2004 Tarasova interview with Vaitsehovskaja | Golden Skate

2004 Tarasova interview with Vaitsehovskaja

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Here is translation of a Tarasova inerview. I am not familiar with some of the technical terms, so if anybody wants to correct me, please feel free. It was probably taken some time around Cup of Russia. Some interesting comments on CoP, specifically as it relates to dance.

Figure skating - Coaches
Tatiana TARASOVA: "It doesn't make sense to use me as a foreman"

The rumors go that Elena Vodorezova, director of a once famous army school, used to be scared by the thought of Tarasova's arrival - that she would arrive, and make everyone crazy with her energy. However, asked today what it's like to share the ice with such a reknowned coach, Vodorezova just shrugs, "Great coaches, I guess, should be difficult. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been who they are".

Having arrived at CSKA Saturday night, I saw an idyllic picture: Tarasova was excitedly working on the footwork with a little girl, while her single skater Andrei Gryazev sweated over spins under Vodorezova's watchful eye.

"Tatiana Anatolievna, you managed to go to all the Grand Prix events. Probably, you've felt both the advatnages and the disadvantages of the new judging system better than anyone else. My request isn't original: I'd like to hear your comments".

"My first conclusion is simply that you have to read the rules very carefully. There is nothing difficult in understanding the new system. I, too, made mistakes at first, mainly in the ice dancing programs for Svetlana Kulikova nad Vitaly Novikov, and my Israili team of Galit Chait and Sergej Sakhnovsky. Making programs for singles turned out to be much easier."

"Does it mean that ice dancing is a more difficult sport?"

"With new requirements, free dancing ceased to be 'free' in my understanding of the word. For instance, the rules dictate holding lifts for five seconds. A required element in that form of figure skating cannot last for five seconds! A bar is four seconds. Sometimes two. But not five! When exiting the lift happens mid-bar, it interferes with the athletes' relationship with the music. Right now everyone who works with ice dancing see that the composition has ceased to matter. Even the judges agree that during the competition they have trouble distinguishing the music. They don't have time to hear it. I, however, will never agree that an ice dance is just a collection of elements.

In ice dancing programs there is now a lot of repetitions of the same elements. Someone from the technical committee probably thought that lady's split is the most beautiful and difficult thing in dance. Flexibility, I agree, is a good thing. Yet that does not define the true class of the dancer! Those splits are now the rage, they are done in all positions, with legs going every way. When that happens with elite pairs, it's tolerable. But watching mid-level skaters has become awful.

Or, take footwork. Some of them last 55 seconds. To get to the third or fourth level of difficulty, so much has to be added on that the gliding speed is lost. In my humble opinion, if there is no speed on the spiral (probably wrong translation; someone can correct me - original is "если нет скорости внутри дуги"), there can be no high mark.

There are many more examples. Do you remember Artur Dmitriev's unique signature spin, when the lady is in a split upside down? Now, it doesn't fit into any difficulty category. That, just because the new rules dictate that during the spin the lady has to be on the ice with a bent knee (??? orignal: в приседе). Somehow, I think that the next season will bring many changes in the rules. At least that's what I'm hoping."

"Do you see any advantages in the new system?"

"Certainly in single skating. Skaters started spinning better. The overall skating became better, since everyone is after a higher vase mark. I've seen more interesting enterances into the jumps. However, there is a flip side. Spinning has become much longer. Short program has grown by 10 seconds; while the free, which has to have four spins, has stayed the same length. There is not time for beautiful spirals (???дуги); everything is like running, from jump to spin, from spin to jump. It's possible that this, too, will merit an improvement in the rules next year. Though I see no problem in making changes right now, as the season has essentially just started. After all, they have made some changes in dancing: we received that last corrections to the rules during Skate Canada, and Igor Shpilband was reading it to us outloud right during the competition."

"What were the changes?"

"That in doing twizzles, the preferred position is with raised hands. Why the change couldn't have been made six months sooner is a mystery.

I am not against innovation. I'm just against thoughtless innovation.

Take one example. A program with a quad jump is very special. It's immeasurable more difficult than one where the athlete only does triple jumps. Yet in the new rules the difference is negligible."

