CHAMPION: CATCH UP WITH YOUR #LOVE

1. A boy who runs from everything

Fifteen-year-old Alexei Istomin — Lyosha to everyone who knows him — has a rare gift for speed and an even rarer talent for getting himself into trouble. He is spirited, intelligent, affectionate, argumentative, quick to fight, and almost impossible to control. At school his grades are hardly impressive, his teachers despair of his behaviour, and he often turns up with bruises that alarm his mother. Yet there is another side to him: he reads with real passion, despises cowardice and bullying, and is capable of kindness that he usually disguises behind a cheeky joke. The problem is that he has learned to meet the world head-on without asking whether every collision is necessary.

His mother, Maria Andreevna, works exhausting shifts as a nurse. She raised him alone after his father Dmitry, a police officer, was killed in the line of duty when Lyosha was still a child. The family’s old car had to be sold; money is scarce, and Maria works hard to provide the little comforts her son enjoys. She remembers her husband’s goodness and fears that their unruly son may lose the moral direction his father would have given him. Lyosha loves her deeply, but he dislikes being dependent on her. His response to the family's difficulties is neither patience nor sensible part-time work. He has found a more dangerous way to make money.

Using quick hands, agility and astonishing sprinting speed, Lyosha steals car mirrors and other parts from parked vehicles and sells them through a small garage. He tells himself he never attacks people and only takes what can be replaced. When owners or guards chase him, they cannot keep up. Security men at the car parks have even given the elusive thief a nickname: Bolt, after the world-famous sprinter. They do not realise that the ability helping this boy escape arrest could give him a wholly different future.

2. A coach sees what the thief cannot

Elsewhere, experienced athletics coach Boris Mikhailovich Firsov is guiding professional sprinter Ilya Novikov through a demanding national championship. Boris believes that speed is only the beginning of an athlete’s education: the hardest opponent is fear, impatience and the temptation to give up. Ilya knows this from bitter experience. The pressure at the start of a race can undo months of training, and his coach constantly reminds him that strong nerves are as essential as strong legs.

After one of the championship events, Boris and Ilya leave the sports centre and discover a stranger breaking a side mirror off Ilya’s almost new BMW. Ilya, himself an exceptionally fast runner, gives chase. The thief darts between parked cars, slips around obstacles and disappears. Ilya returns without the mirror, furious and breathless. Boris is stunned for another reason: he has just seen a youngster outrun a trained champion. The sheer natural talent revealed by that flight seems almost unbelievable.

When Boris asks the guards about the boy, he hears the name Bolt and fragments of a story about a young criminal nobody can catch. The coach reaches a decision that surprises even him. He wants to find the thief, not to punish him, but to bring him to the track before his gift is wasted in a police cell or worse. Finding a young man who works in the shadows and trusts no one is not easy. Boris follows the trail of stolen parts to a garage, playing the part of an ordinary customer to learn how its trade works. His search becomes a race of its own: can he reach Lyosha before the consequences of the boy’s chosen life do?

3. The girl who will not ignore his potential

At school, another turning point arrives without warning. A new girl, Varvara Kotova — Varya — enters Lyosha’s class. She is bright, poised, independent-minded and strikingly beautiful. Unlike classmates accustomed to laughing at his jokes or putting up with his antics, she is unwilling to excuse his laziness. Lyosha becomes fascinated by her almost immediately. His usual bravado is of little use when he has to speak honestly about his feelings.

Their class teacher, Natalia Alexandrovna, is exhausted by Lyosha’s habitual lateness and asks Varya to call him each morning to make sure he gets out of bed. What ought to be a minor disciplinary measure becomes the beginning of a private ritual. Varya calls, he promises to wake up, they exchange teasing messages, and he begins waiting for a telephone that once meant only a lecture from an adult. For the first time, getting to school on time matters because someone there matters to him. He also sees how differently she lives: reading, studying and taking other people’s promises seriously are ordinary parts of her world.

