"I got the joker": Solovyov about working with Buzova in the "Ice Age", coaching ambitions and monetary obligations

After winning the team silver at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Dmitry Solovyov, who played with Ekaterina Bobrova, twice unsuccessfully tried to return to the sport with another partner, Elena Ilinykh.

And only this summer, having agreed to take part in the television show "Ice Age", he actually admitted: his career is over completely.

"I perceived the" Ice Age "as some kind of game"

- When we talked with you a year ago, you agreed that you need to be ill with sports, come to terms with the idea that your career has come to the finish line.

Are you ill?

- I would say that an occupation has appeared that is very immersive in work and distracts from such thoughts.

- You intended to make a second attempt to pair up with the Ilyins after her son was born ...

- Lena and I did not talk about returning to the sport as such.

We just wanted to try to go out on the ice, do some elements and see what happens.

But almost immediately questions began to arise.

With whom to leave the son?

How to go to training camps, competitions and combine all this with raising a baby?

Lena's mother works, it's already hard for grandmother to sit with a child, Seryozha (dancer Sergei Polunin -

) is constantly on the road.

And it turned out that organizing a serious training process is actually unrealistic.

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Posted by ELENA ILINYKH (@blackswanei) Jun 22, 2020 3:51 pm PDT

- But you continued to hope that Elena would agree?

- Well no.

Rather, we both were deceiving ourselves in a way.

Feelings continued to remain in sports, and with their brains they understood that, probably, our time was over, and it was time to move on.

Moreover, many other opportunities, other doors are opening.

This is how now, for example, the "Ice Age" arose in life.

- Over the entire period of its existence, have you ever felt a desire to be among the participants?

- To be honest, I was so absorbed in sports that at first I perceived Ice Age as some kind of game for those who finished professional performances long ago.

I was sure that this occupation would definitely not affect me and certainly not the kind of activity that I would like to strive for.

But my career flew by so quickly ... A year or two before the Olympics in Korea, I suddenly caught myself thinking that it was becoming interesting for me to watch television broadcasts in recording, to notice some things.

- Did you look after your potential partner too?

- No never.

Although I thought that it would be interesting to work in tandem with a professional actress.

- And the TV presenter Olga Buzova, who does not know how to skate, went.

- I would say that I got the joker.

Although Olga really did not stand on skates before.

I periodically communicated with Ilya Averbukh, I knew that he was looking at potential partners.

And then his assistant called me and asked me to come to the skating rink in the Aviapark shopping center.

I didn’t even bother to ask who I was going to try with.

I didn’t want to be upset or happy about this in advance.

- What was the first impression?

- The skating rink in Aviapark is small, there are always a lot of people there, Ilya pointed to the far corner: “Do you recognize?

This is Olya Buzova. "

I even, it seems, escaped "No-no".

For you to understand my reaction, there was a half-bent figure on two legs, arms outstretched.

Panic man.

It was visible in every movement.

Then I rolled out new shoes myself, my legs were very sore.

Naturally, I was not going to show this to anyone, I was not used to complaining, so I just went to the rink, and we started skating.

And suddenly, somehow at once we went very well.

Olya so quickly began to grasp some things that I changed my initial opinion.

Therefore, now I call Buzova a joker on the ice.

She has so much desire to learn something new, so much energy, so much willingness to work - four, five hours a day.

And sometimes seven or eight.

This is provided that she has a lot of filming, her own projects.

This attitude towards work and character can only really be envied.

It always makes you respect a person very much.

"I already want to start skating in public"

- It seemed that on the project around your couple with Buzova there is already increased excitement.

- I think the whole point is that you came to the interview on the day when we put on the number.

Therefore, naturally, there was more attention to us.

- Do you yourself look closely at other participants?

- Sure.

I look around, see who is doing what.

I'm so used to it.

When I came to competitions, I always did this - the very sight of skating rivals charged me a lot.

Although sometimes it got in the way, even minor conflicts over this with a partner happened.

Katya is used to doing everything neatly, very restrained.

On the contrary, I was beginning to burst with emotions.

In general, I find it difficult to restrain myself when it comes to performing.

- Even now?

- Yes.

Once we went with Romeo and Juliet to Sochi.

Katya could not perform then, and I had to skate our act with Yana Khokhlova.

It seems that everything was set up in Moscow, the steps were repeated.

We arrived, the music turned on - and I was carried away, like a break.

Yana then said: “Dima, it turns out that I didn't know you before.

I didn't expect you to be like that. "

It is clear that now I have to restrain myself for the most part, especially since Olya at some moments still feels insecure.

But I already want to start skating in public.

It’s even interesting what kind of sensations it will be.

- If suddenly you and Buzova and some other couple are candidates for departure, will you ask the viewers to save you by SMS voting?

- We will do our best not to be in this nomination.

I promise.

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Publication from Dmitry Soloviev |

D.Solovyev (@dmitry_solovyev) Aug 17, 2020 7:27 am PDT

"Free skiing is in trend now"

- You actually spent more than two months as a playing coach.

Has your mind turned towards serious coaching work in the future?

- I know that I can teach a lot, but I don't see myself as a mentor yet.

Moreover, I imagine such work a little differently than it is happening now.

- In what sense?

- I would say that in the world figure skating, the free style of skating is in trend now, even somewhat abstract.

There is no rigid choreographic plot: everything comes from the natural movements of the human body and the interweaving of all this with music.

- But many coaches and directors are working in a similar vein now.

Why do you consider this a different view of the profession?

- In Russia it is accepted to a lesser extent.

