"You can make a quadruple rittberger and a fivefold sheepskin coat": Harutyunyan on the limit of skaters perfection and Chen's superiority

- After the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, where your ward failed the first of the skates, losing all chances for a medal, you said that performing a quadruple lutz and quadruple flip in a short program for a singles skater is akin to suicide.

At the recent US Championships, Nathan Chen performed both jumps, and he jumped in a cascade with a flip in the second half of the skating, thanks to which he scored an absolutely phenomenal total of points - 113.92.

- It was one of our tasks in this championship.

Lutz with a flip is really difficult to connect, but we started preparing for this even before the Olympics.

Therefore, in fact, Nathan decided on this combination of jumps in Pyeongchang.

From my coaching point of view, this, of course, was a mistake.

On the one hand, I understand perfectly well that such ambitious athletes as Chen, Evgeni Plushenko in the old days or Sasha Trusova in the present, will always try to stay ahead of their time, to do something that the whole world considers impossible.

On the other hand, it was still not worth carrying out such experiments at the Games.

Well, now I can say that Nathan and I took three whole years for these two jumps to confidently "fit" into the program.

Although this, of course, is not the limit of my coaching dreams.

- And what is the limit?

- I will not answer, sorry.

I do not want to say anything on this topic ahead of time.

- Are you so superstitious that you are afraid to jinx it?

- Superstitious, of course, not even a conversation.

For me, any digital combinations that appear on the clock or on the door of my hotel room are iconic, and I have made sure many times that there are really connections between the numbers and some events.

If we talk about our work in general, we have a certain strategy and tactics that I do not like to talk about.

Sometimes even Nathan himself does not know why I try certain things in training and what exactly I am preparing him for.

- That is, you still prepare the student for something even more extraordinary?

- First of all, I'm preparing him for what would allow him to go even further forward.

In sports, everything is very simple: do you want to be the first?

Walk straight!

- Which of the technical problems that have not yet been implemented in men's single skating seems to you the most realistic?

- There are, of course, options if you start thinking in this direction.

For example, transfer the same lutz and flip to the second half of the program, and put at the beginning ...

- Quadruple axel?

- No, move more simple quadruple jumps there.

Axel, like a quadruple rittberger and a fivefold toe loop, is already a completely different level of complexity.

It sounds fantastic, but all the jumps I have named can be done.

It's just very traumatic.

- Is it possible to prepare an athlete's body in such a way as to reduce the risk of injury to a minimum?

- Not an easy task.

For example, in artistic gymnastics at one time there was a very sharp progress due to the fact that foam rubber pits were invented, which made it possible to study complex elements on all apparatus in a completely safe mode.

In figure skating, in terms of safety, nothing like this has yet been invented.

The question is not that you cannot try to jump any of the listed jumps, but that you can fall from them, and much more.

The blade on which the athlete stands is very thin, stands on a slippery basis, if it happens that you do not twist a quarter of a turn and the leg turns up, the ankles and knees immediately suffer.

That is, one careless movement and the athlete dropped out of the working process for two months.

- At the beginning of this season, you said: "The fact that Chen is the strongest is a myth."

Do you still think so now?

- I don't think about it at all, to be honest.

We're just doing our job.

We are trying to work out a certain model of the program, trying different options.

At the end of October at the Skate America tournament, as you remember, Nathan performed the free program twice, in individual and team events, and both times skated a different set of jumps.

Now we have put together a certain optimal variant with five quads, and although not everything worked out at the US Championship, it is already clear that it will be quite difficult to compete with Chen.

So far, however, he has not reached the desired condition.

Speaking of performing in Las Vegas, I'm happy with the way the short skate was performed, but I can't say the same about the free dance.

- Do you keep in mind the possibility that the World Cup in Stockholm may be canceled?

- Regardless of what the International Skating Union decides on this, all our trainings are structured in such a way as to be in optimal condition by the end of March.

- And if ISU still cancels the competition?

“It won't change our working intentions in any way.

I would, of course, prefer to find out about the cancellation as late as possible.

Still, it is morally very difficult for an athlete to continue full-fledged training, knowing that he will be deprived of the main start.

Training now is already difficult.

But I am absolutely happy with Nathan's attitude to the process.

He does not travel anywhere, is constantly in California, does not miss classes and performs all my assignments with the utmost conscientiousness.

- Didn't even the October fires disrupt the work when Chen had to evacuate from his own house?

“Fires are quite common in our country.

Where my family now lives, they are rare, because the proximity of the ocean gives high humidity, but if you go towards the ice rink where Chen lives, and further, inland, it often flares up there.

The system of compulsory evacuations is a kind of preventive and long-established measure, in case the fire spreads across the highway to residential areas.

So Nathan got into one of these evacuations.

What is there to do?

Such a country.

But now we have + 20 ° C.

And even the beaches are not closed.

- But you have to observe the mask regime?

- Only at the rink and in stores.

Everything is very tough there in terms of measures taken.

- Will you look for some other opportunity to perform somewhere at the end of March if the world championship is canceled?

- Of course.

Since autumn, we have been constantly organizing competitions at our skating rink so that athletes have the opportunity to rent programs in conditions as close as possible to competitive ones.

It is clear that this is not the same adrenaline.

Even in Las Vegas, where plastic figures were sitting in the spectators' seats, he was not the one.

But there's nothing you can do about it.

We must use the opportunities that we have.