Gracie Gold is without coach | Golden Skate

Gracie Gold is without coach

GF2445

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
When figure skater Gracie Gold began doing visualizations after last season, when she had finished sixth in the world and second in the United States during her first year at the senior level, she pictured coach Alex Ouriashev at the rink boards with her in the 2014 Olympics.

Late last month, the 18-year-old who had been based in the Chicago suburbs edited Ouriashev out of the picture....

Article by Phil Hersh for the Chicago Tribune
Published September 15, 2013
Find article here: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/ct-spt-0916-skate-20130916,0,4380303.column
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
What does that mean? She has no coach right before the Olympics? Michelle Kwan was one of the world's greatest skaters in late 2001, and she didn't benefit from shedding her coach. This doesn't seem like a good sign.
 

Sara

On the Ice
Joined
Mar 6, 2013
Could someone please copy paste the article of Chicago Tribune here?? :) If located outside United States one cannot read this specific CT article!
 

CaroLiza_fan

EZETTIE LATUASV IVAKMHA
Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 25, 2012
Country
Northern-Ireland
No, that would not be fair. Instead you can try

http://t.co/oPEKUslep8

This is a link from Hersh's twitter. I think it has the identical content.

Sorry, this link doesn't work outside America either.

But, I am sure the story will appear in lots of places within the next 24 hours! After all, this is the American media's golden girl! ;)

Whatever the full story is (I can't read the Chicago Tribune story, remember), it doesn't sound good going into an Olympic season.

I hope Gracie gets alternative arrangements in place pretty quickly. After all, it's only a month until the (Senior) GP Series starts, and the countdown to Sochi begins in earnest.

CaroLiza_fan
 

seabm7

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 8, 2011
Your link goes to the very same page which is geoblocked... :/

I am sorry. It wasn't from my desktop, though I am outside the US right now.

If you go to Philip Hersh's twitter, he left some tidbits. Basically, FC hasn't said "yes" yet. Meanwhile Gracie is talking about splitting times between LA and Detroit, if possible. It will take some time before she settles down.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
I seem to be having trouble accessing the article but I just read a recent article on Icenetwork that
said Gracie is going to Frank Carroll. Is Phil saying that is not so, and Gracie is coach-less?


Here is the article from IN dated 9/14/13

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2013/09/14/60651560/gold-to-test-waters-with-carroll-in-los-angeles

According to the IN article as well, Gold is without a permanent coach right now.

IN reported that she is going to Carroll for (only) a one-week tryout. A permanent arrangement is not a done deal.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Carroll may be miffed that the story has been discussed as if it were a done deal. If Gracie wants to continue working actively with Zoueva she could look for a technical coach in Detroit.
 

NYscorp6

On the Ice
Joined
Oct 23, 2005
Country
United-States
Gracie should have made the move months ago, that said I am not a fan of Frank Carroll at all. She should stay with Marina and her group to train especially if she is looking for better focus in competition.
 
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
I'm in the states, and when I tried to access the article, it asked me to pay to see it. So I didn't see the full article either. Thanks to everyone who gave details from the article here. It still worries me. Gracie shouldn't have to have her focus split by needing to find another coach in the Olympic season. It will slow her down, I fear.
 

thinspread

On the Ice
Joined
Aug 8, 2013
That's right. Splitting her time between LA and Detroit? It won't work during the season. Carroll's rink is not even in LA, it's in Palm Springs (right?). I wonder how many direct flights they have between Detroit and Palm Springs per week.
 

ice coverage

avatar credit: @miyan5605
Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
BTW, if anyone in this thread is interested in reading more stuff about what is/was unfolding re Gold, the topic also is/was being discussed at length in the American Ladies thread. For better or worse, TSL started making references to Gold's coaching change quite a few days ago -- well before IN or Hersh published anything.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
That's right. Splitting her time between LA and Detroit? It won't work during the season. Carroll's rink is not even in LA, it's in Palm Springs (right?). I wonder how many direct flights they have between Detroit and Palm Springs per week.

No, he's back at Toyota Sports this season.

