- It was noticeable that Zhenya Tarasova had a hard time skating in Chelyabinsk.

Affected by the consequences of the disease?

- I would say that it was hard only at the very end of the program.

Zhenya was really sick, but, nevertheless, in three weeks of training after she recovered and returned to the ice, we managed to do five or six skates of the free program.

It's a lot.

Usually in pair skating they do two skates a week, and Tanya Volosozhar and I, when skating, did them even less often.

Therefore, the guys were completely ready to compete in the Russian championship.

- During the performance of Zhenya and Vladimir in the free program, you, standing at the side, made a hand movement, which can usually be seen at the hippodrome, when the audience makes noise, urging the horse on.

What did they mean by making this gesture?

- The guys, as far as I remember, went to the cascade of three sheepskin coats, and I showed Vova with my hand: "Come in!"

There is a moment in the cascade when you definitely need to go on the jogging leg.

We worked on this in training especially carefully, and in the final, it seems to me, Morozov managed to make his best combination of three sheepskin coats in his entire career.

- Tarasova and Morozov are one of the few leaders who have put on a new free program for the current season.

How difficult was it to cope with this task, given that Marina Zueva was not there?

- We had enough time to stage the program, since the idea of ​​this production was formed back in the spring.

Then Zueva and I decided that we would not change the short program, we would limit ourselves to an arbitrary one.

But a week before the test runs of this program as such, we still did not have it, there was only a model.

I had to force the production, do everything on the run, so until the very last moment I thought that it was not very successful.

- Do you think differently now?

- The viewers think otherwise, as it turned out.

Many came up after the rental, said good words, noted that the program was very beautiful.

I myself began to think: maybe it really turned out well?

But I still think our free program is raw and unworked from the point of view of choreography.

After all, our main expert in this regard - I mean Zueva - is overseas.

- To what extent did Marina take part in the training process?

- The most complete.

Every day, when I returned home after training, and this trip usually takes two hours, or even more, I definitely called Marina, sent her a video, we carried out a full analysis of the lesson, analyzed the elements, discussed plans for the next day, and so on. ...

This remote assistance and Marina's clear practical advice was very effective and useful for me as a coach.

Zueva in this regard is an excellent teacher.

- You at one time rather painfully perceived the criticism of your couple with Volosozhar.

Over the past year, Tarasova and Morozov have been constantly compared with younger duets, and the comparison often turned out to be not in their favor.

So are the results.

Does this hurt you as a coach?

- I haven't come across such comparisons this season.

On the other hand, I felt support, and it inspired me.

Well, I can add that with the reigning European champions (Alexandra Boykova and Dmitry Kozlovsky -

RT

), we still have a 2-0 score.

And the fact that younger couples are getting closer and closer is absolutely normal.

It always helps to move forward.

And Tanya and I were motivated at the time.

We are not really thinking about it.

And that we have one very important pre-Olympic year, which we must spend as efficiently as possible.

Yes, Zhenya and Volodya can already be considered age athletes.

But I myself approached the Olympic Games in Sochi at about the same age and roughly understand how and what to do in work.

- Sergey Voronov (two-time champion of Russia in single skating, winner of two European championships - RT) appeared in your team this fall.

Why he?

- To be honest, we just had no choice.

I understood that Tarasova and Morozov had certain problems with jumping, I was looking for a specialist who could help us, and at a summer camp in Novogorsk I even asked Kirill Davydenko so that my guys could go out to him on the ice and do some exercises together with Andrey Mozalev.

In a month, we made good progress in jumping, and when after Novogorsk we managed to fly to America for training, we continued to work on jumping with Igor Krokavets.

Well, with Voronov everything happened by accident.

We have always been on good terms, at competitions and training camps we often lived in one room, talked a lot with each other.

Sergey called in early October to wish me a happy birthday, and I invited him to training.

In the end we decided that we would try to work together.

Voronov, when he was an athlete, trained with Alexei Urmanov, Eteri Tutberidze, Inna Goncharenko.

This experience seemed promising to me.

And most importantly, I was bribed by the extent to which Sergei is charged with serious work.

I could have earned a lot of money with fairly easy work - rolling, doing with everyone, but instead I chose the thankless job of coaching.

- What pleased you the most in the performance of the players?

- How Zhenya and Volodya spent the entire championship.

How they trained, how they treated warm-ups, performances.

It was a very adult and conscious attitude.

Solid.

I do not exclude that the judges were also impressed.

As well as rivals.

- In the free program, however, your players did not get a throw.

- This happened not because of a mistake, but rather because of too much desire to perform the element as well as possible.

That's why I didn't really like the rental: in training, Zhenya and Volodya turned out all the elements absolutely cleanly. 

- Is pre-competition training held in open mode - is it some kind of special strategy?

- No.

The skaters have this trick - to show the best parts of the programs in open training, but we did not do it.

Moreover, before, Zhenya and Volodya always tried to demonstrate their excellent twist in training.

On the contrary, all the time that we work together, I tried to convince them: there is no point in showing an element when the whole world already knows that it is the best.

In training, you need to work out vulnerabilities.

Although in this respect each specialist has his own approach.

For now, I can only share my own experience with the guys.

- Before the World Championship, if it takes place this season, there are almost three months left.

Looking for options for additional starts?

- Now our task is to draw up a further work plan.

We will see what the figure skating federation will offer and only then make a choice.

- And perform in New Year's shows?

- We don't even have such invitations with Tanya (Volosozhar -

RT

).

Somehow we are not particularly in demand on the trees.

Yes, and I myself moved away from this, taking up coaching work.

- And once they said that they were disappointed in the profession.

- It's true.

It's just in my nature to adhere to the principle: if you took up something, do it well.

Working with Tarasova and Morozov, if you sort it out, I am writing my personal story, satisfying my own ambitions.

And I don't know, to be honest, if there is still a skater who won the Russian championship with two different partners and did it as a coach.