Tarasova's greatest Coaching achievement | Golden Skate

Tarasova's greatest Coaching achievement

What is Tarasova's greatest coaching achievement?

  • Bestemianova-Bukin (Gold 1988 Oly)

    Votes: 12 6.3%
  • Klimova-Ponomarenko (Gold 1992 Oly)

    Votes: 8 4.2%
  • Grishchuk & Platov (Gold 1998 Oly)

    Votes: 10 5.3%
  • Ilia Kulik (Gold 1998 Oly)

    Votes: 15 7.9%
  • Alexei Yagudin (Gold 2002 Oly)

    Votes: 107 56.3%
  • Shizuka Arakawa (Gold 2004 Worlds)

    Votes: 25 13.2%
  • Sasha Cohen (Gold 2003 GPF)

    Votes: 4 2.1%
  • Johnny Weir (Gold 2004 US Nationals)

    Votes: 7 3.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 2 1.1%

  • Total voters
    190

Vash01

Medalist
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
Tatiana Tarasova has coached many champions, including Olympic champions. Each skater presents a different challenge to a coach. Which one do you consider to be her greatest coaching achievement?
 
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astarz41

Rinkside
Joined
Aug 27, 2003
Well I voted for G/P, but I wouldn't credit Weir to TT. I mean she consulted him and did his programs, but his main coach should get the credit for the medal.
 

soogar

Record Breaker
Joined
Dec 18, 2003
Tatiana is the bomb. Imagine if she coaches Griazev to gold in 2006. Wow, will Mishin be steaming mad!!!

I'd like to see Ilia Klimkin take from Tarasova. I think she could do wonders with him.
 

BronzeisGolden

Medalist
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Not B&B! They were always so strange! Did anyone ever see that Rasputin/Tsarina Alexandra program? (I think that was them...interesting idea, but extremely bizarre and sort of scary). I would have to say I think Tatiana really did a great job with Alexei Yagudin. He was talented and charismatic enough without her, but I feel that she went above and beyond to make him stand out from all of his other competitors. She did a wonderful job with Alexei. I would also say she did a great job with K&P.
 

NURSEGAL

Rinkside
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
She knows her biz

Tatiana T. is so incredible, she is diciplined, that is why she can produce skaters with such substanance. If u listen and dont wimp out like one skater i can think of off the top of my head then she will create a champion, a truly high caliber champ.ie yagudin, ie graziev., for all those interested andre will soon be taking over the skating world, mark my words, he is to skating what tatiana is to coaching
 

Vash01

Medalist
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
BronzeisGolden said:
Not B&B! They were always so strange! Did anyone ever see that Rasputin/Tsarina Alexandra program? (I think that was them...interesting idea, but extremely bizarre and sort of scary). I would have to say I think Tatiana really did a great job with Alexei Yagudin. He was talented and charismatic enough without her, but I feel that she went above and beyond to make him stand out from all of his other competitors. She did a wonderful job with Alexei. I would also say she did a great job with K&P.

The Rasputin program was a pro routine, I believe. As pros they always went all out to create the most unusual/bizarre routines, but I don't believe Tarasova was coaching them after they turned pro (she did coach K&P for sometime after they turned pro). I was referring to their 1988 Olympic performance, when they won the gold.
 

shine

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
I voted for Arakawa. The speed of her the rise of her fame after she went to Tarasova was incredible. I can't think of another skater who experienced the same thing. She was more or less or nobody last year, and now she's the world champion and the new ice queen, without changing much of anything in her skating.
 

shine

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
soogar said:
Tatiana is the bomb. Imagine if she coaches Griazev to gold in 2006. Wow, will Mishin be steaming mad!!!

I'd like to see Ilia Klimkin take from Tarasova. I think she could do wonders with him.
Please don't be so cruel with Klimkin. He's way too talented and creative to become another boring product of the recent Tarasova coaching and her snooze inducing programs.
 

