This is the second material in the series “Letter to your past self”, which “Championship” produces together with the “Additional Time” charitable foundation. Famous athletes share their memories and reflect on the difficulties they faced in monologue format.
Vasily Artemyev – Russian athlete, rugby player. Three-time champion of Russia, four-time winner of the Cup and winner of the country’s Super Cup, captain of the Russian rugby team. He stopped acting in 2022. He did not officially announce his retirement.
– A couple of years ago I said I would quit rugby when I lost the motivation to go to training and my body was screaming: “Enough!” This formula partially worked.
I quit rugby when I realized I had no motivation left. What should I do if I can’t reach the 100 cap mark on the international stage? We finished the season with my club: the professional team had to disband, leaving the rest of the CSKA rugby structure.
I had no desire to move to another club or continue my sporting career. I have been combining my television and sports career for quite some time, working on other projects, developing corporate sports. Therefore, I no longer had the motivation and goals that I would like to achieve as a professional player.
The motivation was gone, but thank God my body still wasn’t screaming “enough!” Chronic injuries, of course, have accumulated; Like any former professional athlete, he is forced to live with some consequences of a long career.
I don’t feel like going back yet. I do not exclude that this is possible: there are excellent amateur and veteran tournaments. In particular, every year in Dubai, as part of the World Series of Rugby 7s, tournaments for veterans are held; maybe one day I will go out into the countryside there, in the fields of the hot Emirates.
I can say that my career was definitely worth it. Can an athlete respond differently? Of course, I had great opportunities. I come from a good, educated and intelligent family. I think that both genes and a good learning ability could give me a career in another field. But it happened that since I was a child I dedicated myself to sports and fell in love with rugby.
Perhaps he could have achieved more in professional sports, even at a younger age. He perhaps would have stayed to play in Ireland if he had sacrificed his studies and the time he dedicated to studying in high school. But I liked studying, I wanted to graduate well from university. I don’t regret it happening this way.
Rugby gave me a great social boost. Everything I do now is thanks to rugby. Without a doubt. There can’t be a but here. This is a wonderful path in professional sport that I have traveled, that I am happy about and that I am very proud of.
Of course, I had turning points in my career. There were periods in my life when I thought it was time to stop playing for the Russian national team. After the 2011 World Cup, we had certain difficulties preparing the national team. During the selection for the 2015 World Cup, we played decisive matches with the Uruguayan team. We won the home game by a slim margin of one or two points, and in the away game in Montevideo we lost disappointingly, although we led for most of the game. We were missing some points and we did not qualify for the World Cup in England. It was very disappointing. Strong punch. Many players finished their careers in the national team, our composition changed a lot.
A couple of years later, the difficult preparations for the 2019 World Cup in Japan began. Once again there were difficulties due to the constant changes in the coaching staff. The fate of entry to the tournament was decided in the match against Spain in Krasnodar. We really needed a win. In a difficult match, our team took the lead, but the referee made several questionable decisions, which were later recognized as erroneous, and we lost. I suffered a serious injury: I broke my elbow while moving. After the game it seemed that everything, our destiny was predetermined. We have passed the World Cup again…
It was 2017 or 2018, I was already 30 years old. I thought, “Well, that’s it. “I can’t count on the next World Cup, I have to end my career in the national team.” But it turned out that our rivals in the national team, the national teams of Spain and Romania, violated international rules on the naturalization of foreign players. For this reason, Spain and Romania were sanctioned and had their tournament points deducted. And in the end, the Russian national team reached the 2019 World Cup, which became the most memorable event in my career. It was a mixture of euphoria and a certain sense of justice.
I went to the 2019 World Cup as captain of the national team and led my team to the opening match against the Japanese team in a 70,000-capacity stadium.
It was really very moving. It’s not often when playing rugby in Russia that you get the opportunity to compete in front of a crowd in such a large stadium. And at the same time lead your team as captain! That tournament left very dear memories in my heart. As a professional player I will remember them for a long time.
After each game we exchanged uniforms with our opponents, I even had a small collection of rugby shirts at home. This is also a small memory that I treasure carefully.
For a long time, the mark of 100 matches for the Russian national team remained an open gestalt. In 2022 I had to play my 99th game, against the Georgia team. The match was supposed to take place in late February or early March. But for objective reasons it was canceled. A few weeks later it became clear that we should forget about international sports.
Yes, it took me a long time to reach this hundred, but circumstances are not under my control.
I accepted the situation and decided that there was no point in thinking about two games that couldn’t be played. I prefer to think about the 98 games I was lucky enough to play with the Russian team. And this is without counting the matches that did not count towards the official classification: there were also quite a few, at least a couple of dozen against English professional clubs and regional teams.
I am glad that I defended the colors of the Russian national team for 13 years! It doesn’t bother me at all that I can’t get into the centurion club. Now I don’t regret it. So there were times when it seemed like everything was over, but fate decreed otherwise.
Vasily Artemyev
Photo: Fundación Tiempo Adicional
When I think about whether I want to change something in my career, I come to the conclusion that I wouldn’t change anything. Otherwise, the moments when I had to make a decision would not have led me to today. And I wouldn’t want things to turn out any other way. I have a loving family, a job I enjoy, things that bring me satisfaction, pleasure, and help me make a living.
I would probably just advise my younger self to be more confident in his abilities, to have less doubt at the beginning and at some stages of his career. Both sports and television.
Recorded by Tatyana Postnikova. The material uses photographs: from the personal archive of Vasily Artemyev; RK CSKA; rugby.ru; Fake images.
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