The real story behind the split between Morozov and Takahashi:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sp20080525jg.html
The real story behind the split between Morozov and Takahashi:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sp20080525jg.html
WOW!! That is quite a statment from Morozov. He sounds pretty ticked off.Originally Posted by japanice
Thanks for the link.
I wouldn't say it's the *true* version... just the truth from someone's point of view (yes it's a paraphrase from the great Jedi Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi...)
Same here.
If this is true, then Dai's agent must have a certain amount of power over him for him to stop working with Nikolai. It's still a wierd story.
It's interesting how both parties deny having any preexisting knowledge....
Very interesting article. I don't think that we will ever know the real reason behind the split.
Wow. Drama. I think we all knew somthing was going on here behind this split, considering Oda and Takahashi are good friends. I wonder if that is true about the agent being to blame for not skating well at worlds. WE often try to come up with answers to why a skater fell apart here or there... injury, coach problems, inconsistency..I never thought of blaming the agent. It will be interesting to see how Takahashi skates next season and who he hires as coach. Same goes to Mao.
From reading the interview with Morozov it sounds like both Morozov and Dai's agent gave him the ultimatum of "it's him or me".
Ant
I guess this sums up how Morozov really feels."I have not talked about this with anybody but you," he said. "I want you to put in the newspaper that I said, 'Ihara is a liar.' I want the truth to be known."
Dee
I am sorry to hear that it has ended this way, but thanks for the article link, japanice. I have in the past seen that sometimes agents have a surprising amount of influence over their skater, so perhaps it is just another example of that. I hope things go well with Nobunari Oda and Nikolay Morozov in the coming season.
Again, I will preface this by saying that I don't blame Daisuke for any of this and I am not normally inclined to defend Morozov. . . BUT this is not really about whether we choose to believe Morozov or Takahashi. It's about whether we choose to believe Morozov or Ihara (the agent).
Does anyone know anything about Ihara? if not, how do we know he isn't even more self-serving and deceptive than Morozov? It certainly wouldn't be the first time an innocent talent allowed an ambitious agent to make his decisions for him.
Also, if saving face is so valued in Japan, that makes Ihara twice as guilty, since he told the media that Morozov had taken on Oda without telling Takahashi. That's the kind of thing that can ruin an elite coach's reputation in this sport, and there was no need to give a reason to the public anyway. It would have been easy to let *everyone* save face by saying Takahashi needed to spend more time training in Japan because he's going to grad school, or Takahashi just felt that he needed a change. So this doesn't look like a Japanese-Russian culture clash, it just looks like a spat between a coach and an agent, each of whom wanted more control over this athlete and wanted to make the other look bad.
We know by now that Oda himself has talked about Morozov approaching him (on several occasions) about becoming his coach. What we don't know is when it started.
Very interesting. . . I wonder if Morozov hated Ihara so much that he figured he was going to lose Takahashi anyway? There are probably lots of layers to this story that we will never know. . . and probably very few completely innocent parties.
Sounds like a love triangle gone psycho.
I was thinking the same thing! But somehow I feel like Morozov would have preferred the psycho love triangle, given the choice.But seriously. . . The coach and agent do seem to have different priorities. Agents typically get paid as a percentage of their clients' revenue, and I imagine the ice show gigs Ihara gets for Takahashi make him a lot more money than the competitions he does. But of course the coach would want him to limit all of his activities outside of competitions and competition training, which would explain why Morozov might say Takahashi and his agent chose the money-making opportunity over him.
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