I think she's trying to hedge her bets with her comments in case she and FrankC don't mesh. I think she'll end up happy with him, though.
 

Matilda

Medalist
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Carroll is back in the Toyota Center--but shuttling between three time-zones sounds like a bad idea all the same.
 

Robeye

Final Flight
Joined
Feb 16, 2010
This is just purely speculation on my part, but I wonder if "once bitten, twice shy" is also at play with Frank. That is, he does not want a repeat of the Mirai situation (a tremendously talented, seemingly can't-miss future of US ladies skating who gets him all invested and excited, and then dashes his hopes when the various differences, of temperament, worldview, even the more mundane issues such as geographical location, ultimately cause the relationship to unravel).

Frank is no spring chicken; he's only got a certain number of bullets left in the gun, so to speak, and I'm sure he doesn't want to waste them. If I were someone of Frank's eminence and seniority, I would probably want to feel fairly sure about mutual compatibility and congeniality, and that I was not being used (in the tawdry sense of the word) as a convenient short-term band-aid. I might even be suspicious of being the fall-guy if Sochi does not pan out as desired.

That would possibly explain the "try-out".

On a more general note, I've always been of the mind that Gracie should be viewed by American skating fans as a very exciting longer-term prospect, and not as the girl that is expected to medal now. She should be shown, as for all young up and comers, a certain amount of unconditional support for the time being, at least by her fellow nationals who consider themselves boosters of US skating.

Personally, I do not wish, on the basis of one early-season performance, to peremptorily pigeonhole Gracie, to define the limits of what she can or cannot do, or become, as a skater in the future. Not reminding anyone of Yuna or Mao or Caro the first time out this season? Maybe she should quit skating and drive a truck :p.

This is not to say that we shouldn't call a spade a spade. We can clearly see the areas that need to be improved (e.g. jump consistency, a variety of PCS qualities). But pointing out the current shortcomings is not the same as flat-out declaring that they can never get better, or better enough to matter, and that she should cut her losses, and accept the conventional wisdom of her innate limitations. I do not agree with this. Let her try. Competition, at least at the current stage of Gracie's career, should be first about fulfilling one's potential and the pursuit of personal excellence, from which winning may spring as a by-product.

JMHO, but I think that Frank Carroll's comments about the need for a single voice is exactly right. There needs to be an overall vision for Gracie's career, a strategic arc that is mapped, whose waypoints do not end at Sochi. I fear that Gracie is bombarded with too many cacophonous voices, and that she has been sucked into the hype of her hypothetical position in the skating firmament (hypothetical because she hasn't really accomplished anything yet) and the attendant short-term payoff. Why do I think this? The fact that she refers to her "haters" is a small but clear sign, I think, that she has not shielded herself from the vortex of public expectations.

Naturally, at such an age and under such a mindset, when things do not go swimmingly, a certain amount of panic starts setting in, which is always a dangerous time. Her Free-Skate, in which her jumps began to unravel like a bad zipper after the first mistake, is emblematic in microcosm of potential macro issues in the management of her career that Gracie needs to navigate.

Again, purely my personal opinion, but I believe that Gracie should be focusing on improving and competing hard and having fun, knowing that she's executing a five-year game plan, not just a few months. If something unexpectedly great unfolds, that's icing. By lifting the burden of internal expectations, it might even improve her results.

I am not, I trust, underestimating or patronizing Gracie. Timing is everything. If she had more years of senior skating under her belt, and it was clear that she is at or near her performance plateau, then it is a different story. Then, one's time is now, and the skater has to accept the proposition that she must go big or go home.

Gracie, however, does not need to take up that particular burden quite yet, in my view. And we shouldn't be pushing it on her.

Take a deep breath, girl, and get a good sniff of perspective. I certainly hope things work with Frank Carroll.

(Then get back to your run-throughs :laugh:)
 

Icey

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 28, 2012
Doesn't seem this has been well thought out. So Alex yelled at her. Surely that problem could have been easily worked out.
 

deedee1

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Gracie Gold is without coach

:eek::eek: I sincerely hope the situation will be solved, the best for her and very soon.
 
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