Alena Kostornaia

[DizzyFrenchie]

Vivaldi (August 30 2023)

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www.youtube.com

Thank you! I take the liberty of embedding it:


Alyona Kostornaya seems to be back to her most glorious skating, if not more! I hope Georgy Kunitsa can follow!
Of course they have to adjust more but this is a beautiful, difficult competitive program skated under dim lights and I believe that it's really great!

 

[icewhite]

Thank you! I take the liberty of embedding it:


Alyona Kostornaya seems to be back to her most glorious skating, if not more! I hope Georgy Kunitsa can follow!
Of course they have to adjust more but this is a beautiful, difficult competitive program skated under dim lights and I believe that it's really great!

I was positively surprised by him. Of course she's still the much better skater, but before this video I was wondering what they will do when she "outgrows" him after having taken the first steps in pairs with him, now I think they might have a real future as a pair (on ice).

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I was positively surprised by him. Of course she's still the much better skater, but before this video I was wondering what they will do when she "outgrows" him after having taken the first steps in pairs with him, now I think they might have a real future as a pair (on ice).

It's a bit the opposite with me: as he's really very good for a Man, and particularly a Pairs Man, I thought they were rather on par when her skills were still in their subdued phase; but now, she's better than ever, so I think that if he can progress again, and if they can find a way of skating with different levels of grace and precision and still look harmonious, which a few Pairs have achieved I believe? I'm just speaking of the skating, and I know nothing to Pairs and even less to Ice Dance. Maybe you're also speaking of the elements? They looked really well mastered! And I was speaking on a ideal of beauty point of view, rather than comparatively.
I'm really moved to tears, to see her skate so wonderfully!

 

[Alex Fedorov]

new interview for RT:

«От усталости мы с Гошей иногда переругиваемся»: Косторная о работе с Куницей, проблемах с тодесом и об отношении к шоу

Выступления в ледовых шоу не приносят столько же адреналина, как борьба на соревнованиях. Об этом в интервью RT заявила экс-чемпионка Европы в одиночном разряде Алёна Косторная, ныне выступающая в парном катании с Георгием Куницей. По словам фигуристки, ей нравится жизнь спортсмена, который...

russian.rt.com

— A year ago, when you teamed up with Georgy Kunitsa, you went from the state of a single skater who can do everything on the ice to the state of a figure skater who can do almost nothing in pair skating. Was it psychologically difficult to cope with this?

— After I had a problem with my leg, even in single skating I dropped to a state in which I couldn’t really show anything. Not because I don’t know how, but because my injury simply didn’t allow it. Therefore, “I can’t” there and “I can’t” here were approximately equal. It’s just that in pair skating I had some chances to somehow pull myself out of this state of helplessness. In singles, even after healing my leg, I would hardly have been able to collect competitive content for the free program, and not such that I could get twenties or thirties place with it.

— How big is the difference between single and pair in terms of muscle work?

- Very large. At first, from the supports and from the unusual grips, my arms hurt very much, especially near the elbows. They still actually hurt, but much less. But when we just started learning paired elements with Gosha and, accordingly, the same lifts had to be repeated many times, it was very painful. I had to constantly endure. The advantage of pair skating is that now in our programs there are places where I can really relax. That is, you go, you go, you die, then - once, you take a breath, and it seems you can live. In the same supports that require a mostly static position, I actually do almost nothing. The most difficult thing for me is the “candle”, which is in our short program. This is where you have to keep your balance and constantly monitor: how to bend, straighten, do all this so as not to upset the balance.

— How difficult is it for you now to do full skating programs in training?

- Differently. There are days when I understand that there will be no skates, I feel so insecure. And it happens that you don’t seem to plan to skate the entire free program, but your health allows it. It’s on days like these that skates can happen spontaneously: “Let’s go?” - “Oh, let’s go!” I must say that the coaches really listen to our feelings. From time to time Sergei Sergeevich (Roslyakov - RT) even says that we skate too much.

