Zhulin - Platov Speak out Against Judging, Media

[JonnyCoop]

Well, unfortunately, I can't access the article, but based on what I'm reading here from people who've been able to, I'd just like to say this:

1. First of all, what is the new trend involving winning coaches complaining about results? First I thought Oleg Vasilev was in a bit of an excessive dither about the whole Zhang/Zhang thing in pairs, given the fact that T/M won handily anyway and even if Z/Z had been disqualified (as it was implied that he thought they should have been), it wouldn't have put Petrova/Tikhinov on the podium anyway, so... ?? WTH??? Now Zhulin is in an uproar despite N/K's wins at Euros and Olys. I thought only coaches of non-medalling skaters were supposed to be doing the complaining.

2. I find it a bit ironic that Platov would find something rotten in the state of Denmark regarding the judging. I find something rotten in the state of Denmark that he & "Pasha" were so unbeleivably dominant during their reign given the amount of mistakes that they (mostly he) made, and the high level of competition that they always skated against.

 

[Zanzibar]

Well, unfortunately, I can't access the article, but based on what I'm reading here from people who've been able to, I'd just like to say this:....

Here 'ya go - link isn't working so here's the story - you can see that Zhulin was making those statements regarding judging after Euros, but not before his team's Olympic victory:

IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR FOR JERSEY PAIR

Figure skaters eye gold amid soap-opera like atmosphere

By: Kathleen Bangs - Special to the DAILY RECORD

If Olympic figure skating is really the soap opera sport it's often accused of, then it could not be better represented at center ice -- and center stage --than by Montclair, coach Alexander Zhulin.

The Olympic silver medalist ice dancer has spent a career weathering storms of professional and personal controversy. He's also thrived under the scrutiny to become one of the world's top figure skating coaches and choreographers.

This week could be no exception to Zhulin's string of successes if his two-time reigning world champion ice dance duo takes home the big prize from Torino. Anything less than gold would be considered a huge upset for the Russian native's formidable and dazzling team of Navka and Kostomarov who remain nearly undefeated for two seasons.

Hoping for that upset is the U.S. team of Belbin and Agosto, a team with friends in high places -- as high as Mount Olympus. Belbin, from Canada, would not be allowed to compete at the Olympics until a frenzied midnight-hour American citizenship application, attached to an appropriations bill, was hustled through Congress, signed by President Bush, and granted to Belbin on the final day of 2005.

Tabloid fodder

Russians Tatiana Navka, 30, and Roman Kostomarov, 29, who train at Floyd Hall on the campus of Montclair State University, are a unique team with an interesting dynamic: Navka happens to be married to coach Zhulin.

Long considered one of the top beauties in a sport that rewards good aesthetics, Navka posed unabashedly last year in nothing but a thong and sheer scarf for Russian Maxim magazine.

She also defies convention as a 30-year old mother, the only super elite competitor to hold that title.

Zhulin too is a former world ice dance champion, winning gold with a former wife in 1993. Asked if he thinks it's unusual that not one, but two of his wives have held world titles, Zhulin laughs saying, "Even my girlfriends are champions."

The candid uber coach is making a winking reference to one of figure skating's most notorious love triangles in a sport brimming with high drama.

Defy confusion and follow the Page 6 storyline: Zhulin, nicknamed Sasha, won silver at the 1994 Olympic Games with then-partner and wife Maya Usova, nicknamed Masha. Longtime Russian rival Evgeni Platov, with partner Oksana Grishuk, beat Usova and Zhulin to take the gold.

As the couples criss-crossed the globe competing year after year for top titles, Zhulin maintained an off-ice love affair with rival Grishuk -- called Pasha --while still competing with wife Masha.

Eventually both teams split, Zhulin's marriage ended, and he attempted a short-lived stint as a competitor with the 'other-woman' Pasha. The entire scandal came to be dubbed 'Sasha-Masha-Pasha'.

Usova, left with no partner or husband, teamed up with rival Platov and the two went on to a successful career as professional performers. Within a year, Zhulin left Grishuk for a teenaged ice dancer, who is today his wife, and -- he's hoping -- Monday's Olympic champion.

To bring it all full circle, Navka many years ago once partnered briefly -- only a summer on-ice 'fling' so to speak -- with Platov, during her own search for Mr. 'right on the ice.' One could suppose there exists a particularly peculiar camaraderie amongst Russia's skating glitterati and their exes, and there is -- especially when it comes to getting the job done -- the job of winning.

