind blows from the sea and from the shore, there is a wave for every taste — you can practice any manoeuvre.

A professional has to be good at everything — technique, tactics and speed — otherwise he will lose in serious competitions. If I have to choose, I prefer speed. Fast crews are forgiven for tactical mistakes on the course. And it is assumed that if you can maintain a high speed, you are already a bit of a "tactical genius".

Tactics are important, of course. And technique is usually the base from which you start. If you make technical mistakes, like dropping a gennaker into the water, if you have a poorly working crew, then even with a brilliant tactician on board you won’t be able to win.

Interview: Evgeny Kitaev
Photos: Anna Suslova, Valeria Isaenko, Ververidis Vasilis, Celso Pupo