-You don’t often hear that from a coach

— The fact is that I was used to doing a lot of skates, even when I was a single skater. I’m used to the fact that in the morning the skate can be short, in the evening it can be free, and that another 25 times you can be forced to skate some fragments. Of course, this is not the case in pair skating. When, after some not very successful skate, I first said: “Let’s do it again,” everyone who was at the skating rink simply looked at me with very surprised eyes.

— Was the period of getting used to the new coaching staff difficult?

- No, I wouldn’t say so. Firstly, it is very easy to find a common language with Sergei Sergeevich: he is a completely non-conflict person by nature. Besides, we have known each other for a long time. We met thanks to Dasha (Pavlyuchenko. - RT ), and then, even when I was skating among juniors, it often happened that we coincided with Roslyakov’s group at training camps and competitions. Therefore, over time, I began to perceive Sergei Sergeevich as a close person. He even once specially came to our group’s gathering in Novogorsk and helped to lift us up on a lounge.

— And if you ask the coach whether it is difficult or easy for him to work with you now, what do you think he will answer?

- 50/50, probably. I won’t say that it’s particularly difficult to work with me, but I don’t think it’s easy.

— How many times have you wanted to give up everything since you started working together with Gosha in pair skating?

- This happened once for sure. We then started working at the training camp, there was a colossal workload that I had never had before, and nothing worked at all.

— And this comes from a person who withstood the loads of Khrustalny for many years?

— The problem was that the new loads turned out to be fundamentally different. Not 25 billion jumps and skates, but work for which I was completely unaccustomed. Before each warm-up on the ice we did general physical training, and after the ice there was also general physical training. Accordingly, we worked in the hall four times a day. Plus practicing the hands, going through the program... In the last five years in single skating, I don’t remember at all that we did any interval work in the gym, for example.

— What about the period when you skated with Plushenko?

— Evgeniy Viktorovich’s general physical training is really at a very high level, but it so happened that I didn’t get into the most difficult training sessions. Either the schedule didn’t allow it, or I started screaming that I had to skate a program in the evening and I wouldn’t go to the gym. Deep down I understood perfectly well: it’s better to skate the free program three times in a row than to go to general physical training and then have to spend a week recovering my muscles.

Actually, the workload in the gym is still the hardest for me. At that training camp that I started talking about, Elena Anatolyevna Tchaikovskaya was there. She once came to our training, and after the gym I couldn’t do any jumping at all. Everything seems to be there, my partner is great, but I do pops over and over again. I don’t even know what Tchaikovskaya thought of me then.

— Did that frighten you a lot?

- I was just shocked, to be honest. It’s not that I wanted to immediately give up everything and leave, but rather, I just didn’t understand what to do with all this. Of course, I knew that the form starts to go away when you don’t train constantly, but for everything to start falling apart like that...

- And when did everything fall into place?

— After that training session, Gosha and I went to Elena Vyacheslavovna Zhgun, she helped us put the jumps back together, and, in principle, now everything is working out very well.

— Your career as a singles skater took place in a group where the Olympic gold medal was always the priority in terms of motivation. Having paired up with Kunitsa, you almost immediately began performing in the show. Have you ever wondered why exhausting, grueling training is needed if you can earn money in a simpler and more enjoyable way?

— The show is, of course, fun and cool for a while, but then... I don’t know. Probably the whole point is that I have certain goals and they are related to professional sports. I want to skate and enjoy it at competitions, and not as part of a show, even a very cool one. I understand that you can perform complex elements at gala if you want, but it doesn’t bring me the adrenaline that competitive competition does. It was this season that made me realize how much I love all this. Training sessions where nothing works out and suddenly starts to work out. The life of an athlete who works for high results is different. And in terms of impact, and in emotions - in everything. And I like such life.

- But we all also need a holiday.

- Certainly. When this or that series of the show begins, the first performances also give a very powerful adrenaline. But when there are 20 such performances in a row, emotions quickly fade away. We skated and skated. Only one thing remains in your head: no matter how tired you are, you still need to skate as well as possible, so that later you won’t be ashamed to look at yourself.

— Denis Khodykin, with whom you are currently training in the same group and who, like you yourself, is involved in coaching in parallel with training, admitted that sometimes he begins to think: how much money could you earn if you don’t spend several hours a day on your own classes?

