Athletes sometimes reach a point where they are so tired that they’re ready to quit everything. How often did you have such thoughts this year?
Kamila Valieva: Well… often. Mostly at the beginning of the season, from July to September/October. It’s a strange feeling when you’re working hard, doing everything, but it seems like it’s not enough. You can’t reach the level you had in juniors, even though you’ve done everything possible. It’s at that moment that you feel discouraged.
But you have to motivate yourself, continue, because after a while, that feeling passes, and you get back into the training process.
You shouldn’t fixate on figure skating. You should live by the rule: figure skating remains figure skating. When you step off the ice, you forget about everything and live a normal life. You hang out with friends without thinking about figure skating. But when you come to figure skating, it’s work, and you focus on work.
It’s necessary to avoid burning out. If you think about figure skating 24 hours a day, you lose that balance, and you think you’re constantly involved in it, even though in reality, there are only 3-4 hours of ice time per day. You need to skate it, give your maximum, and detach yourself.