During a school athletics lesson, older pupils boast of their superiority and their celebrated sprinter Frolov dominates the conversation. Lyosha races one of the boys with whom he has previously fought. Before the start, the older pupil unexpectedly apologises for hitting him. Remembering his mother’s advice that forgiveness may one day be needed by everyone, Lyosha accepts the apology. The moment is small, but significant: he learns to win something without throwing a punch. Then he runs. His speed astonishes both teachers and pupils, and he defeats Frolov, the school’s seemingly unbeatable favourite. Varya watches and encourages him. In her eyes, Lyosha is beginning to see the possibility of a different version of himself.

4. A strange proposal

Meanwhile Boris tracks him down and arranges a meeting. Lyosha goes reluctantly, expecting trouble with the police or an offer of criminal work. Instead a stranger tells him he knows about the car parts and has watched him run. Boris speaks plainly: the boy has the talent of a sprinter, and with training could earn money honestly, achieve recognition and perhaps become a champion. He warns him that stealing cannot remain a harmless game. Sooner or later somebody will catch him, and a life that has barely begun may be ruined.

Lyosha rejects the offer at first. School already consumes more hours than he wants to give it; training, discipline and listening to yet another demanding adult sound intolerable. He is suspicious of grand promises about sport and disinclined to surrender the independence he prizes. Even when Boris leaves him a contact number and asks him to think again, Lyosha feels certain that athletics is not for him.

His feelings for Varya continue to grow, however. At her home he meets her mother Polina Sergeevna, spends time with her little brother Styopa, and discovers the lively atmosphere of an affectionate family. Their first proper outing to the cinema leads to a clumsy, moving declaration and the joy of mutual love. Lyosha is used to running away from pursuers; now he wants to stop running, stay beside one person and build something that lasts. When he mentions the coach’s offer, Varya responds with an intensity he did not expect. To her, throwing away such a gift without even trying is indefensible. She does not promise that he will be a champion; she insists that he owes himself an honest attempt.

5. A last look at the wrong road

The old life has not yet released him. A stolen mirror from a television presenter’s Audi lies hidden in his room. For the first time, the object brings him neither satisfaction nor pride. He imagines the owner noticing the loss, a witness recognising him, the police arriving, and his exhausted mother learning what her son really does. The fear is practical, but something deeper also troubles him: he knows he has wronged another person.

He eventually returns the mirror to its owner and admits what he did. His embarrassed humour cannot disguise the importance of the act. Giving back something he could have sold means acknowledging that the theft was not clever work but harm inflicted on a stranger. It is one of his first concrete steps towards the future Boris sees in him.

Even then Lyosha hesitates about training. Sportsmanship, like moral change, is easier to admire than to practise. Yet Varya’s disappointment at his refusal matters more than his own excuses. He telephones Boris and asks if it is too late to accept. It is not. The coach welcomes him, though he makes no attempt to conceal the price: attendance, difficult work, obedience to a programme, and an absolute refusal to cheat either himself or his teacher. Lyosha suddenly understands that a promise can demand considerably more courage than a sprint across a car park.

6. The first discipline

At his first proper training sessions, natural speed is no longer enough. Boris exposes weaknesses that Lyosha never knew he possessed: a poor start, careless technique, an unstable finish, and a habit of substituting explosive energy for sustained concentration. The boy who could escape nearly any pursuit discovers how difficult it is to run correctly for the sake of a few hundredths of a second. Training hurts. Muscles protest, fatigue accumulates, and seemingly minor details of posture or foot placement become matters of exhausting repetition.

The greater struggle takes place inside his own head. Lyosha invents a sharp-tongued second self, an internal voice that mocks his resolutions and tempts him to sleep late, skip training or take the easy way out. Every afternoon there is a fresh argument between the lazy boy he used to be and the athlete he has promised to become. Maria sees that her son is changing, although she cannot yet know everything he has left behind. His coach, firm rather than sentimental, refuses to congratulate him merely for turning up. Varya offers encouragement without letting him pity himself. Together they give him what he has missed since his father’s death: a demanding but believable structure of expectations.