— You know, before the summer vacation, when Gosha and I were no longer skating, but had not yet had time to fly anywhere, I also did individual training for children. I had six hours of ice starting at eight in the morning, and I made very, very decent money from it. I realized very quickly that a week of such work allows me to financially secure a very good vacation in all respects, and perhaps more than one. Then, when we returned and started the season, I continued to coach the children in the evenings and somehow thought: if I add the two hours that I work with the children to the time I spend training, how much money can I earn?

But later, when I thought about this idea more deeply, I came to the conclusion that no amount of money would give me what I want. The title of European champion does not last forever, the winner is remembered for the first two or three years, and then other names appear. Moreover, now everything is changing rapidly. Ask little girls who their idol is, most likely they will name Sasha Trusova, Anya Shcherbakova, Kamila Valieva. It’s unlikely that anyone will remember Adeline Sotnikova or Yulia Lipnitskaya, but they were the pioneers of the women’s skating that we see now.

- I agree. By the way, did you see how Lipnitskaya skated at the recent Evgeni Plushenko show?

- Yes. I watched and was surprised: so many years have passed, but she is still so stretched. She also lost a lot of weight, like a little girl. I myself was just trained with Plushenko at the time Yulia came to the academy as the second coach. I remember watching her work with children and thinking: how much Yulia has changed since she performed herself. But when I saw her on the ice, it began to seem to me that this was exactly the 16-year-old girl we remembered in Sochi.

— Did the age difference and Lipnitskaya’s current coaching status create communication problems for you?

- Sometimes this causes mixed feelings: I cease to understand how I should communicate with a person - as an equal or as an elder. I had a similar story with Dima Mikhailov: we seem to hang out periodically in the same companies, but in fact he is a coach - and I address him as my elder.

— With what feelings are you looking forward to the competition now? At least a little scary?

- I live only on the tasks “for now” that I have to complete. We'll live until the first starts - we'll see.

— And if you and Georgy weren’t allowed to attend the open skates, would you be very upset?

- It would be a shame, of course. Still, we managed to do a lot of things and I want to show it all. On the other hand, our life would not end at open skates. There are stages of the Russian Grand Prix where we will definitely ride. The main thing is not what kind of competitions there will be, but that these competitions will take place.

— How ready do you feel for the season?

— More than 50%, and that’s already very good. I can’t say that all athletes approach the skates completely prepared. 75% is an incredible result. It’s difficult for me personally to get in shape by the beginning of the season and keep it until spring, and it’s probably not necessary. It is clear that everything can be calculated correctly, the load can be reduced in some places, and increased in others. In this regard, Sergei Sergeevich is a very competent coach. I hope he will decide everything for Gosha and me and all we have to do is carry it out.

— It is believed that in pair skating, as in dancing, the coach has more influence when one of the partners is on his side. If the skaters form a strong connection with each other, managing such a duet becomes much more difficult. You and Gosha are family and, by default, you should be together. Has it ever happened that one of you ends up on the coach's side?

- Of course, this happens. It’s just that in my understanding, being on the coach’s side does not mean being against your partner. Or be against each other in some other combination. There is simply no reason for this, since the result depends on everyone who is in this triangle. In addition, all parties are equally interested in success. Well, yes, it happens that from fatigue Gosha and I sometimes start quarreling. But this is such a working moment that it’s not even worth focusing on it.

—Which of the paired elements infuriates you?

- There are none, I like them all. I like lifts, I like doing throws - when I don’t fall from them, of course. Todes is more difficult, especially if it is “back-in.”

— What is the problem with this element?

— The skate flies off the edge. It’s still hard for me to find the right body position in the todes so that it happens automatically. It's like shooting at one point. You need to control a lot of things at the same time: where to sit correctly, when to start “growing”, in which direction to start “growing”, how to press your skate on the ice... At the end of the program there is no time for this at all, but if you get into the todes somehow, you'll end it on your butt. This doesn't always happen, but it happens.

