Olympic champion in singles skating Brian Boitano once said: they say, he does not understand the desire of journalists to interview the winner at all costs.
Because the loser can tell much more.
The phrase came to mind at the very moment when last year's European champions Alexandra Boikova and Dmitry Kozlovsky received bronze medals at the awards ceremony following the results of the finals in pair skating and almost immediately withdrew these awards, unlike other winners.
- In the free program, you gave an amazing performance, but at the same time you were wildly upset. Why? Could they have done more?
Boikova:
First of all, we could have avoided a stupid mistake on my part in the short program.
Kozlovsky:
A good rental is far from everything, it does not end there.
There is also such a thing as a busy place.
The first thing that comes to mind in this regard is Saitama.
World Championship 2019, men's free program.
Yuzuru Hanyu comes out and rolls a masterpiece.
And after him comes Nathan Chen, his program is perceived as an even greater masterpiece, and no one remembers exactly how Hanyu skated, because he is only second.
And everyone will always remember that championship as a competition where Chen rode and won in an absolutely amazing way.
— I agree with you. But it is impossible not to take into account that that World Championship in Saitama was the main start of the season for the skaters, and the European Championship in Tallinn was just an intermediate stage of preparation for the Olympic Games. Didn't you lose a cow?
Boikova:
This is true, but we are not yet ready to answer what exactly we lost.
Kozlovsky:
I will say the same thing.
We are still under the influence of certain emotions, and such questions must be answered with a cool head.
- I will partly repeat my first question: could something have been done better in your final rental?
Boikova:
Probably, we could skate a little more emotionally, but today our main task was to get together for the elements, to perform them as cleanly as possible.
And for this we needed absolute control.
Kozlovsky:
We were very well prepared for this championship, we felt that we could show cool, powerful skating.
But, you see, when an athlete is on a very high morale before a performance, and in the very first program an incident occurs, based on an absolutely stupid, stupid mistake, which is not something that is not systemic, but absurd in principle ... Well, it's something like the mistake that Anton Sikharulidze had at their first Olympics with Lena Berezhnaya.
Anton then already stood in the final pose - and fell.
What can be said here?
You won't find any words.
In such situations, there is a very large emotional decline.
And Sasha and I had to make great efforts to overcome it.
And I'm proud that we did it.
- You skated in front of the main rivals. When you saw your grades, what did you think?
Boikova:
That this is our best result this season.
And that our work was highly appreciated.
Kozlovsky:
To score more than 150 points in the free program is very serious.
In pair skating, this is the level of the strongest Olympic warm-up.
But any assessment must be considered in comparison with others.
Yes, we always say that we disregard how our rivals skate, we don’t compete with anyone, but competition is competition.
And its essence is determined by a comparison of estimates, and not by a single, even a very solid amount.
Therefore, we naturally would like to ride in such a way as to get more.
- Dima, you very sincerely said at a press conference that tough competition is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it pushes the athlete forward, and on the other hand, it greatly emasculates and devastates.
Kozlovsky:
Yes, it is.
— Yes, but few people like to remember it. Much more often it sounds that competition is good.
Kozlovsky:
You can use slogans as much as you like, but there is always another side to almost everything.
Nothing is unambiguous.
Of course, competition is good.
Without it, humanity would have remained at the level of primitive existence: we would never have come to iPhones and high-speed Internet.
But still, any collisions, whether in sports or elsewhere, entail the depletion of the resource.
- Was this at least partly the reason that you spent quite a lot of time this season not in St. Petersburg, in the group of Tamara Moskvina, but in Novogorsk near Moscow?
Kozlovsky:
That was not the main reason, let's put it this way.
Sasha and I needed to feel ourselves, our strengths.
Do some kind of reboot, like a computer: change the environment, do something new, something else.
And in this renewed state, once again feel the rhythm of our pair, our skating.
Boikova:
I would call it the rhythm of preparation.
Arriving in Novogorsk, we found exactly the place that helped us to understand ourselves and where there were people who were ready to help us.
- How big is the psychological difference - to train at home in St. Petersburg, or apart from everything familiar - in Novogorsk?
Kozlovsky:
In St. Petersburg, of course, it will be more pleasant.
“I was hoping to hear the exact opposite from you. For example, that isolation from the world helps to concentrate on the main thing.
Kozlovsky:
At first yes, but then no.
The format of the week is a great thing.
But transferring Novogorsk for more than two weeks becomes very, very difficult.
It seems that everything is comfortable, you don’t think about anything, you eat well, you live in excellent conditions, for training there is everything you can only dream of, friendly and very helpful staff…
- ... but at the same time you count the days until demobilization?
Kozlovsky:
Approximately so.
Like in the movie Groundhog Day.
Walking in the same circle: woke up, got dressed, had breakfast, worked out, slept, woke up again ... Every day is the same, I want to be distracted, but there is absolutely nothing to be distracted.
At home in St. Petersburg, no matter how tired we are, we still lead a social lifestyle.
Boikova:
And in Novogorsk, except that in the evening you can wind a couple of circles around the base to take a walk and breathe.
Kozlovsky:
So a little bit of good stuff!