The routine squeezes his days between school, practice, homework and brief precious meetings with Varya. He reads on trains, waits for her calls, longs for more time alone with her and complains inwardly about Boris’s severity. Yet each day he returns to the track. Gradually the repetition that once seemed like a punishment becomes a way of life. Lyosha begins to understand the difference between having a gift and earning the right to use it.

7. The first championship

Only two months after he begins training, Lyosha travels to his first serious youth championship. His rivals have often spent years preparing. One of them, Yegor, trains alongside him and struggles to accept the newcomer’s rapid progress. Boris warns his athletes about false starts and the danger of letting excitement destroy technique. The stadium, the officials, the waiting rooms and the silence before the starting pistol are unlike any school race. Lyosha’s nerves are tested in public for the first time.

The people who matter most come to support him, including Varya and classmates from school. He longs to prove worthy of their faith. In the hundred metres he runs with startling power and wins, astonishing competitors who scarcely know his name. He also excels over two hundred metres. The result is not presented as a miracle that erases the coach’s work. Boris can see every mistake even in victory, and he takes the boy aside to discuss his start, pacing and tendency to jump at the finish. Lyosha is learning that a championship is both an achievement and a beginning.

Yegor’s resentment brings an old temptation back into view: Lyosha could answer the insult with anger, just as he once did at school. Instead he has a medal, a coach’s respect and Varya’s delight. More importantly, he has proof that running can carry him towards something rather than merely away from somebody. The nickname Bolt is acquiring a new meaning.

8. Two years of growing up

Two years pass. Lyosha has become a serious young sprinter, stronger, disciplined and far more successful than anyone could have predicted from the boy who once stole mirrors. Training and travel have also made him a more responsible son. His mother no longer sees only a restless schoolboy needing rescue from his own decisions. She begins to see a man who can look after her. His school results improve as well, although academic obligations and old battles with teachers do not disappear overnight.

Varya remains at the centre of his emotional world. Their shared history is full of small rituals: wake-up calls, messages, books, cinema visits, walks and affectionate jokes. She gives him a bracelet engraved with the words “My Atlas Shrugged”, invoking a novel important to her and turning the gift into a private emblem of faith in him. Lyosha wears it through training and competition, touching it when nervous. He wants his victories to mean something to her as well as to him.

On a trip to a championship in Saransk he buys her a gift of his own, a bracelet decorated with figures of a boy and girl. It seems a modest but perfect answer to hers. He plans to surprise her when he returns. He has no idea that the evening he imagines so happily will test him more cruelly than a sprint final.

9. A picture that breaks a heart

Back in Moscow, Lyosha hurries home, greets his delighted mother and refuses even his favourite dinner because he wants to see Varya at once. He heads to her building with the gift in his pocket. In the courtyard he notices a couple laughing together on a swing. The girl is sitting on the young man’s lap. At first he tells himself that his ears and eyes must be deceiving him; then the breeze shifts her hair, and he recognises Varya.

His reaction is instantaneous and devastating. He does not ask who the man is or why Varya is sitting with him. He sees a betrayal. Even when she jumps up to greet Lyosha, confused and pleased by his unexpected arrival, he pushes her away, gives her the bracelet and turns to leave. She runs after him and begs him to listen. He refuses. His injured pride is stronger than his willingness to hear an explanation. What should have been a joyful reunion becomes an abrupt, one-sided breakup.

At home he deletes her number, throws away their messages, strikes the wall and flings the bracelet she gave him behind a wardrobe. His mother can only sit beside him and try to comfort a son who has suddenly become inconsolable. Lyosha tells himself that he hates Varya; in the same breath, every thought of her shows how deeply he still loves her. The boy whose first instinct is to run has once again fled — this time from a conversation that could have saved him months of pain.