Toffee

Rinkside
Joined
Apr 25, 2004
Madame Tarasova sure has magic :love: She brought up a lot of great champions, it's very hard to choose who is her greatest achievement. Can you vote for more than one? I would pick Bestemianova/Bukin and Alexei Yagudin.
 

Vash01

Medalist
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
Although one cannot vote for more than one, we can still discuss more than one achievements.

I voted for K&P's 92 Olympic gold. K&P, after the initial results of the drug test, lost 2 weeks of practice in 91. Marina was cleared after a second drug test. However, their coach Natalia Dubova did not believe her after her initial failure of the drug test. There were personality problems with Dubova, and K&P decided to switch to Tarasova. It was the best decision they made.

Although K&P had already been 2x world champions, they had been dethroned in the key pre-Olympic year '91 by the rising French dance team the Dushenays. Suddenly D&D were the faves for the Olympic gold in Lillehamer.

Tarasova brought out the emotion in K&P's skating with their 'Air' FD. They had always been great technicians but in the pre-Tarasova year they could not compete against the emotional style of the Dushenays. In the 1992 Olympics they outperformed their rivals, with a memorable and difficult FD, and won the gold.

Vash
 

icenut84

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Vash01 said:
Although K&P had already been 2x world champions, they had been dethroned in the key pre-Olympic year '91 by the rising French dance team the Dushenays. Suddenly D&D were the faves for the Olympic gold in Lillehamer.

You mean Albertville? (Lillehammer was 94.)

I voted for Yagudin.
 

Chrystia Mee

Rinkside
Joined
Mar 31, 2004
I say Shizuka Arakawa. Even though Tatiana was only with her for a short time, there was a notciable difference in how Arakawa presented herself on the ice. She looked a million times better than she had before. And without Tatiana's influence I doubt Shizuka would be the reigning world champion.
 

PrincessLeppard

~ Evgeni's Sex Bomb ~
Final Flight
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
BronzeisGolden said:
Not B&B! They were always so strange! Did anyone ever see that Rasputin/Tsarina Alexandra program? (I think that was them...interesting idea, but extremely bizarre and sort of scary). .

I was just thinking of that program today. I hated it, but I remember the female commentator saying, "I am so honored to have seen this program," and I was thinking that I just wasted four minutes of my life.

Can someone tell me this: Has TT coached someone to a gold medal who was not already very accomplished? I don't know much about her dance background, but with Shizuka, Ilia and Alexei (and to some extent, Griazev) they came to her with jumps in hand, and a decent feel for artistry. Now, if she could take, say, Ludmilla Nelidina, and coach her to gold, THAT would be something.

I didn't vote for anyone.

Laura :)
 

Matt

On the Ice
Joined
Dec 19, 2003
PrincessLeppard said:
Now, if she could take, say, Ludmilla Nelidina, and coach her to gold, THAT would be something.
If ANYONE could do ANYTHING w/ Ludmilla Nelidina beside get her to land the triple axel, that would be something! (I'm sorry, I'm not a fan of hers)

In the end, I voted for Shizuka (though it was a toss-up between her and Yags's Olympic LP, which is still my favourite of his programmes :love: ). She [Shizuka] already came in w/ the jumps and that "Turandot" routine, but TT added some extra subtleties and gave Shizuka a big confidence boost, which probably resulted in the 3lutz-3toe-2loop in her LP, which pretty much settled the Ladies title in Dortmund right there, IMHO
 

Vash01

Medalist
Joined
Jul 31, 2003
PrincessLeppard said:
I was just thinking of that program today. I hated it, but I remember the female commentator saying, "I am so honored to have seen this program," and I was thinking that I just wasted four minutes of my life.

Can someone tell me this: Has TT coached someone to a gold medal who was not already very accomplished? I don't know much about her dance background, but with Shizuka, Ilia and Alexei (and to some extent, Griazev) they came to her with jumps in hand, and a decent feel for artistry. Now, if she could take, say, Ludmilla Nelidina, and coach her to gold, THAT would be something.

I didn't vote for anyone.