A Soviet Era Lone Wolf

For the first time ever, Zhulin is no longer coaching alone. Rocking the skating world with its strange bedfellow's implications, rival Evgeni Platov joined the fiery 42-year-old Zhulin this season as a full-time coaching partner - just another twist in a complicated rivalry turned professional friendship.

Platov is a gifted history-making skater who took first place in two consecutive Olympics. When he won the gold in 1994, it was Zhulin he left trailing in second place, forced to settle for silver. Losing the Olympics devastated Zhulin at the time, but he's worked out that angst by making another run for the top, this time by coaching his wife and partner Kostomarov, and this time with Platov not against him, but solidly with him.

"I work alone," said Zhulin, "and I never collaborate because I like to feel responsible for everything." At least until Platov came calling.

"When Evgeni first approached, I was hesitant. I said, "Okay, we'll give it a few weeks and see how it goes. Amazingly, we worked perfectly together. Such good work, and no arguments. He is, after all, one of the best technical skaters in the world - that's why I lost the Olympics to him."

Zhulin says he believes if the situation had been reversed, "Evgeni would have done the same for me. It's about respect, and we have that respect for each other."

Together, coaches Zhulin and Platov will play to a global audience this week when their world champion ice dance team competes for the Olympic gold most insiders already consider rightfully theirs. Navka and Kostomarov have been a virtual two-year lock for a Torino coronation, until last month when their crown was slightly tarnished at an event they won for the third consecutive year, the European Championships.

Scoring only third in the first portion -- the compulsory dances - of the three-part competition, Platov said it was a serious wake-up call. "Tatiana and Roman skated well, but not their best. This taught us that with even the slightest errors, they could be screwed because the judges were announcing they were going to be harsh with them. For Torino we realize they must display their lifetime best and come out fighting. Thankfully, we enter the Olympic Games as the reigning European champions."

Judging cloaked in secrecy

Even with the new total points judging system, many are skeptical that this method, shrouded in anonymity, will prove to be any less impervious to cheating and favoritism than the scrapped 6.0 system.

Platov pulls no punches. "At Euros in Lyon, we saw that the system is still corrupt and that there are judges who want to bring our team down in the standings. This anonymous judging is making our sport like a joke. If you could see the printed paper of the judges results after the compulsory dances, one judge gave the French team - who fell - the highest scores of any couple out there. It's beyond ridiculous, it's criminal."

Zhulin sees it slightly less personal, with a follow-the-money take on what goes on behind the scenes. "Everybody is tired of Russian dominance in figure skating, especially at the Torino Games where we could possibly sweep all four disciplines. People create lies to bring us down. Huge money is involved now with the American team having a shot at the podium, and they could make the sport very popular. What endorsements would exist if the Russians win ice dance? The Olympics are more politics than any other sporting event in the world."

Adding to Navka's and Kostomarov's recent drama has been a failed whisper campaign insinuating a doping scandal, in hopes of a sanction against the team. "It's a couple of select members of the press that really stirred this pot," said Zhulin. "It's a joke, because there was no doping problem, only people trying to create a problem to cast a shadow over my team with an aim to disqualify them."

On the final lift of the Free Dance at the European Championships, Navka cut her hand while grabbing her own skate blade to hold the position.

As she sat in the Kiss-n-Cry awaiting her scores, her face turned white as her hand went crimson. Due to the severity of the cut - which required nine stitches - papers were signed by officials essentially granting her a pass to skip the standard post-competition doping test and proceed to the hospital. Critics railed that the Russian were granted special consideration, and that Navka - short of being unconscious - should not have been allowed to skip the test.

Zhulin dismisses the episode, but hints that more nefarious efforts are at work that goes well beyond simple concerns of fairplay.

What the mega-hit TV series, 'Dancing with Celebrities' has done for ballroom dance, this Olympics could catapult ice dance into the stratosphere of the worldwide broadcast audience as the media and fans pick up on two critical aspects.

First, many sport insiders - including skating champions - have predicted a Russian sweep at this XX Olympiad making any top spot not going to a Russian an upset. Secondly, for the first time since 1976, a U.S. dance team -- Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto -- has a strong shot at hitting the podium.

U.S. calls in a ringer?

Fueling the interest in America's only hope for a dance medal in decades was the frenzied push surrounding former Canadian Belbin's midnight-hour American citizenship, granted only on the last day of 2005.