Let's say there is Alexander Zhulin, who, in his work with Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov, is now striving for this direction.

But for me and Katya, he always put programs on a certain clearly outlined plot.

Plus we had a choreographer Sergei Petukhov, who told a story for each performance to make it easier to turn four minutes of skating into a mini-performance.

It is clear that choreography always in one way or another comes from one's own perception of music, the perception of a particular movement.

But sometimes it is noticeable that people seem to skate perfectly, and do exactly everything that the coach told them, but in their bodies and images they are simply not comfortable.

It seems to me that it should not be so.

Children should be taught to understand movements already at the age of seven or eight.

Understand what and why they are doing on the ice.

- Then why don't you go to work as an assistant to the same Zhulin?

- I don’t think it’s possible.

In order to train with high-class athletes, an equally high-class coaching staff is needed.

I often cite the example of the Munich Medical Center, which once treated the knee after surgery.

There, each doctor is responsible for his own very narrow topic.

Someone - for the knee ligament, someone - for the left meniscus, someone - for the right.

So it is here: there is a large and very well-coordinated mechanism that works for the result.

Let's say I come.

But won't I be superfluous there with my point of view?

Although I would be interested in collaborating with dance couples.

- You already had the experience of independent staging work with Sergei Voronov.

Didn't he disappoint?

- On the contrary, it turned out to be very interesting.

Sergey is such a smart athlete that in the process we were constantly moving towards something new.

A kind of continuous dialogue in which we both understood each other perfectly.

I will not name the names, but when I see that an athlete from year to year skates, in fact, the same program, only transposed to different music, I get bored.

- But when a skater takes a different music, leaving the arrangement of the elements practically unchanged, it gives him much more reliability of performance, stability and, accordingly, confidence.

Moreover, there is a trick: if certain elements and bundles have already been highly rated by the judges, it means that the referees simply will not risk putting lower points in another, and in fact the same program.

- I agree with that.

Yes, the current rules and all the prescribed requirements to some extent limit the skater's creativity.

But there are connections between elements, transitions, rotations, where you can fantasize, come up with non-standard solutions.

It turns out otherwise, as in bad melodramas, where the plot is by and large the same: family, love, prosperity, then one day it collapses, the hero loses his job, his friends turn away from him, and he himself ends up in prison or psychiatric hospital.

It is clear that sport is not cinema, but it seems to me that the viewer should not have the feeling that he has already seen all this many times.

- The Frenchman Philippe Candeloro exploited the Godfather theme for several years in a row.

Two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu skated the same Chopin concert in the short program for four seasons, and in the free program he returned to the production of Seimei three times ...

- I didn't compare Yuzuru with anyone.

His sense of movement is captivating to such an extent that I personally am ready to watch endlessly, no matter what he skates.

In this, in fact, he differs from those who simply go out on the ice to do work: here is a hand, here is a head.

"The athlete has a responsibility from an early age"

- If you had a chance to take part in voting by age criteria, in favor of which decision would you vote?

- Let's start with the fact that I will hardly ever resolve such serious issues.

“But deep down, you know your answer?

- The fact of the matter is that no.

I do not know what is right and what is wrong here, I will honestly tell you.

I fully admit that it is very cool for someone's eyes when champions change so quickly that you do not even have time to get used to them.

But personally, I am much more interested in a skater who does not give up, fights, overcomes himself.

I am convinced that this is real sport.

When you prove, prove, prove, prove ... You experience the moment of growing up, break yourself, learn to win again.

In figure skating, an athlete has a responsibility from an early age.

But at 15 you don't understand it.

You just get tremendous pleasure from the fact that you ride and jump.

Therefore, the girls' eyes are different - gambling, funny.

And very little time passes and only fear and the burden of responsibility remain in them.

Why is this happening?

I do not know.

But overcoming all this is the most difficult thing that happens in sports.

- In connection with the recent high-profile transitions of skaters from Eteri Tutberidze to Evgeny Plushenko, your former coach said that the amount of compensation in such a situation should be spelled out in the contract and amount to € 20-30 thousand. Do you agree with this?

- When at one time Katya and I passed to Zhulin from Elena Kustarova and Svetlana Alekseeva, we did not have any obligations at all.

True, then there were no big titles, no money.

This topic was never discussed with Sasha either.

There were other agreements that we followed.

For example, after completing a competitive career, we give the coaches a percentage of the money we earn for some time.

But this was our joint decision.

I think this is correct.

He gave us a lot.

- How exactly is the amount of deductions determined in figure skating?

Are there any unwritten rules on this subject?

- Something like that.

There is a certain percentage that everyone adheres to.

- Relatively speaking, you won the competition and put money in an envelope.

At this moment, the thought does not arise: "Didn't I put it there a little?"

- We have always divided everything equally.

50 to 50. When it comes to a pair, that's okay.

- If in the foreseeable future in figure skating the question really arises that the relationship between the mentor and the ward should be regulated by a contract, what points would you consider necessary to include there?

- Complex issue.

When an employer puts a contract in front of you, he first of all draws it up for himself.

This is always the case in any business.

On the other hand, a certain balance must be observed after all.

- For example, the condition not to take direct rivals, as happened twice in Zhulin's group during the period of your work with him?

- The paradox is that for me and Katya, direct competition only turned out to be a plus.

Although at first there was a shock.

How so?

How could he?

And then we started to just brutally gnaw the ice and did not look at anything around.

And it turned out that the decision was very correct.

Sasha, I know, was very afraid of our reaction, although in his group we never felt that we were deprived of something.

Many exits are not due to competition.

And because people simply do not have enough coaching attention.