"You can lose a competition with a short program": Vasiliev on couple acrobatics, Tuktamysheva's riddle and Kolyada's problem

- Three athletes competing for a place in the Olympic team will compete in women's single skating from Russia in Sochi. Moreover, all of them - Kamila Valieva, Elizaveta Tuktamysheva and Maya Khromykh - have high chances of getting into the Grand Prix finals. How difficult is it for skaters to stay in maximum shape for several months?

- It's incredibly difficult. Since the time when I skated myself, the sport has become completely different in this regard. In our time, competitions of such a format as the current Grand Prix series simply did not exist, so everyone started the season rather sluggishly and gradually gained shape for the main starts. When the Grand Prix stages began to be held, the competition still allowed not to give all the best at all starts and at the same time maintain fairly high positions. In other words, the skaters did not have an urgent need to keep in shape from October to the end of March. Now, from the very first start of the season, especially the Olympic one, all athletes are in one way or another in plain sight. Because of the competition, you have to ride to the edge of your capabilities. To keep this level, firstly, it is traumatic, and secondly, it is very difficult psychologically,because you have to constantly force yourself to train at the limit of strength, to keep the weight, and very hard. It's really insanely difficult, but there is simply no other way. 

- Who in this regard evokes the greatest admiration in you?

- I will not name one of them.

All our leaders from the very beginning of the season, one way or another, have been working in such a mode and I really want to hope that they will survive the race.

Nobody gives slack, does not "fall out".

- There is an opinion that official training does not say anything at all, because an athlete can look completely different at competitions.

What are you paying attention to?

- There really is no direct connection between training and competition.

For judges and technical specialists, they have a purely practical meaning: to see who and what elements are doing in the program, how stable they are, what is the athlete's potential in terms of difficulty levels.

- Would you like to say that 90% of the score is formed in the judges' minds even before the start of the competition?

- No, I didn't say that. But a certain understanding: whether, for example, an athlete is able to get the fourth level for a rotation or, on the contrary, has more chances to lose on this element in difficulty - comes just in the observation of training rides. This, in fact, is correct, because in competitions everything happens very quickly, and the number of repetitions, when the judge can reconsider this or that element, is limited. Therefore, the International Skating Union requires that a technical team be present at every skating. The athlete's second assessment, of course, also very much depends on the presentation of the program before the start of the tournament. Experienced mentors always remind skaters that in official training, you need not only to be able to skate "in public", but also to be "well dressed"that is, to show yourself in the most advantageous light.

- At the Tokyo Grand Prix stage, Victoria Sinitsina received the first level of difficulty for the step sequence on one leg. After that, Alexander Zhulin said that he did not understand how suddenly the skater had forgotten how to skate. But the ability to own a skate and the ability to fulfill all the given requirements are somewhat different things. Do you agree?

- Absolutely right.

At the level we are talking about, everyone, especially dancers, can skate with a few exceptions.

Anyone can make steps, turns, but at the same time, not everyone performs the elements cleanly - so that even after revision it would be impossible to find fault with the technique of execution.

The level of difficulty depends not only on the number of different turns, but also on how perfectly each of them is performed.

Any little thing that is not done carefully enough can lead to a loss of level.

And there are many such details.

- I listen to you and remember how many points Liza Tuktamysheva used to lose because of her trademark, sometimes demonstratively careless manner of skating.

- Liza is generally a unique skater. She could have won absolutely everything else in the last Olympic cycle, but she was inferior in the little things. On inattention to training, to competitions, to their own form. For me, Tuktamysheva is a mystery man. The abilities are colossal, the talent is also great. Learning multi-turn jumping in adulthood is a very difficult task. Until puberty, girls, as a rule, are not afraid or hurt - they simply do not perceive it. With age, the attitude changes seriously: you clearly understand what you are going for and how it can end. But Lisa did it! This once again speaks of its uniqueness and originality. Perhaps it depends too much on the mood, I don't know. But every time I can't get rid of the feeling that Tuktamysheva does not realize even half of her capabilities on the ice.  

- In contrast, the example of the ex-world champion Daisuke Takahashi, who switched to dancing two years ago, suggests itself.

For a Japanese, every dance step, as they say, is beautifully wrapped and tied with a bow.

- It should be so.

The main task of the skater is to “sell” to the judges the elements that he performs in the most advantageous way.

Takahashi, as a sensible, adult and very experienced athlete, understands this very well.

Moreover, he has always been an excellent rider.

Therefore, he presents his steps to the judges exactly as you said: “Here you are!