10. A race lost before the pistol fires

The next day he must travel to Saint Petersburg for another national championship. Coach Boris immediately notices the dark circles beneath his eyes and understands that the trouble is personal. He warns Lyosha that romantic anguish has ruined many athletes at the very moment when they most need composure. Lyosha tries to compete, but he cannot stop imagining Varya with the other man.

Social-media photographs seem to confirm his suspicions. He sees Varya at the cinema and later with friends and the same young man; he ignores details that do not fit his interpretation. He walks through Saint Petersburg at night instead of sleeping, dreams of Varya and hears her challenge him to catch up with his love. Boris discovers how late he returned to the hotel and rebukes him. The young runner is exhausted and angry, not because his body has lost its ability but because his attention has been consumed by jealousy and grief.

He reaches the final, but at the start his concentration fails. He launches himself before the gun, commits a false start and is disqualified. It is a particularly cruel reversal for a boy nicknamed Bolt: his own desperate urge to run prevents him from running at all. For the first time sport seems not to offer escape from suffering but to expose it. The defeat threatens not only a medal but his belief that he is capable of controlling his life.

11. Confession and a retreat

At the same competition Lyosha speaks with Ilya Novikov, Boris’s established champion. During their conversation Ilya casually tells a story about chasing an outrageously fast thief who removed a mirror from his new car. Lyosha recognises himself and at last understands whose mirror he once stole. The revelation forces his old and new lives into the same room. He can hide behind the passage of time, or admit what he did to someone whose respect he wants.

He chooses to confess. Ilya is startled, then laughs at the absurd coincidence and forgives him. He is not interested in destroying a young man who has already changed. This forgiveness is important, yet it does not solve everything. Lyosha can admit to an earlier theft but still cannot admit that his own refusal to listen may have caused the disaster with Varya.

Humiliated by the false start and tormented by love, Lyosha retreats from athletics. He avoids Boris, pretends to his mother that he is still training, spends hours wandering through Moscow and struggles to prepare for his school examinations. He tells himself he can return to his former freedom, but that freedom no longer exists: stealing now repels him, and aimless days bring no happiness. He has outgrown the world of the car parks without knowing how to live properly in the world of sport.

12. A difficult return

A report about the talented runner’s disappearance from competition unexpectedly shows Lyosha that Boris has not abandoned him. The coach describes the absence as temporary rather than declaring his pupil finished. That public confidence becomes a challenge. Lyosha has failed an athlete’s promise, but it is not too late to begin again. The idea of returning is frightening because it requires him to face the person he has disappointed and to accept responsibility without excuses.

His mother continues caring for him through this painful period. She cannot force him to forget Varya, any more than she could have protected him from every danger when he was little. Yet her steadiness and Boris’s faith leave him a path back. Lyosha resumes training, no longer treating the sport merely as a way of proving himself to a girl. He begins to see that work, honesty and endurance must survive even when life does not reward him immediately.

News arrives that sponsors have awarded him a new Audi in recognition of his earlier performances and records. Since he is not yet able to drive it legally, the car becomes a gift to Maria. For a woman who sold the family vehicle after her husband’s death and has spent years making ends meet, the car is almost unbelievable. Lyosha is happy to see her joy. The boy who once took parts from strangers’ cars can now give his mother a car of her own. The symmetry is striking, but the story refuses to make transformation effortless.

13. The return of the mirror

While shopping together before the European championship, Maria and Lyosha return to the parking area and discover that someone has torn a mirror from their new Audi. His mother is shocked and upset. Lyosha freezes: he is looking at an almost exact repetition of a crime he once committed himself. He remembers the owners he dismissed, the anger he caused, and his cheerful confidence that replacing a mirror was no great problem. The suffering is suddenly personal.

He reassures his mother, but inside him shame and recognition are inseparable. The theft does not mean the world has magically punished him; its real consequence is moral. He can finally imagine how his victims felt. The episode closes a circle that began with a breathless chase through a car park. Speed is no longer a means of evading responsibility. What matters is the person he has become by learning to face it.

