“There are athletes who always stick forward”: Harutyunyan about the potential of Trusova and her transition from Tutberidze to Plushenko

- When it became known that Alexandra Trusova decided to leave the group of Eteri Tutberidze, you said that the Russian skaters are very dependent on the conditions created for them, and any step they take in one direction or another is regarded as an escape. Explain what you mean?

- You just need to understand that all Russian athletes, and this is not only about Trusova, have not grown on their own. They invested their work, their finances, certain organizations and people, so any transitions and cares in Russia are perceived so painfully. It seems to me that foreign coaches do not always realize this. They think: an athlete from Russia came to them, they can take it and continue to work in the same way as they work with any other skater. Although I have been living in the United States for many years and am considered an American coach, I understand this specificity very well. I believe that any transitions of Russian skaters should first of all be thoroughly coordinated with former coaches, and even more so with the leadership of the national figure skating federation.

- That is, you can’t just tear yourself away from your previous life and leave for a new one?

- This is just unreal. This is not a situation where an athlete paid for himself for many years, chose a coach, at the same time hired other specialists at his discretion, who also somehow participated in the training process, and then suddenly decided to change everything. And he changed, hired new people for his money. In Russia, this cannot be. Until now, much rests on the principles and concepts laid down in Soviet times. So when our athletes start to pay for everything themselves, then they will do what they want, you know? Although the same Eteri Tutberidze, as it seemed to me, is already reacting to the care of her athletes not as sharply as it was before.

- Controversial statement. One of the group’s choreographers recently gave an interview in which he called Trusova’s transition  to Evgeni Plushenko a betrayal, comparing this to a stab in the back. And he remarked: "When a man betrays, he ceases to exist for us."

“I cannot understand this at all.” Why, then, none of the coaches said that Trusova committed treason when she left Tutberidze from her previous mentor, Alexander Volkov? It turns out that all those who come to the group from other specialists are never traitors, but become so when they leave? This is even funny. In my opinion, this is impossible. Take the athlete to yourself - say thanks to the one who prepared it for you. Leaving from you - wish good luck.

- As soon as in Russia some talented single woman leaves the trainer, your name immediately sounds as a likely mentor. Did the story of the transition of Trusova somehow concern you?

“Similar stories almost always concern me.” Athletes apply often enough, including Russian athletes. But taking into account all that I have already said, I try to disown some offers right away, because I don’t want to get involved. When I start working with a skater, I am interested in everything: how and where the child grew up, what he aspires to, how he is used to training. But if I am a foreign skater, I understand quite well in this regard, then I don’t imagine very well how to work constantly with a Russian athlete, with his parents. Because they grew up in other conditions, where they were provided with ice for free, where there was a group of trainers who fiddled with them from morning to evening, as I myself did when I lived in Russia. And now, with the same Nathan Chen, I work on an equal footing, we are more likely partners with him.

- But after all, you also had a period of quite serious confrontation with the family of this skater, if I am not mistaken.

- It was. At the same time, strangely enough, I always perfectly understood the position of Nathan's mother. She at one time put a lot of effort into making her son a real skater. In the West there is no centralized training of athletes, and its absence, you see, must be compensated by something else. It is being replaced. In the case of Nathan, it turned out to be mom, in the case of Michelle Kwan - dad, and so on. Therefore, I always tried to respect the fact that Chen’s mother has her own view on the preparation of the child, even if she takes steps that I don’t like as a trainer. The time has come, and Chen’s mother herself said to me: “You did for him what no one else could do.”

• Rafael Harutyunyan
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- So, it’s all about coaching patience?

- You could say that. I just endured some things, and now an adult, adult guy listens to me, catches every word, fulfills all my requirements, but this is not blind submission, but relations at some completely different level of trust and respect for each other.

“Did Chen manage to solve issues related to academic leave at Yale?”

- Yes, he just passed the last exam the other day and said: “That's it, I graduated with studies, now I can fully focus on work.” Nathan had already returned to California, rented an apartment and started training. Now I’m trying to arrange for us to have our own separate ice when the ice rink opens.

We already have good conditions, five to six people on ice, but sometimes you want to be able to work separately, as they say in America - face to face (face to face. - RT ). I want to do something really good, to turn Chen into an elite skater.  

- In relation to the person who won all the top titles, except the Olympic one, it sounds interesting ...

“I understand your irony, but many details can be improved, developed in all aspects.” Not so long ago I talked about this with Nathan and honestly said that I don’t like a lot of things in his skating.

“And what was the reaction?”

- He answered: "Me too." Accordingly, we plan to do a lot of things. Go to some dance schools, try new programs, come up with some new element, go to increase the total. We watched all the performances of Nathan at the last two world championships and came to the conclusion that the second of these tournaments turned out to be weaker than the first. Although, in fact, a man won.

“I want to return to the Trusova theme, because with her fantastic desire for complexity, she strongly reminds me of your student.” After her transition to Evgeni Plushenko, several experts immediately expressed the opinion that, despite owning four different quadruple jumps, Sasha has a huge number of minuses: slipping is lame, rotation technique ...

- Remind me, what was Trusova at the adult Grand Prix finals?

- The third.

- That is, I understand correctly that we are now talking about the fact that the girl became the third in the Grand Prix finals, and then, when she decided to change her coach, she suddenly started to limp?

- Agree, when the skater has so many quads in the program, and this is not Nathan Chen, the program turns into skating from jump to jump. After all, you yourself have repeatedly said that when the production is oversaturated with jumps, there is simply no time left for everything else.

