“I don’t know what moved the Moon”: Aliyev on intentional damage to ice, quadruple lutz, unique blades and final “chips”

- You said that it was extremely difficult to combine two tournaments into one whole - so as to perform without disruption both at the First Channel Cup and at the St. Petersburg Championship.

What got in the way?

- Partly the reason is that the Channel One Cup was not held at a time that was too familiar to me.

- Didn't have time to recover after the protracted New Year holidays?

- Not in this case.

After a very important national championship for us, the coach (Evgeny Rukavitsyn.

) gave me more time to rest and recover.

But just during this period, I performed quite a lot in various New Year's shows.

In particular, Evgeni Plushenko.

- In the role of which hero did you go on the ice?

— In different.

He was such an interchangeable character.

On the one hand, I really liked it all: performances in the show give the current athlete a lot of useful things.

At the same time, I realized that continuous performances in front of the audience take a very large amount of energy.

We sometimes skated two shows during the day, and it's physically hard.

Therefore, it was important to pass this period correctly.

Find the right balance between load and recovery.

Perhaps, after such a busy schedule, I should have taken a slightly longer pause, and then I would have been able to approach the First Channel Cup more freshly.

On the other hand, in Moscow, I did not succeed only in the short program.

- Transferred responsibility?

- I think yes.

I didn't perform at the previous CPC in Saransk, I managed to forget this feeling of team struggle a little bit and tried very hard not to let the guys down.

Well, after I made a mistake, this burden fell off my shoulders.

And in the free program it turned out to score the best points from all participants.

- Before your first stage of the Russian Grand Prix in Kazan, you said that due to a leg injury, you were not sure until the very end that you would go on the ice.

Is the problem fixed now?

I remember that stage well.

There were about five minutes left before the start of the free program, and I still could not make any decision.

The coach then told me: if we go out, then we are already fighting to the end.

In general, I decided to go out and come what may.

All of a sudden it was the best performance of the season.

What happened to the leg?

- At the very beginning of autumn, even before the test skates, I trained at this very arena at the Figure Skating Academy.

He jumped a quadruple lutz and unsuccessfully put his foot at the moment of repulsion.

Since then, the foot has been bothering me.

Exactly the same injury happened to me in 2018 - and also on the Lutz.

That is, it is already a chronic case.

But I must say that now we have everything under control in this regard.

Immediately after the championship in St. Petersburg, the doctors who deal with me invited me to come, so to speak, for maintenance and patch up the wounds.

Why didn't you get treated sooner?

They could, after all, probably miss the first starts.

- If I had a problem with my leg in the previous season, I might have done so, at least in order to better approach the main start.

This year the Russian Championship is, of course, also very important, but it did not have the super-task that was set a year ago.

Namely, to qualify for the Olympic Games.

That's why I decided not to miss tournaments.

Now I have enough motivation and strength to overcome physical discomfort.

- In other words, you don’t feel as sorry for yourself as before?

- You know, yes.

No pity.

There was some other interest in figure skating.

After the Cup of the First Channel in our group, the question was raised - should I play in St. Petersburg at the city championship, or not.

I definitely decided for myself that I would ride.

And not at all because the city or the club needs it.

Why?

Probably because I saw how many fans I have, “my own” spectators, support.

I am very pleased to go out on the ice for them and, in a certain sense, challenge myself: I can cope with this or that task, or not.

- At the same time, you remained third in the men's tournament.

Is this cause for frustration?

— No, absolutely.

I am very pleased with the first half of the free program, with the fact that I did three quadruples well.

In general, this program let me down a little during the season.

In St. Petersburg, I won’t say that I let it down, but the second half must, of course, be skated cleanly.

There, due to cascades, big points are gained, which in this case I lost.

I thought you changed the order of the elements a little.

- Yes.

We had to redraw the content a bit, because the triple axel is not going as well for me now as we would like.

Because of this, in the second part of the program, I do a triple lutz instead.

I really hope that by the finals of the Russian Grand Prix we will correct the situation, and Axel will again become my friend and colleague.

Do you understand the reason for the failure?

– Somewhere I don’t trust myself a little in this jump.

Perhaps the reason is that I have been skating on the current blades for a whole season, I am used to sharpening them often.

When a certain layer of metal has already been ground off, the curvature of the arc may change.

To some extent, this can affect how you enter the jump.

In general, I’ll say this: of course, a seasoned skater should not fall below a certain level in his performances.

In St. Petersburg, I did not sink, although I did not get a lot of things.

I would like to eliminate these disadvantages.

I know for sure that I am able to skate both of my programs cleanly and get high scores for it.

Clean skating is always well appreciated.

— Even if you are Jason Brown and do not have complex content at all?

- Exactly.

When you skate without mistakes over and over again for a long time, it begins to affect the minds of both the audience and the judges.

Actually, that's why I am so pleased with the fact that this season I have more than once performed three quadruple jumps in a free program.

