TCHAIKOVSKAYA: THEY ALL SUCK

Elena Tchaikovskya: We may be too late for Sochi.

Translation of an interview by Sergey Dadigin (SD) a correspondent of a Russian language publication “Express Gazeta”, printed on April 1, 2008
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Elena Tchaikovskya (ET) a famous figure skating coach who brought up a number of wonderful skaters, feels that Russia is in a crisis in woman’s single skating.

SD – Elena, aren’t you a little too negative?

ET – No, not at all. If our best skater, Ksenia Doronina, takes 17th place and some people consider it a good result, I want to scream how low we've dropped. Yes, Ksenia is making her debut, but I remember that my student Julia Soldatova won the silver at European and bronze at the World Championships her first year. That was what we were supposed to reach for! Now our women do not demonstrate figure skating, but rather figure standing! It is stagnant. Many girls just know only one thing- speed up and jump! And that is all of their program!

SD – Maybe it was not worth it for Elena Sokolova to leave the sport? She could have gotten a medal at the European competitions.

ET - Maybe Elena got tired. She was competing at the highest level for the last eight years.

SD – Elena stated in one of the interviews that she was forced to leave the sport by the President of the Russian Figure Skating Federation and that she may come back next year.

ET – May come back! Absence from the ice for a year will not pass unnoticed. We will see what will come out of it. As I see it, now we need to put all of our resources in bringing up women’s single skating. I do not think that we will correct the situation before the Vancouver Olympics, but if we will be slow, we will miss out at the Sochi Olympics too.

SD – Do you have any beef with the judges?

ET – The new system of judgment is worse that the old one. Now there are two technical controllers who can do whatever they want. They can assign to an element the second level instead of the third, and the marks will automatically go down. In Geteborg, the judges sometimes discounted clean jumps, while they closed their eyes at the real deficiencies.

SD – Do you think that Maxim Shabalin was correct to compete in the European Championship with a not completely healed trauma? In the end, they won the European Championship, but did not go to the Worlds.

ET - I am not sure what recommendations the doctors gave to Maxim. In this situation the coach is the one who makes a decision. I remember that many years ago, I took Alexander Gorshkov, who had a part of his lung removed in an operation, to the World Championship in the USA. Colorado Springs, where the competition took place, was located high above sea level and the air was very thin there. It was hard to breathe with normal lungs. Some people told me that Gorshkov would die there. But I consulted with the doctors in advance, and nothing bad happened.

Shabalin had a simple meniscus operation. In principal, it is not a complex operation and doctors know how to do it well. I remember that my student Vladimir Kovalev, after a similar operation, won the gold medal for the second time at the Worlds. It is more difficult for the single skaters, who jump and have to land on the injured leg, than for the dancers to perform after a meniscus operation.

Despite her age, Ms. Tchaikovskay is in a very good sports form. Recently she demonstrated her abilities in the show “Dances on Ice”.

SD – Millions of TV viewers were delighted when during the Gala Concert you came out on the ice with another coach – Alexey Mishin. Did you practice a long time for that number?

ET – No, not at all. It was not difficult. I am conducting my coaching lessons on the skates. Of course I can not risk jumping, but I can skate for some time.

SD – Will this year the TV show “Dances on Ice” be shown again on the Russia channel?

ET – Certainly, but I will not tell you which surprises we are preparing this year.