--- title: "Yuliya Raskina coaches Germany at the 2026 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Frankfurt; Varfolomeev wins third world all-around title." sdDatePublished: "2026-08-15T16:14:00Z" source: "https://www.olympics.com/en/news/rhythmic-gymnastics-2026-world-championships-in-frankfurt-i-know-how-they-feel-yuliya-raskina-on-the-experience-behind-her-coaching" topics: - name: "sport" identifier: "medtop:15000000" - name: "sport achievement" identifier: "medtop:20001301" - name: "sport event" identifier: "medtop:20001108" - name: "competition discipline" identifier: "medtop:20000822" - name: "gymnastics" identifier: "medtop:20000942" - name: "sports coaching" identifier: "medtop:20001323" locations: - "Los Angeles" - "Frankfurt am Main" - "Sydney" - "Île-de-France" - "Germany" --- Yuliya Raskina coaches Germany at the 2026 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Frankfurt; Varfolomeev wins third world all-around title. Rhythmic Gymnastics 2026 World Championships in Frankfurt: ‘I know how they feel’ - Yuliya Raskina on the experience behind her coaching Rhythmic Gymnastics 2026 World Championships in Frankfurt: ‘I know how they feel’ - Yuliya Raskina on the experience behind her coaching Darja Varfolomeev’s coach Yuliya Raskina reveals how she uses her own Olympic experience to help the rhythmic gymnastics champion manage pressure - and peak at the perfect time. Yuliya Raskina knows exactly what her athletes are feeling. After all, she has competed on the same stages, with the same apparatuses, and has felt the same pressure as the very athletes she now coaches. More than a quarter of a century later, the five-time world and Sydney 2000 Olympic silver medallist is now guiding Germany’s rhythmic gymnastics team, including its brightest star, reigning Olympic and world champion Darja Varfolomeev . “We are a very good team,” Raskina told Olympics.com exclusively at the 2026 Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Frankfurt, shortly after Varfolomeev claimed her third individual world all-around title. “Not only me and Darja, but we also have a lot of people around. We have great physiotherapists, doctors, psychologists, athletic coaches.” There is also something Raskina can offer that cannot quite be replicated by the rest of that support team: experience. “I was a gymnast as well and I went through a lot of situations, a lot of competitions, a lot of pressure,” she said. “I was competing at European Championships, World Championships, Olympic Games. “I know what mistakes I made. I know how I managed to be on the podium. That’s what I tell them as well, from my experience.” “I know how they feel somehow,” Raskina added. “I look and I know what’s going on now. Maybe I can give advice, if the girl is ready to hear me." One of the lessons Raskina has carried from her own career to the gymnasts she now coaches concerns one of the most fundamental elements of rhythmic gymnastics: the music. Hearing the first notes of her track used to send Raskina's nerves through the roof. But she eventually learned to turn that feeling on its head. “This is my music, my apparatus, my routine,” she would remind herself. “Everything is the same as I have already done many, many times.” As the routine unfolded, the nerves would gradually fade. It is a lesson she now passes on to her gymnasts, teaching them to use the music not as a source of pressure, but of calm. “When you hear your music, just go with it,” Raskina tells them. “This is yours. With every second, with every moment, you just calm down because it’s yours. It should calm you down.” In an arena filled with applause, shouts and the movements of other gymnasts and coaches, Raskina also tells her gymnasts to narrow their world for those 90 seconds: the apparatus, the music, the movement and the feeling of their own body. “Don’t react to screams or applause because many, many things are going on in a gym,” she said. “To be focused for this one minute and 30 seconds is very important.” Individual All Around Final | Rhythmic Gymnastics | Olympic Games Paris 2024 The Rhythmic Gymnastics Individual All Around Final was held on 09 2024 at La Chapelle Arena, Paris. Darja Varfolomeev (GER) claimed Gold, Boryana Kaleyn (BUL) took Silver and Sofia Raffaeli (ITA) completed the podium. Is there a formula for a perfect peak? Since joining Germany’s national rhythmic gymnastics programme in 2022, Raskina has played a central role in the country’s rise in the sport, helping guide Varfolomeev all the way to Olympic gold at Paris 2024 . Their partnership has since produced more of the same, but as Varfolomeev stood in Frankfurt in 2026, cradling another world all-around gold medal in her hands, she was quick to point towards the coach who had helped her get there. “I don’t think I would be here if it wasn’t for Yuliya,” Varfolomeev said, glancing in Raskina’s direction. That relationship, and the mental work underpinning it, was certainly tested during the 2026 world all-around final. Varfolomeev’s opening hoop routine had left her seventh after the first rotation, suddenly demanding near-perfection from the rest of her routines to secure a third consecutive world all-around crown. Varfolomeev admitted that "letting it out," with some tears and laughs with Raskina, helped recentre her and finish her day on top. For Raskina, those moments are the product of months of work at home, a reflection of countless hours of training and repetition already behind them. When Olympics.com asked about how she helps her athletes peak for moments like these, she admitted that there is "no formula". “Some things are good for one gymnast, but for another gymnast we have to find another way,” Raskina said. “We have to search, we have to try, we have to go to competitions and try again.” What Raskina does know is when she wants her gymnasts to be at their best. A rhythmic gymnastics season is long, and she has little interest in chasing perfection from its opening months. Instead, the target is to build slowly, allowing routines to develop through competition until they are ready for the moments that matter most. “We start the season very slowly. I’m not asking them to do clean routines in March, April, May, June, or July. I ask for clean maybe only in the last two weeks before the World Championships. I don’t want to stress them so much.” Raskina and her team map out the season knowing that early World Cups are opportunities to test routines, instead of perfecting them. “If it’s a mistake, no problem . We listen to feedback from judges, correct, and we are improving all season,” she said. For Varfolomeev, the next peak is already visible on the horizon. The Olympic champion is building towards LA28, where she hopes to defend the All-Around title. After securing an Olympic quota place* for Germany at the World Championships in Frankfurt, that possibility has moved another step closer. *As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective teams at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the LA Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at LA28. How to qualify for rhythmic gymnastics at LA28 Olympics Rhythmic Gymnastics | World Championships | Frankfurt | Germany