Interview with Rafael Arutyunyan

[mrrice]

I really enjoyed this interview. It may come across as "Brusque" but, I appreciate his comments. Though I understand German, a bit of Russian, and Spanish. I could never "Mince" words or have a nuanced conversation in those languages. The fact that Raf agrees to these interviews is great. His work speaks for itself and I appreciate the fact that he's chosen to live and work in the US.

 

[alexaa]

Another funny part of the interview was when he was asked if he was surprised by Nathan's SP in the Olympics. He said he wasn't, he knew it. Because Nathan kept changing the program. That was something I didn't know, if it was Nathan's decision alone to keep changing the layout or if Raf had something

Such a lovely post to read.

As to Nathan's SP layout, Raf mentioned that Nathan's family changed the SP layout in an interview with Russian media right after OG. Phil Hersch asked Nathan about it in that Yale interview, but he deleted that part not long after he first posted. Nathan replied that he himself is the only person to blame for that. He commented that without his mom managing everything for him, he would never made it to the Olympics. He further said that Raf had his best interest in his heart and his mom's best interest in his heart. That is probably why Dave mentioned mom. That Feb Raf interview, unfortunately, was what prompted all those speculation that Nathan was going to switch his coach, which seemed still haunting some other skaters fans until 2 or 3 months over the assumption/rumor that Nathan is going to TCC while in reality Raf stated in March he and Nathan had much better communications after OG, and Nathan trusted him enough to go to Worlds without his mom.

Having said above, most of Nathan fans, me included attributed the disastrous performance to Nathan mental breakdown, which started long before the SP. He didn't change the SP layout during team event, yet he still bombed terribly there, in his own words, two worst performance in his entire skating careers. He talked about his mental breakdown in two of interviews late April and early May respectively, one with IN, and one with Japanese media. It was kinda heart breaking to read about his mental state in one of articles, and IIRC, one article mentioned that Raf stated Nathan was living in a shell at that time.

And update for those who are concerned about Nathan constantly changing program layout. In the late April interview with IN, This is what happened at Worlds: “Chen said -- unlike his plan in PyeongChang -- that there would be no altering his jump plan, even if something did go wrong. It didn't.”. Apparently he learned a lesson to some degree.

 

[Ophelia]

LMAO at his opinion of Med's talent, Jeff Buttle, and Russian male skaters.

 

[cruzceleste]

LMAO at his opinion of Med's talent, Jeff Buttle, and Russian male skaters.

What did he say?

 

[Ophelia]

What did he say?

He hemmed and hawwed when asked if Med was a great talent on the level of Kim/Asada, said Buttle was "just okay", and said Russian male skaters were "not good". I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist.

 

[Ophelia]

I found this a very interesting interview, although I sometimes found it hard to understand Raf, and even listening closely I think I missed some things. That said, I came away with a surprisingly positive impression.

Some things that struck me:

In the past, he was very competitive (as a coach). He never expected to produce World medalists. Now that he has, his focus has shifted more to helping / giving back / making sport better.

The new Anaheim Ducks practice facility will have four rinks, and one will be completely dedicated to figure skating. He hopes to establish an academy there. His vision is that coaches will come with their skaters; he will give them new ideas and then have coaches first work with his (Raf’s) students; after that they will work with their own skaters (while still at the academy) to try to apply those techniques and discuss how it is working. He thinks that’s a better approach then just him working directly with the students without the coach being there.

He enjoyed having Kolyada there and it was fun to watch him and Nathan together. He thinks Kolyada may have picked up a few ideas. He thinks it will not be easy for Kolyada to return periodically - in Russia they don’t have as many private sponsors so it would probably be hard for him to afford.

He thinks ISU rule changes should be implemented more slowly so that coaches have time to make appropriate adjustments. I think he would like four years between adoption and implementation of new rules - for example, if they are going to heavily penalize a flutz, fixing that takes time.