- This is so, but let's reason logically: you created a certain value system, paid for it, the athlete fulfilled all your requirements, became the third, and now we are starting to say that he is somehow riding wrong? Well then, make a change to your existing system. But I do not understand when someone undertakes to criticize an athlete for playing according to the rules that are proposed to him.

- If you were in the place of the current coach Trusova, would you come up with how to save five quadruple jumps in a free program, or would you try to convince an athlete that it is in her interests to make the program simpler?

- The fact is that even if Sasha leaves in the program not five fours, but three - this is a lot for the girl, especially when you know that with age all the girls begin to jump less. I am 100% convinced that keeping such a number of quadruples with Sasha will be very difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to engage in skating, improving technology, sliding, spinning and the same mechanics of jumping, even if a person knows how to jump. When you don’t do this every day, your skills begin to go away very quickly. The same Nathan knows how to jump all fours, except for the axel - but he works on them every day.

- When Trusova became the third in the Grand Prix finals, having previously won both of her stages and then selected for the main starts at the Russian Championship, the mother of one of the athletes of the Tutberidze group told me: “Sasha managed to overcome the enormous psychological barrier, and her coaches, thanks to her , - also. She is the first child who, on her own initiative, took the fourth jump, just because she really wants it. The quadruples were forbidden for everyone to jump for a long time, because the coaches were afraid of injuries. Trusova, on the other hand, began to jump the first quadruple as a child, and only then after her everyone else began to try it. ”

- This motivation played a role - I don’t know, Sasha herself was so motivated or her parents, but she wanted to make five quadruple jumps in the program, and she did it. In principle, Nathan once behaved exactly the same: I want - I will! Well, my mother wanted this, and although I tried to somehow contain a completely unjustified risk, I understood that progress is progress and there is nothing to be done. Another question is that we must be able to weigh everything. Nobody has canceled the tactics in our sport, like in football, where everyone somehow knows how to play in different positions, everyone runs well, but not everyone goes on the attack.

If the same Trusova or the same Nathan had been more professional as athletes at one time, they probably would have agreed that tactics should be used in some situations: today two jumps, tomorrow three, and so on. But they are both just super-motivated people who, without looking back, stick forward, and you can’t do anything about it. So, the trainer just needs to stand next and help with all his might.

- How much, in your opinion, does the Trusova technique allow her to develop further in the hopping plan?

- She, by the way, has a good technique. Not to say that everything is just super, but Sasha is jumping quite normally. It can be seen that you can work with her and she herself is a very demanding person, motivated and wants to jump a lot. This is a very fertile ground for the coach.

- As a professional athlete, I understand another thing: if the girls from Khrustalny make 50 jumps in 40 minutes at the official start of the main start, it means that they jump much more during regular training and their muscle memory is much stronger than that of those who jump are not so intense. In such cases, retraining an athlete as he grows up and even just fixing some technical flaws becomes an incredibly difficult task.

- I agree. I will give simple statistics: 100 jumps in one training session are 200 jumps per day, 1200 jumps per week, almost 5000 per month and about 50 thousand, or even more, per year. And all these girls ride in this mode for five or six years. Then such an athlete comes to you, you begin to work with her, and rushes from all sides: e-mine, she’s been riding for six months already, but nothing has changed.

Guys, for six months you can, relatively speaking, only ground the canvas on which you want to write something. Therefore, when I say that I need two years to begin to see at least some changes in my athlete, I do not just call this figure: two years are spent only on laying a new muscle memory. And only then can you start talking about some new technique and stability.

- It turns out that Brian Orser performs a feat while working with Evgenia Medvedeva?

- Of course. He accomplished the feat already when he agreed to train her. I think this is only Orser and could afford.

- Do you think that if the Canadian knew about the risks that we are talking about, he would have avoided the proposal?

- I definitely can’t say that.

- How is your work now being built in the context of the coronavirus pandemic?

“We don’t have a quarantine, so Chen returned from Dallas to Los Angeles without any problems.” A round-trip flight now costs $ 50, and this is actually three hours of flight. We train in the park or on the beach, which is also not prohibited, we do two workouts a day. In the morning, stretching, then physical training, strength and special training. Nathan jumps, I watch this from a distance, make adjustments. In the same way we work with Mariah Bell - the rest of my athletes are my wife Vera and Nadezhda Kanaeva.

- I have heard more than once that doing a large number of jumps not on ice, but on a hard surface is dangerous enough for the legs.

- And there is. Even high jumpers, as far as I know, jump only twice a week, the rest of the time they train muscles. When Nathan was injured two years before the Olympics, he was not allowed to go on the ice for a very long time even after everything had healed. At that time, we worked very hard to get stronger physically, to become stronger before starting to jump, and just when all this work was completed, Chen easily mastered the quadruple lutz and quadruple flip. Now we jump very carefully and do it only when I am present at the training session, that is, under strict control. On the rest of the days, Nathan is involved in physical fitness, continues to work on strengthening muscles.

- Do you already have any perspective on resuming training on ice?

- In the near future it is planned to open a skating rink for those who are professionally involved in sports? and allow three to four people to ice. Actual measures, in fact, seem to me a reinsurance: figure skating is not hockey, there is no contact, especially if you follow this. With mass skating, it’s more difficult: if sessions are resumed, then very soon.

- Are you not worried about the psychological state of your charges in connection with the pandemic?

- No, although the general uncertainty is a bit confusing. This is a state when you understand that you have nowhere to go and nothing to do - it greatly delays and relaxes both the athlete and the coach. On the other hand, it was only with the beginning of all the events that I suddenly realized to what extent I was tired for 45 years of work. All the while Nathan was taking exams at the university, I was lying at home and thought: how great it turns out to be doing nothing. I never even suspected that it was so cool!