Receive and sign! "

In my understanding, every skater should do this.

It doesn't matter if he performs alone or in pairs.

Today, few people are able to “sell” their skating the way Takahashi does this season.

- I would say that Mikhail Kolyada is capable of this, but so far we are only waiting for him to reveal his own potential. Is this a reason for regret or is a holy place never empty?

- Misha is undoubtedly very talented, not deprived of opportunities, but, in my opinion, he decided too late to make changes in his own life. When he moved on to Alexei Mishin, he was already too psychologically crushed by the negative experience of his previous performances. Therefore, it is so difficult for him now to abstract himself from this burden and show what he is really capable of. Can this be called the trouble of Russian single skating? I think not: our singles have not yet reached the level at which Russian girls are, and we must understand that you cannot get to the gold medals without ever stepping on a rake. Maxim Kovtun walked on them for several years, now it's Misha's turn. We can only hope that younger athletes will learn not only from their mistakes, but also from the mistakes of their predecessors.

- You and Elena Valova also had a chance to go to the gold of the Games in Sarajevo on a rake?

- Our path turned out to be very short, since we entered the international arena only a year before those Games.

The level of competition in the world in pair skating was not very high then, which could not be said about the situation in our country.

Therefore, we filled all our bumps just at the inner level.

It turned out to be much easier to compete at the European and World Championships.

- At the same time, you have experienced on your own skin what it is like when direct rivals skate on the same ice with you and with the same coach.

How difficult is it to be in such an atmosphere?

- From the point of view of training, such competition is a blessing, since it constantly pushes the athlete forward.

But psychologically it is very difficult.

You constantly load yourself with thoughts that you have no right to make a mistake.

And the winner in such a confrontation is the one whose nervous system is corny.

Actually, a very similar situation is now observed among our single girls: the competition within the group is much higher for them than at the main starts.

- Is there jealousy in the mind of an athlete with such competition?

- A competent specialist will never show that he prefers one of the students.

The same Tamara Nikolaevna Moskvina always built the training process very professionally.

None of her athletes could complain that they were somehow deprived of attention.

- At one time you worked with Tatyana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin in Chicago virtually alone.

Now with Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov, six or seven highly qualified specialists work at the same time.

What are the pros and cons of this approach?

- With Totmianina and Marinin, we lacked competition most of all.

Riding alone is generally difficult, because you have to constantly step over yourself, make you work.

But look what happens to Tarasova and Morozov: no matter how many specialists work with them, they still skate alone on the ice.

And this is not at all like skating with other couples.

In my opinion, it would be much easier for Zhenya and Volodya if there was a competitive environment around that allows you to constantly feel in which qualities you should add. 

- Of the four sports couples applying for a trip to Beijing, Daria Pavlyuchenko / Denis Khodykin stand apart due to their very recognizable acrobatic style of skating.

Do you think this direction has a future in pair skating?

- I don't like it too much, to be honest.

Although I give credit to both the guys and their coaches for the fact that they are so actively trying to bring novelty to pair skating.

But from a purely technical point of view, a number of elements raise certain questions.

- For example?

- For example, the acrobatic throwing of a partner, with which Pavlyuchenko and Khodykin begin their short program.

In fact, this is a twist - with the only difference that the partner rotates in the air above the partner's head not around the longitudinal axis, but around the transverse one.

I do not exclude at all that some of the judges might think of counting this element as a twist and putting a “zero” for it.

- Something like this, if I'm not mistaken, has already happened in single skating, when the skater decided to decorate the track of steps with an amplitude crossover jump, but the element was counted as a torn axel.

- Quite right.

That is why I said: I do not see any new branch of development in the acrobatic style.

The guys are definitely great for trying all this.

But you need to be very careful when fitting such an innovation into the framework of the rules.

- If you were a simple spectator and had the opportunity to purchase a ticket for only one type of program ...

- It would definitely not be dancing.

I think I would go for pair skating.

For a short program.

- Why?

- The free program is in a sense more interesting, more diverse in terms of elements, but the significance of the short program, in my opinion, is higher.

And the nervous tension is completely incomparable with what an athlete experiences before a free skate.

Why - it is clear: speaking in the short program, skaters can provide themselves with either a break or a warm-up.

So, not to get into the strongest group?

Your second mark is automatically lowered by at least 0.5 for each judge.

I did not appear in pair skating in the first four - and you are out of the fight.

That is why it is so often repeated in our sport that you cannot win a competition with a short program, but you can lose it.