Children should be happy in sports. And any branch or section for children should be opened on the basis of the most professional approach. This is what gymnast, coach, Olympic bronze medallist, and owner of the Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy in Kyiv, Anna Rizatdinova, says. As part of the special project of Komersant ukrainskyi
magazine “Children’s Sports: A Business That Is Impossible Without…”, the athlete told us how the war changed her business and why scaling up in children’s sports should be approached with the utmost care.
Ania, you started your sports business of raising future champions literally in the midst of the Covid. And no one could even imagine that in two years’ time, war would break out in Ukraine. But your Academy took place. What business transformations did you have to go through? What was the key to your decision to continue against all odds?
Indeed. We are only 4 years old, but the Academy has already gone through a “covid” and a full-scale war that is still going on. We had to learn what online gymnastics training is. To develop new approaches that would be interesting for children and effective in terms of their development. Of course, online can never be compared to a full-fledged training session when you are there and can touch the child. But the online format was forced into the life of our Academy. And due to the security situation in the country, we sometimes continue to use it.
The war changed not just a lot. It changed everything. In the summer of 2022, we actually had to start from scratch. It was incredibly difficult. As a number of coaches and children went abroad, we formed a new teaching team and recruited new children. We changed the gym. It is very difficult to rent a suitable room for gymnastics. Even in Kyiv. The ceiling must be 8-10 metres high, plus two large 14 by 14 carpets. But nowadays, such a hall must also have a bomb shelter. And there is very little such infrastructure in reality.
In the third year of the full-scale war, our challenges do not end. Now we have to buy generators and floodlights, and work in conditions of no electricity and constant missile threats.
At the same time, all these obstacles have not stopped us. First of all, because children are incredibly motivating. I am a mother myself. I understand that if I close the Academy, more than 200 children will lose the opportunity to train and do what they enjoy.
At the beginning of the war, the children were very withdrawn and even unmotivated. Sleepless nights, fear, uncertainty. All this affects them no less than adults. And these trainings, communication, achievements, for which they go to the Academy, have had a positive impact on the state of the children. Today, our girls calmly get ready and go to the bomb shelter in case of an emergency. A certain period of adaptation has passed.
I am really happy that we continue to create opportunities for children to do what they love. Children are developing, participating in tournaments, including abroad, where they raise our Ukrainian flag. This is incredibly important.
How long did it take for the Rhythmic Gymnastics Academy to become self-sufficient and then make a profit? I’m interested in the payback period and advice from your experience: is it possible and worthwhile to speed up this path?
Again, the war has made significant adjustments. Before the war, we already had 150 children and branches. Everything was well established. Then came the war, and we started all over again. In general, before the war, we were still in the red. That is, it was two years since the school was founded. We also had debts, because we did not work for a month and had to look for ways to pay the rent. It was a really difficult period. Then we closed down and started in a new hall and with a new team in August 2022.
Only now we are gradually becoming profitable. But not every month yet, because in the summer, for example, children go on holiday to rest.
Our financial balance is heavily weighted towards the gym rent, which we have to pay regardless of how many children were able to attend training this month.
My dream is to build my own gym someday, so that I don’t have to depend on anyone.
As for advice on how to develop your school, I probably won’t give it. Because I am still learning myself. And now I realise that where I should have weighed my financial capabilities, I, on the contrary, spent a lot on everything at once. Because I am the kind of person who lives by the principle that the Academy should have the best: carpets, uniforms, comfortable changing rooms, etc.
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Today, the Academy has two studios in Kyiv. So, at some point, you made a decision to scale up. Tell us about it and the main rules that helped you do it.
We had plans to scale from the very beginning. I wanted to open branches of the Academy abroad and in different cities of Ukraine. But, again, the war… Sometimes it is so difficult to keep one branch in Kyiv that a year ago I did not even mention any of my intentions to scale up.
Now our main branch is in Pechersk. It is, I can say, quite confidently standing on its own two feet. That is why we decided to open a second branch on the right bank.
In fact, I have had several offers to open branches in Ukraine. But for now, I refused. Firstly, everything has to be professional. Secondly, I have to be in these schools. Today, I don’t see myself living in one city for a few days, then another, then returning to Kyiv. I have to weigh my strength. That’s why we’re only talking about Kyiv for now. Also, because the aspect of ensuring the safety of our pupils plays an important role. It is extremely difficult in a time of war.
And then we will see. When the situation changes for the better, and I feel strong enough to do so, we will open branches across Ukraine.
We often say that you have to be born an entrepreneur. That is, you have to have a certain talent for it. But professional athletes who have spent at least half their lives training and then become founders of academies and schools break this stereotype. Why do you manage to do this, in your opinion?
I don’t know if I succeed. There were a lot of mistakes, a lot of financial losses. But I’m a pretty risky person, and when I want something, I do it. This is such a cool quality in athletes. If we have a goal, we don’t feel any obstacles at all.
All these 4 years I have been learning how to build my business. And our current circumstances are constantly adding new challenges. That is why, in fact, we live one day at a time. Today. Trying to give as much as possible to children.
My vision is that the sports section should be a part of their interesting and fulfilling lives. That’s why before the war we used to go to performances, paint, and organise excursions. We want to gradually restore this.
But the main thing in my plans as a coach, mother and human being is to make children happy. This is the first thing. And then all the victories and Olympic medals.
Today, sport in the West is not far behind other areas of business in terms of its capitalisation. In Ukraine, the situation is currently the opposite. What steps could the state, society, and entrepreneurs take to promote such entrepreneurship?
The state cannot afford to spend a lot of money on professional sports, especially in a full-scale war, but it must help children’s sports. It’s not just the prestige that everyone talks about when athletes glorify Ukraine. Often, these are much more important things in real adult life. Sport strengthens character, teaches discipline, teaches you to overcome adversity and go through defeats.
In this direction, options have long been invented and are working successfully, when companies are exempt from certain types of taxes if they invest a certain amount in children’s sports. For example, Kyiv has a huge problem with gyms. Both small and medium-sized, not to mention large ones.
Now there is practically no place in the capital to host a high-level tournament except the Palace of Sports, and it is over 80 years old! I’m not talking about stands for 20,000 people, I’m just talking about a warm hall with a normal floor and clean, working showers.
The halls that do exist are 90% occupied by football, as it is the most popular sport in Ukraine. It is clear why Kyiv or Odesa and Dnipro cannot allocate $10 million for a modern arena with 5,000 seats, but they can give the land to giant brands like Nova Poshta or Novus for free so that they can build such an arena, fully brand it and even name it after themselves. This is how it works.
Society has to pay for sports, it’s as simple as that. It’s still a problem for most people to pay 200 hryvnias to go to a gymnastics or basketball tournament, but it’s not a problem to spend the same amount every day on e-cigarettes.
As for entrepreneurs, the answer is simple: they have to be socially responsible. You can’t force a private business to open a children’s school and spend the money they could have spent on advertising with a fictional Usyk. But we can urge them to be socially responsible and open this school so that we can have new Usyk’s.