Asked about the new crop of Russian girls who do quads, he basically thinks the ISU and doctors should step in and say that it’s dangerous for young skaters to pound their bodies like this because they aren’t fully developed and they can damage cartilage and growth plates and hips. He did not discuss Nathan’s injuries so I’m not sure how much that informed his opinion.

He thinks that becoming World champion has changed Nathan (positively) and that he may have learned a lesson at the Olympics about continually changing jumps at last minute. Raf wishes he could dictate but he can only suggest. He’s not sure how the long distance coaching relationship with Nathan will work - they’ll take it step by step, but he thinks Nathan is very professional / knows how to practice. They may use Skype sometimes. It sounded like at the moment Nathan isn’t interested in working with a coach near Yale.

He thinks Gracie is a beautiful girl and great jumper and can return if she really wants to but because she took a long time off it will take time for her to get back - it will not be quick.

He think Med made a great choice going to Orser - he thinks she moved because she saw in her prior coaching situation she would be getting less attention and support, that whether she can reach her goal (Olympics) is open to question but Brian is the perfect coach to encourage and support her.

He loves Hanyu, thinks he’s a wonderful jumper.

He thinks Mariah is making progress and can be competitive within the US; beyond that they’ll see what she can do.

He thinks Ashley lost motivation after winning her World medal. He misses Adam and Ashley a lot; they’re both busy now but he thinks they will eventually return to the rink and work with him. I got the impression he meant as coaches rather that they would be continuing as competitors. But I could be wrong.

Regarding Jason he had very brief comments- he thinks he can get quad, he has no problem with jumping or rotation, just needs correct information. I got the feeling Raf was being a bit diplomatic here and did not want to criticize Kori, but again, that’s just my impression.

That’s all I was able to retain! It’s definitely worth listening to.

Where were these? Didn't hear them in the interview.

 

[glassanimal]

He hemmed and hawwed when asked if Med was a great talent on the level of Kim/Asada.

Not quite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQLeq5JKnI#t=1h05m31s

 

[50 Words for Snow]

Not quite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgQLeq5JKnI#t=1h05m31s

Yeah, it looks more like he's searching for how to say it in English rather than deciding if she is a great talent or not.

 

[Ophelia]

Yeah, it looks more like he's searching for how to say it in English rather than deciding if she is a great talent or not.

Nah. He's pretty effusive when he thinks someone is a great talent (e.g. Marin Honda)

 

[glassanimal]

Nah. He's pretty effusive when he thinks someone is a great talent (e.g. Marin Honda)

Did you actually listen to the interview? He said a lot depends on the coaching staff and she can get to the level of Yuna, etc. where she is now (at TCC)
If you're going to quote someone's interview, there's no need to bend or twist their words in order to fit an agenda.

 

[rikaquegira]

now that I've watched again I think understood the words better. Here it goes:

Dave Lease asked: "How good do you think Medvedeva is? I mean, you compare her with someone like Mao Asada, Yuna Kim? Like, a real huge talent like that?" <-TSL always planting the seed to polemic... :dev3:

Raf: "... *looking for words* ... Ye, I think it depends on team of coaches that will work with her and I think Brian's team is a good team." Then he has some difficulty to start the sentence but he finally says: "then she will become like Carolina Kostner, you know, Yuna..."


So, I think the question was more about longevity than about whether or not she's talented. I think the question can be interpreted as "is she talented enough to stay relevant and eventually go down in history as one of the greatest?" and it seems Raf thinks Brian and his team can help her reach Carolina Kostner/Yuna Kim status.

Of course, if you think Medvedeva is already one of the greatest female skaters ever or even better than Kostner, Kim, Asada... then this conversation doesn't even make sense. But it seems both TSL and Raf agrees she's not there yet but Raf thinks she can get there in the future.

 

[randomfan]

I agree re: Ashley and Adam, they could always choreograph as well.

Yeah, I think they have the goods to be great choreographers. Also, Adam has some experience already. He and Cindy Stuart did Ashley’s Spartacus SP in the 2014-15 season. The program was a bit empty but it was still gorgeous.