— In early September, you performed two performances on Plushenko’s show. Are you planning to continue?

— Actually, no, because until the end of December we will be entirely focused on training and competitions. But after the Russian Championship there are such plans.

— Are we talking about New Year's shows?

- You can say so. According to our preliminary agreements, it will be “Cinderella,” where I will play the fairy godmother, and then Little Red Riding Hood in the same performance.

— Do you and your husband have any dreams related to money?

- Before the wedding, there was only one thing - to save up for my own apartment. But not so long ago our parents told us: “Don’t worry, you won’t stay at the station. Save up to decorate your apartment.”

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Thank you so much Axel Fedorov for the translation! These are such good news! Except the pain in the arms of course. I hope it will pass.
What are todes?
And I'm so happy to know that she's starting coaching! I wonder if it's some sort of work placement in her degree?
And always so hardworking and proactive.

 

[Alex Fedorov]

Thank you so much Axel Fedorov for the translation! These are such good news! Except the pain in the arms of course. I hope it will pass.
What are todes?
And I'm so happy to know that she's starting coaching! I wonder if it's some sort of work placement in her degree?
And always so hardworking and proactive.

Todes is a death spiral. Element of pair skating.

Aliona trains children simply for extra income. Here you need to keep in mind that these are not ordinary training sessions, but so-called “podkatki” - additional individual lessons, most often for practicing specific skills. Not only a professional coach, but also any qualified skater who masters the skill that the child must learn can perform “podkatki”. This is, for example, practicing a smooth slide, or a specific jump, or one of spin.

 

[Azikin]

until the end of December we will be entirely focused on training and competitions

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Todes is a death spiral. Element of pair skating.

Aliona trains children simply for extra income. Here you need to keep in mind that these are not ordinary training sessions, but so-called “podkatki” - additional individual lessons, most often for practicing specific skills. Not only a professional coach, but also any qualified skater who masters the skill that the child must learn can perform “podkatki”. This is, for example, practicing a smooth slide, or a specific jump, or one of spin.

Oh thank you! I thought that in older days, Death Spirals had been something feared, but less so nowadays. I see that they are still something difficult! I hope that they will master all those they need, and that Alyona Kostornaya won't fall.

 

[Mathematician]

Except the pain in the arms of course.

It will probably always be there. Its very normal. Its tendon pain from holding static angles with the arms and hands. It doesnt mean shes injured, its just her tendons in recovery. Its the same as muscle soreness after a standard work out.

 

[icewhite]

Is there a pairs thread for her and Kunitsa?

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

Is there a pairs thread for her and Kunitsa?

Wouldn't it automatically suppress her Singles thread?

 

[icewhite]

Wouldn't it automatically suppress her Singles thread?

I don't know but since she's in pairs now would it not be adequate? I think things like photoshoots of only her should still be placed here, but if it's about a program they did together, it's a bit unfair to only attribute it to her?

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I don't know but since she's in pairs now would it not be adequate? I think things like photoshoots of only her should still be placed here, but if it's about a program they did together, it's a bit unfair to only attribute it to her?

I too would like this arrangement, if it's possible. She also has some Single skates in shows.

 

[elbkup]

To my (untrained) eye she is stunning in pairs and has the perfect partner.. I wish them every success. Yes would love a thread devoted to them in pairs.

 

[pyri4]

whether singles or pairs she's always breathtaking!

 

[Azikin]

To my (untrained) eye she is stunning in pairs and has the perfect partner..

I think so too.. and they have advantage in jumping content.. let's see what kind of success this season's competitions will bring...

 

[lariko]

Does anyone know if Kostornaya still trains 3A and if sbs 3A is in the cards? Sorry, there is no pair thread for Ko/Ku

 

[macy]

i highly doubt it. with how injury prone she is, imo this is the last thing she needs to be doing.

 

[icewhite]

I doubt it, too, would she be doing pairs if she still had real hopes of landing 3As?

 

[DizzyFrenchie]

I'd say, now yes. But from her interviews, I understand that she left Singles because Pairs elements would hurt much less, and she did find 3A scary and was twice injured while trying to recover it.