"The fans are now in two capms. Some like the system that allows to analyze components without seeing the competition, whereas others are nostalgic over the 6.0's. What do you think?"

"That the new system makes it easier for judges to cheat. I know it for a fact. I see it. Evey coach knows this. Before, when the judge showed his mark, he was held to account in it. In plain view, one won't give a pittance for something that's very expensive - conciounse won't allow it. In the dark, though, it's different. Personally, I don't believe that annonimity make the judges more honest. I won't ever believe it. If Ottavio Chinquanta believes it, I can only envy it".

"Envy what"?

"Envy the naivite that allows him to ignore what really goes on."

"However, the coaches now constantly discuss and analyze the marks. At the Cup of China, for instance, Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov lost to Albena Denkova and Maxim Staviyski. In Paris, they had a comfortable lead over the Bulgarians, while having a lower technical score that the French who came third. Is is an un-important confusion, or a serious sign?"

"It's a sign. I really like the free dance of Navka and Kostomarov, but it, like any other program, has to perfected. The way the perfected their Original Dance, which garnered very high marks in Paris. That's how I'd like to see them - head and shoulders above everyone else".

"How fair are the talks about the mistakes that the technical controller can make?"

"I'd like to believe that the controllers are professionals, who respect their reputations and are impervious to outside pressures. If I'd think otherwise, I'd have to quit."

"Well, I recall there some confustion at Cup of China, when Victoria Volchkova's triple flip was entered as a double, while Shizuka Arakawa, who works with you, didn't get credit for ther triple-triple combination."

"Before going to the judges, I looked at the video several times. Officially, coaches don't have the right to do this, by the Japanese TV was willing to accomodate me. Those marks were fair. Both Volchkova and Arakawa underrotated their jumps by quater turn. The new rules give judges the disgression to consider this an error."

"Does this mean that had this judging system been introduced earlier, Sarah Hughes would have never become the Olympic champion?"

"All athletes who have won the Olympic games are great athletes. I don't think it's fair to discuss their performances with the new system in mind."

"This year you've worked with a record number of foreign skaters. Joubert, Weir, Arakawa, Takahashi, Chait-Sakhnovsky... Do you not know you to say 'no', or do you not want to?"

"I don't invite anyone. However, when they ask to come, I see no reason to decline. Why? In music and in ballet there has always been a concept of master class. In addition, I have two extraordinary assitants - Lesha Yagudin and Zhenya Platov. We did what I'm used to doing with my athletes that time of year. Everyone was happy, even though they had to work early in the moring, late in the evening, and even at night. I still consider this time one of the happiest in my coaching career".

"Any jealousy among athletes?"

"None. Everyone has to learn. If a person selects who he wants to learn from, it shouldn't matter who is by his side. I don't think that the great Messerer worked with Maja Plisetskaja separately from his other students. She went to his class, and did the assignmenents along with eveyone lese. Personally, I was happy to be able to give something unique to each athlete, to open up this or that talent even further".

"At the Olympic games, it's customary to expect gold medals from you. Do you not feel any discomfort as in Turin it will your foreign students rather than the Russian ones who'll be able to medal?"

"It's not my fault. In Russia, training with me is still out of fashion. In America, I don't offer myself to anyone. I just work with those who want it".

"Deep down, do you divide your studends into yours, Russian, and the outsiders?"

"When your work, trust me, you don't even think like that. I love them all. I enjoy it when they learn Russian, when they are touched by the Russian culture. I don't tend to over-estimate my own role in their lives, but when Johnny, having just skated in Paris, screams into the cameras in Russian, "I love you, Tatiana!", does it not have to mean something? Now that I've gotten to know him better, I see Brian with totally new eyes. He is an absolutely wonderful person. Strong, solid, talanted, and hard working. He'll surely reach his full potential in the spor. Perhaps it will take him a bit longer, since France doesn't have the conditions, traditions, and coaches that you find in Russia or America."

"How do the foreign skaters' coaches feel when their students come to Simsburry?"