Laura :)

Even a great coach needs skaters that have talent and potential or there are no results to show. Yagudin could have won the gold without TT- JMHO- but some of the others might not have. Shizuka was not an accomplished skater, by world championship standards before she went to TT. She has never won even the bronze at worlds. In fact I don't think she had placed even in the top 5 at worlds, before 2004!

A coach is not a magician. He/she cannot CREATE something that a skater does not have. He/she can only help a skater develop what he/she has. Again, JMHO.
 

BittyBug

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Tough choices, but in the end, although K&P's Air is one of my favorite free dances (great comments on this one, Vash), I ended up voting for Yagudin. TT gave him two incredibly memorable programs - Winter and MITIM - and his performances of both were nearly flawless. And in addition to helping Yagudin develop his artistry, TT seems to have helped him pull his head together.

(And I agree with the poster that said that Weir doesn't really belong on the list. Johnny definitely credits TT with helping him last season, but he has also said that he owes everything to Priscilla Hill. She's the one who works with him every day, and she's the one who with him at every competition. So I'd say that TT's was more of a supporting role, whereas Priscilla Hill is the star.)
 

berthes ghost

Final Flight
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Who's George Washington?

I'm sorry, but how could I possibly take this poll seriously when it lists a wanna-be like Johnny Weir and leaves off one of the most accomplished champions of all time: Irina Rodnina? I don't care if you're only 10 years old, is history really that forgotten by the MTV generation? Shamefull IMHO.
 
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Antilles

Medalist
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I voted for Yagudin. He really grew with Tarasova. I lov K&P, but as two time Olympic medallists, and two time World Champions, I think they already had the goods before Tarasova. What she gave them was a happy coaching environment.
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
PrincessLeppard said:
Can someone tell me this: Has TT coached someone to a gold medal who was not already very accomplished? I don't know much about her dance background, but with Shizuka, Ilia and Alexei (and to some extent, Griazev) they came to her with jumps in hand, and a decent feel for artistry.
Absolutely. Bestemianova & Bukin (whom I voted for) were her creation, period. She recalls the famous Frau Muller (Witt's coach) calling her crazy for taking on such an "ugly duckling" as Natalia, but TT knew she could do magic with them. To me, they pushed ice dance incredibly through their expression and choreography. I would even add to the "greatest accomplishments" list her first dance couple, Moiseeva & Minenkov (though they never won Olympic gold) -- this was her first attempt to create something brand new on the ice; BTW, they were also a pair she created.

I didn't vote for Yagudin, because I think that TT's importance there was more as a councilor. Besides, as others said, he was already an accomplished skater when he came to her. BTW, I wold disagree with Princess on Yagudin's feel for artistry -- I always felt he's had none until he left Mishin.

As for Klimova & Ponomarenko... she did indeed add a very special flair to them, but what really made them unique is the exquisite technique that Dubova gave them; much as I prefer TT's style, I must admit that none of her teams ever had such clean edges and soft knees. If anything, I think her work with Gretchuk & Platov was far more fruitful, though of course they already had an Olympic gold when they came to her. Still, I think their '98 gold had TT written all over it.

berthes ghost said:
I'm sorry, but how could I possibly take this poll seriously when it lists a wanna-be like Johnny Weir and leaves off one of the most accomplished champions of all time: Irina Rodnina? I don't care if you're only 10 years old, is history really that forgotten by the MTV generation? Shamefull IMHO.
IMO, Tarasova really did not add much to Rodnina & Zaitsev's skating. Rodnina was 100% the creation of Zhuk (the coach that Katya describes in My Sergei as such a monster). If anything, when Zhuk dumped them, they chose TT because she was young, inexperienced, and they could do whatever they wanted. When I look at their programs, I cannot see anything of TT's MO there.

Though I have to admit that I find very odd the idea of Arakawa being TT's greatest achievement. Come on, she worked with the girl for a few weeks, fixed a few things here and there, and helped her give an excellent (though not uniquely so) performance.
 
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