This interview is also in Russian in some slightly different variants.
http://www.sovsport.ru/news/text-item/582962 (Russian) for example.
He told "Level of Euro is critically low, Euro lost its meaning long ago".
Some people (me, for example) refuse.
Two of four World Champions, about a half of Worlds Top 12 and about a half of World Medalists are from Europe and took place in Euro.
Yes, level of Euro is some lower than many years ago, when it was very close to level of Worlds. Now are many very good skaters from USA, Japan, China, Korea.
But Euro for now is a high level competition- not that "means nothing".
And average level of Euro competitors is still some higher than Four Continents.
But nobody says that Four Continents is low level, not serious competition.
I can see where Averbukh is coming from. Last year was considered a good year for Europe at Worlds because at the recent 2010 Olympics, none of the Olympic Champion was from Europe. Despite Kostner winning Gold in Ladies last year, the sad truth is European ladies have been dominated by Asian women for the last several years to the point that it was hard even for a European to crack top 6 at Worlds. Besides Kostner and Korpi, the European ladies are very weak compared to their Asian and North American counterparts and this year, Europe may again find itself off the podium in ladies at Worlds given the fierce competition there and the return of Yu Na Kim. Looking at the men, the story is very similar. Despite having retired for many years, winning the Euro still felt like a cakewalk for Plushenko because he only got a handful of real challengers. This year might be slightly less so with the young Javier Fernandez maturing into his prime but to see such low intensity in men's competition is in a way sad. And if we overlook these two, there is really nobody there left at the Euro men competition, except perhaps Brezina if he is on (that's a big if) but that's about it. The rest would struggle to even make top 10 at worlds.
Finally, from Averbukh's perspective, which is likely more focused on Ice Dance as this was his discipline - part of it is probably lamentation on his part. I find that the older generation of Russians still have a strong cold war mentality - certainly that's obvious on Mishin. Averbukh is probably lamenting the days where dance was dominated by Europeans and where the results of Europeans could pretty much be written as the eventual World results. That was true for a very long time for decades, since USSR and for many years Russia, the only competition at Worlds will occasionally come from one Canadian dance team who would usually settle for the Bronze. But when Averbukh and Lobacheva lost the World title to Bourne/Kraatz in 2003, the dance world was no longer the same anymore since. It was the first time a non-European team won Ice Dance at Worlds and since then, a whole truck of succeeding American and Canadian dance teams started to push Russians and Europeans out of the Dance podium to the point that by 2011 - in Moscow - the World podium in Ice Dance didn't have any Russian or European teams. You have to wonder if in some way, Averbukh is blaming himself for losing the dynasty?
Why should he blame himself for all Russian coaches and political power in dance moving to north America to benefit north Americans?! But i Can see how he could be like His team was not strong enough in 2003 to prevent b/k from winning and that was really the beginning of the end even if n/k won later world and Olympic titles by tiny margins and d/s won in 2009 but 2009 was the end of Russian success in dance for teams winning events. Not coaching.
Morozov is really not the right person to do it!Last year, they hurried up with interviews about becoming the first pair. I understand, it is their youth and inexperience, but they need someone to pour cold water over them
Eh? What are you talking about? Zueva was a coach/choreographer of Gordeeva/Grinkov. They didn't leave her "starve to death" and moved together to USA because there was better money involved at that point. Sometimes better opportunity- Moskvina, Tarasova also worked in the US for sometime to your knowledge. Then moved back to Russia when things got to more or less to normal.When USSR broke apart, Russian retained all its top coaches like Moskvina, Tarasova and Mishin. It is the nobody back then like Zueva who was left to starve to death with her young son if she didn't move.
Personally I don't like Averbukh!
When USSR broke apart, Russian retained all its top coaches like Moskvina, Tarasova and Mishin. It is the nobody back then like Zueva who was left to starve to death with her young son if she didn't move. In a way, Russia forced this exodus of young talent because it didn't see them as important enough to retain. You can argue some of the more established one like Dubova was allowed to move to North America but that was in part due to their internal political struggle since Dubova and Tarasova couldn't stand each other. But what really created a Renaissance in North American Ice Dance today was really those young & unknown coaches like Marina Zueva who started by coaching little kids when she immigrated to Canada.
When USSR broke apart, Russian retained all its top coaches like Moskvina, Tarasova and Mishin. It is the nobody back then like Zueva who was left to starve to death with her young son if she didn't move. In a way, Russia forced this exodus of young talent because it didn't see them as important enough to retain. You can argue some of the more established one like Dubova was allowed to move to North America but that was in part due to their internal political struggle since Dubova and Tarasova couldn't stand each other. But what really created a Renaissance in North American Ice Dance today was really those young & unknown coaches like Marina Zueva who started by coaching little kids when she immigrated to Canada.