"Weir's coach Priscilla Hill visited with us in the summer - she wanted to see how we work. She said she'd like to come next year to work along with us. I've had a similar request from Audrey Weisinger, who has until recently worked with Michael Weiss, and now trinas Yoshi Onda. She, too, wants to spend a week or two with us. Next summer, we'll also have at our rink Shanetta Folle who trains a very promising German single Annette Dytrt."

"Have any skaters that consulted with you asked to train with you full time?"

"It's enough for me that beside my Russian athletes I work almost all the time with Arakawa. She spent the whole Summer cycle at our rink in Simsburry, and plans to spend even more time in America next season to prepare for the Olympics. By the way, she planned last week to go to Moscow and skate the whole week at CSKA. Didn't work out though".

"How is it, working in the club so associated with your father?"

"Every time I go onto the rink, the first think I see is Dad's protrait. It puts me immidiately into a certain mood. You can't work half-heartedly here. Besides, I see how others work. Take Lena Vodorezova. Whenever I arrive, she's on the ice, be it early in the morning or late at night. I'm even a bit envious of the new coaching generation that has their whole lives ahead of them. I like working along side them. But I can't bring all my athletes to CSKA. Dancers need special ice that just isn't here."

"In other words, you still cannot return to Russia full time?"

" I really wantto go back. I've receing discussed it with the Russian Figure Skating Federation president. He said he'll extend me an official offer to work at the Stadium of Young Pioneers".

"And?"

"I built that rink. I participated in the crunches, I carried the bricks. I worked there for twentry years. I've reaised a pleiade of skaters in SYP, beginning with Moiseeva and Minenkov. That's where Rodnina and Zaitsev trained to their two Olympic gold medals. I am not against returning to that rink. However, it is now a disaster. Perhaps the federation is hoping that my presend will speed up some construction problems. However, I am not sure I have enough energy to go through the red tape to get a new roof or something. If I still have some life in me, I'd like to spend it on real people, on finding and developing new talent. Not on being a foreman. Using me in that capacity, in my opinion, just doesn't make sense."

Elena Vaitsehovskaja, 2004
 

Spirit

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Thanks for this, Ptichka.

So someone said no to a request from Valentin Piseev? ;) Good for her.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Thanks Ptichka - Tarrasova is always a hoot and I love her interviews and usually they give interesting comments and information.

Interesting are her comments about Dance and how "unfree" the Free Dance has become. Holding those split legs crotch lifts for 55 seconds are for me distasteful and should be banned. Let the FREE DANCE BE FREE!!! :clap:

I also liked her downplay on flexibility. It's good but it does not define the true class of the dancer (or the singles skater, imo).

Information on all those coaches staying with her in Simsbury. TT is HOT!!

Joe
 

treeskater

Rinkside
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Just how old is this interview??? At the beginning and the endof the article, '2004' is written. Can you provide a more specific date? When she talks about other coaches coming to Simsbury, I wondered if it was the summer of 2004 or the coming summer of 2005.

Thanks for taking the time to do this translation!
 

Ptichka

Forum translator
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
As I've stated at the very top, it was probably taken around the time of Cup of Russia.
 

Ogre Mage

On the Ice
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
I am glad to see Tarasova is in the consensus about anonymous judging ("I don't believe that anonymity make the judges more honest.") As someone who knows very little about ice dance, hearing her comments were interesting. She really has become an international institution -- though I did not realize that in Russia, training with her has become, in her words, "out of fashion." Was this because of the Mishin/Yags/Plush animosity?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
What a fine interview and translation!

"Personally, I don't believe that annonimity make the judges more honest. I won't ever believe it. If Ottavio Chinquanta believes it, I can only envy it".

"Envy what"?

"Envy the naivite that allows him to ignore what really goes on."
TT rocks, LOL.:rock:
"Does this mean that had this judging system been introduced earlier, Sarah Hughes would have never become the Olympic champion?"

"All athletes who have won the Olympic games are great athletes."
:rock:
 

Dee4707

Ice Is Slippery - Alexie Yagudin
Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Country
United-States
Ptichka, what a great interview and thanks so much for the translation. I love hearing what Tatianna has to say.

Dee
 
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