 

[shine]

And update for those who are concerned about Nathan constantly changing program layout. In the late April interview with IN, Nathan stated that he learned valuable lesson from his OG experience: he would stick to the program layout. Let us see how it goes.

Bonita, could you point me to this particular IN interview if it still exists? I don't recall reading Nathan affirming this.

 

[Tavi...]

Where were these? Didn't hear them in the interview.

The first quote was near the beginning. The one about Hanyu I think towards the end. You must forgive me, but I posted that very early in the morning. If I have time to listen again I’ll edit the post with the times.

 

[alexaa]

Bonita, could you point me to this particular IN interview if it still exists? I don't recall reading Nathan affirming this.

Sigh, I didn’t save those articles. If you saved a copies of all those IN articles, you can try to see if it is near the end of that article “Chen showcases ability to overcome adversity”, dated around April 20th. If it is not in that one, it should be in one of the SOI interviews around that time. The name and link has been posted in the Ff, and two FSU threads, but unfortunately, no content has been preverserved.

I need to check anyone saved the article in the FF.

 

[lavenderblossom]

Sigh, I didn’t save those articles. If you saved a copies of all those IN articles, you can try to see if it is near the end of that article “Chen showcases ability to overcome adversity”, dated around April 20th. If it is not in that one, it should be in one of the SOI interviews around that time. The name and link has been posted in the Ff, and two FSU threads, but unfortunately, no content has been preverserved.

I need to check anyone saved the article in the FF.

Try the Wayback Machine at web.archive.org, if you search for the url of the article you might be able to find an saved version of the webpage

 

[jenaj]

Yeah, I think they have the goods to be great choreographers. Also, Adam has some experience already. He and Cindy Stuart did Ashley’s Spartacus SP in the 2014-15 season. The program was a bit empty but it was still gorgeous.

Adam also choreographed for Mirai in 2014-15.

 

[alexaa]

Try the Wayback Machine at web.archive.org, if you search for the url of the article you might be able to find an saved version of the webpage

Thanks for the information. I will take a note of this website. Fortunately, a Korean Nathan fan saved almost all IN Nathan articles.

 

[Elucidus]

What a sexist hypocrisy. Raf contadicts himself here:
at 20:05 he talks about how hard is to win Olympics for 10 y.o. girl now - since for Beijing she can't compete due to high enough age limit and for next one she is too old already
at 48:46 she talks about raising the age for senior skating due to health concerns of course (despite coaching Nathan jumping quads when he was kid too) - which will make much harder to win any given Olympics for any given junior girl

As an experienced coach he should know perfectly well that girls have much shorter competitive career age window - they peaks earlier and retires earlier as well. So, increasing age will diminish chances of participating in at least one OG at competitive age and especially in two OG - from pretty low to almost zero. The same can be said about learning quads - if you don't learn them early - you may very well don't learn them at all. So raising age can't prevent learning quads - Raf is concerned not about health here - he just don't want his pupils to compete against russian girls )

 

[cruzceleste]

What a sexist hypocrisy. Raf contadicts himself here:
at 20:05 he talks about how hard is to win Olympics for 10 y.o. girl now - since for Beijing she can't compete due to high enough age limit and for next one she is too old already
at 48:46 she talks about raising the age for senior skating due to health concerns of course (despite coaching Nathan jumping quads when he was kid too) - which will make much harder to win any given Olympics for any given junior girl

As an experienced coach he should know perfectly well that girls have much shorter competitive career age window - they peaks earlier and retires earlier as well. So, increasing age will diminish chances of participating in at least one OG at competitive age and especially in two OG - from pretty low to almost zero. The same can be said about learning quads - if you don't learn them early - you may very well don't learn them at all. So raising age can't prevent learning quads - Raf is concerned not about health here - he just don't want his pupils to compete against russian girls )

As some have posted before, Nathan and Raf no always have seen eye to eye, I would think the quad subject is amon those things. You can go back on this thread to see about this subject.