- One of the Russian experts recently admitted that it takes great effort to periodically "lower" his wards, whom the fans convinced of their irresistibility and genius.

Have you ever lost your head on this ground?

- I'm definitely not going into euphoria.

Although I must admit that I have never felt such strong support from the fans before.

It manifests itself not only in the fact that people follow me to competitions.

There was, for example, a case when our choreographer Olga Germanovna (Glinka.

) brought a balloon to training, which one of the fans gave her for me - just to please.

These things can really lift your spirits.

With some people who worry about me at competitions, I communicate personally.

And in fact, I am very grateful to all of them.

There was a time in my life when I was all alone.

He constantly closed himself from everyone, tried to go into the shadows in any situation.

- Are you talking about those times when you just arrived in St. Petersburg?

- Yes.

Lived with my grandmother.

But at home we hardly talked, because from training I came too tired.

If my grandmother reads this interview now, I would like her to hear: I am very sorry that at that time I did not pay at least a little more attention to her.

She, too, was, in fact, constantly alone.

She did everything just for me: she took care, cooked food, helped in every possible way.

And I, it turns out, did not appreciate it too much.

• Dmitry Aliev in the ice show "Snegurochka"

• RIA News

• © Alexander Wilf

— You mentioned the problem with the blades.

Will inventory become more difficult due to sanctions?

- I think yes.

For example, blades like mine have been ridden in recent years by Nathan Chen.

This is the standard Revolution model, but the prongs are custom made.

They are more massive and are provided just for toothed jumps.

It has become more difficult to get such blades now, so it is possible that I will have to get used to the standard ones again.

- What was the reason for switching to other blades?

- I was jumping my favorite quadruple lutz, but at some point I began to feel that the prong of the skate began to slip as it were during repulsion - perhaps just because the metal was worn too much.

The jump because of this began to crumble.

We discussed the problem with Evgeny Vladimirovich, and he said that he would contact the company and discuss the problem with the developers.

Accordingly, they proposed to keep the same blades, the same curvature of the arc, but to strengthen the teeth.

But, I must say, it is not so easy to ride such blades: if the ice is bad, the teeth sometimes get stuck in it.

- If you watched the European Championship, you may have noticed how the Belgian Luna Hendrix rides after the skate to the side and hits the ice quite hard with her teeth several times.

Is this normal behavior for a skater or some bad manners?

- I would say that in training, when something does not work out, this is normal.

Believe the man who bled his hands several times with blows on the side.

I don't know, by the way, what moved the moon.

Was it some kind of deliberate “hooking” towards Nastya Gubanova, who skated after her, or just a manifestation of frustration after her own performance, the inability to cope with emotions.

- How would you behave in this situation?

- If one of the skaters did this, being on the ice with me, I would stand right in front of the person and look at him like this ... I can look in such cases.

And I can mess around.

- At one time, Liza Tuktamysheva said that she very rarely sharpens her skates.

You say you sharpen your blades often.

For what purpose?

For me, this is a technically necessary thing.

If the blade hits some hard object, burrs form on it, which, in turn, affect the ability of the skate to hold a certain arc.

When entering a quadruple jump, the pressure on the blade is completely different, not the same as on triples.

You need to be sure that you will not fly off the edge.

Although, of course, this is a purely individual thing.

The same Mark Kondratyuk may not sharpen his skates for a year, and this is normal for him.

I sharpen on average once a month.

- Which of the starts is more important for you - the past national championship or the upcoming final of the Russian Grand Prix?

Both are equally important.

I'm even glad that now there is a kind of pause, which allows me to have time to recover, pass the "technical examination", get in shape again and, perhaps, even bring some new features to the program.

- In terms of?

- Somewhere to smile, somewhere to wink at the judge, somewhere to jump once again.

There is always something to decorate the program, to make it as catchy as possible.

Initially, by the way, when we only staged the free program, there were a lot of so-called slides in it, beautiful slides in different positions.

Now it’s not very convenient for me to do this because of the foot: in some positions, the leg starts to hurt.

- I would say that all these chips are not so significant in terms of evaluation that it would be impossible to refuse them.

— Yes, but there is a nuance.

When the judges see that a person at the very end of the program makes some unusual and difficult movement in terms of the same balance, they subconsciously note for themselves that the skater is in complete control of the situation and does not even seem to be tired.

At one time I was struck by the same Nathan, Yuzuru Hanyu.

Or how now at the European Championships, Adam Xiao Him Fa gave out such a track at the end of the short program that you will just swing!

When you realize that the end of the program is not going to drain, but to rise, it always produces a very cool effect.

— Are you planning anything in terms of strengthening technical content?

Well, besides getting the quad lutz back in the program?

- Lutz just won't be - because of the foot.

As soon as the foot stops hurting, I will definitely restore this jump.

Until I even train it.

Accordingly, salchow and two sheepskin coats will remain in the free program.

This is the set with which you can take the places that I want.