He studies for and completes his final school examinations, still painfully aware of Varya’s presence. Ordinary school corridors and familiar places can suddenly undo his composure. The graduation celebrations go on without him as he prepares for international competition. He promises himself not to repeat his disastrous false start, nor to waste the chance Boris has fought to preserve.

14. A larger stadium, an unresolved heart

Lyosha travels to Finland with a small youth athletics delegation for the European championship. Maria accompanies the team in a professional capacity, working as a masseuse. For the first time in years she is able to travel abroad, and Lyosha is proud to give her that experience. Yet the journey is not uncomplicated. The Russian athletes are not permitted to appear with their national symbols. In the stadium, surrounded by flags and national anthems, their small group looks painfully isolated. The political restrictions remain an external fact of the competition; for Lyosha, the immediate challenge is still the one Boris taught him — to master his nerves.

He moves among teammates, attends to his preparations and watches the other athletes, yet his thoughts repeatedly return to Varya. The gifted runner who can cover a hundred metres in seconds has spent months unable to bridge the emotional distance between two people. He still wears the bracelet she gave him. Before each start he touches it, almost as if it can restore the certainty he once felt in their relationship. Boris, whom Lyosha now regards as something close to a father, speaks to him with the gravity and affection of a man who understands what this opportunity means.

Just before the race Lyosha unexpectedly encounters the television presenter whose mirror he once returned. The meeting reminds him how far his life has travelled from theft to international athletics. She remembers the incident; he does not deny his old identity. It is one more quiet sign that the past can be acknowledged without becoming a prison.

15. The banner

At the starting blocks, the stadium seems to shrink to the few metres in front of him. Lyosha checks his equipment, feels the familiar pressure of anticipation and forces himself to remember Boris’s warning about starting too soon. He touches the engraved bracelet and tells himself that this race is his chance. The official calls the athletes to their marks.

Then something in the stands catches his eye: a large banner with a message in bright red letters. It reads, “Lyosha, he was my cousin.” At first he cannot make sense of it. He looks again, and as the banner lowers he sees Varya standing with her mother. The man on the swing — the supposed rival who shattered his world — was her cousin. Everything Lyosha thought he knew about the betrayal collapses. Varya had tried to explain, and he had refused to listen. She has come all this way to tell him, in public and at the decisive moment, what he would not allow her to say in private.

A new meaning floods the title of the novel. To catch up with his love, Lyosha must do more than be faster than his opponents. He must outgrow suspicion, anger and pride; he must learn that courage can mean listening, admitting a mistake and trusting another human being. The starting pistol fires. Lyosha springs forward — not towards a guaranteed medal or a neatly announced reconciliation, but, as the novel’s final image puts it, towards his love.

16. The story’s conflict and conclusion

Champion: Catch Up With Your Love joins a coming-of-age story, a sports narrative and a love story without making any one of them a simple decoration for the others. Lyosha begins as a boy whose gift is being consumed by the wrong purpose. Boris Firsov does not transform him with a speech; he gives him demanding work and refuses to let talent become an excuse. Maria offers loyalty and moral memory. Varya gives Lyosha a reason to imagine a future, and her insistence that he develop his abilities changes his choices.

The central conflict runs through several forms of flight: running from victims and the police, running from discipline, running from failure, and finally running from a painful truth he refuses to hear. The first championships teach Lyosha physical self-control; his heartbreak reveals how incomplete that discipline still is. The false start in Saint Petersburg is both an athletic mistake and an exact expression of his character: acting before listening. The final banner does not erase the harm his jealousy caused. It gives him a chance to respond differently.

The novel ends at the beginning of a race. It does not report the results of the European final or stage a conventional scene in which the lovers exchange explanations. That restraint is crucial. Lyosha has already won something that cannot be measured in seconds. For the first time, the speed that once helped him flee is directed towards hope, responsibility and the person he loves.