Platov says the three-time U.S. National champions and reigning world silver medalists Belbin and Agosto are, "Very pleasurable to watch, lots of energy, but they are not as polished as the other top teams. Of course I understand that other countries need medals too, and they are a nice team and they will fight, but they are not ready to be Olympic champions."

Words of Wisdom

Asked how he'll survive the possible -- but improbable -- failure of his team to win the long-lost Olympic gold he's coveted for years, Zhulin is philosophical. "I have a beautiful family and all will be okay if Tatiana does not win. I hope she will, but if something happens, it will not be the end of the world.

"Of course," he adds laughing, "I don't tell her that. I always say, 'You have to win - do all that you can to win!'"

Zhulin says he doesn't like to plan in advance what advice he'll dispense on the big night, but admits that the topic is never far from his mind. "I'll try to wait and see, and go with the moment. It is the toughest decision for the coach, to find the right words. I predict that I will try to keep them in a quiet state. Sometimes if I sense they are a little off or something is wrong, I will do something crazy -- a little shock to get them to refocus. But I think the Olympics is more like a great smooth golf swing -- they just need to go out there and do it like they've done it at practice a million times before. The whole season our job is to help the skaters improve, but the competitions are when the skaters make us -- the coaches -- improve."

Platov says that the most important thing for a coach is simply to not get in the way at the critical moment. "At a major event, the coach is there to be their servant --the roles reverse. If they are thirsty, you bring them water. If they need a tissue, you find one. It doesn't matter how many medals you've won, because at that moment you become their servant to get the best results."

Both Zhulin and Platov say that their final words of Olympic wisdom -- spoken just as Navka and Kostomarov leave their sides at the boards of the Palavela Ice Arena, will include the command to go out and skate as if it is the last skate of your life. For this team, it's more than a challenge, and more an admonishment, it is simply the truth.

Navka and Kostomarov say Torino will be the last time they grace the ice together in competition.

 

[JonnyCoop]

zanzibar --

thank you for posting that. I will read it and respond properly later. For reasons mentioned in another thread, any post that I can't do off the top of my head, that might require a little reading and checking, will have to be dealt with after I've had time to review the information.

 

[Piel]

Babs FP is also a mother.

 

[Rgirl]

Thanks Zanzibar. The link wasn't working for me either. Since I was heavy-duty into the Sasha-Masha-Pasha scandal; met Usova/Platov at a reception, Zhulin at a different one; and had a major crush on Evgeni Platov when he was in his prime, all this was great literature for me.

Seriously, very interesting comments from two of the greatest ice dancers of their time and now two of the greatest ice dancing coaches.

Rgirl

 

[Nmsis]

A. I don't much care about doping, I don't see that much difference between most of the drugs and computerized training aids etc. The athletes are all adults and if they want to play russian roulette with steroids that's their problem, I don't really care (But then I don't care about most of the results in sports where it's a problem). This may be a moral failing of mine, but there it is.

B. Even if I did, is there any important history of doping in figure skating? The only two cases I've ever heard of were long ago (Klimova in a case that just sort of went away, she must not have been found guilty of anything because she was in the olympics soon after), Bereznaya (again, more of a mix up about over the counter remedies than anything else, they weren't sanctioned in any meaningful way past one competition).

D. Even if I thought doping was a problem with figure skating I don't like the urine sampling brigade. They seem to have gotten a taste of power and enjoy using it far too much. See the case of Kyoko Ina, you might think strangers showing up at your house at 10.00 at night in the off season to collect your urine is appropriate, I don't.

C. Unlike the ISU I hold the officials to higher standards of conduct than the athletes. Once the relevant official made a decision I'm not going to blame the athlete for following it.

A. Doping is a public healthcare problem and everyone should care. When a champion uses drugs, you can be sure that many athletes and young ones in this sport use drugs as well. Besides, at the begining of the Olympics, someone said: "In the name of all the competitors I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams." That's the way sport should always be.

B. Dopping wasn't a problem in cyclism 10 years ago. It doesn't mean it wasn't massively there before (many premature deaths). And if the cyclism international federation could have avoided the media's inquiry, there would still be no problem.

D. (?) The doping professionals are using criminals' methods (look at the austrian scandal at these Olympics). The anti-doping professionals are using police's methods. That's pretty fair.

C. Athletes and officials should have the same standard of conduct. Honesty, fairness and sportsmanship. The problem is that, in the small world of ice skating, officials are really really close to athletes and federations. The limits between categories are not that strict. In the case of the Navka's doping control, I would say "too late" but I think ISU should precise the rules now, to be ready when another incident will happen.