This week has been a rollercoaster for the fans of Nikolai Kuksenkov. First, Kuksenkov abruptly left Penza the day of podium training for the Russian Championships without explaining what happened. This spurred rumors about his possible injury, especially since he is known to be injury prone. A day later he explained his decision to withdraw from the nationals, saying that he felt betrayed by the coaches of his district team who did not include him on the team.

Today, Andrei Rodionenko has announced the retirement of Nikolai Kuksenkov, he said to TASS: “He finished his career”. The announcement comes quite suddenly as Kuksenkov has been training and participating in the national camps and was prepared to compete on pommel horse this week. Valentina Rodionenko also commented on the news: “He’s practically a coach now, he’s 30 years old”.

Kuksenkov has not commented on the news yet. There has been cases of Rodionenkos falsely announcing the retirements of certain gymnasts in the past.