Eteri Tutberidze interview 05.05.2017

[Barb]

If they had money to pay, surely.

but it is not like Eteri trains them for free, the federation pays her. Russian fed wil never pay external coaching? If Evgenia had (hypothetical) personal problems with Eteri, she deserves all possible support.

 

[janav]

If they had money to pay, surely.

Doesn't RusFed cover the expenses of their skaters even when they train abroad? Like when Sinitsina/Katsalapov trained with Marina in the US? So, should any russian lady that gets the funding from the fed chose to go to Orser, wouldn't her training be covered?

 

[silverfoxes]

Well, it a matter of personal interpretation. For me it shows that her team cares about their skaters including their personal issues and including their families. You know that they don't take only promising skaters. She could have taken many foreign students instead... I don't see how in the USA or in Canada any skater will be given the same approach if they don't have any money. I think her team in general is very demanding but it doesn't have anyhting to do with skaters background. It's simply because in Russia this field is so competitive. I remember that Evgenia skated injured several times and that was her decision because if you're out of competitions than no one in federation will care about you. In Russia you have a line of young and promising skaters each year and every single one of them is aiming for international competitions. We can talk here for ages but nothing will change the situation because well we are fans of very cruel and dangerous sport...

Again, I personally prefer Brian's approach. But I don't think it's right to compare them. I would rather find any example of russian coach with personal approach and compare him/her to Eteri.

It's not true that all of Eteri's students are from poor backgrounds. Some, yes, but definitely not all. And not every skater there is winning tons of medals, but it's not like she is letting any poor kid without talent come train there. Not that she should, there are only so many hours in the day & so much space in the rink. But please don't exaggerate.

There are foreign skaters who visit in the short term for training & she's had a guy from Belarus there for a couple seasons already, so she does coach foreign skaters in certain circumstances, too. And foreign skaters deserve to have a good coach too...why shouldn't they? There is nothing wrong with the way either Eteri or Brian accepts students, imo. But Eteri gets subsidies from the state and that's true for the rest of the Russian coaches - she's not unique in that regard.

 

[andromache]

I remember that Evgenia skated injured several times and that was her decision because if you're out of competitions than no one in federation will care about you.

It shouldn't be up to underage skaters if they skate injured. It probably shouldn't be up to ambitious coaches or parents either. Evgenia apparently lucked out and din't cause her body long-term damage, but there needs to be an unbiased, objective doctor or someone making these decisions based on the long-term health of the athlete.

 

[Ares]

Detailed insight coming from this interview. But Eteri is not presenting herself well with badmouthing former students and calling them products. Well we get more proofs for what others speculated before. Tutberidze can't see any blames in herself, it's getting even more startling than before.

Statements about Voronov & Pitkeev piss me
off.

 

[moriel]

It shouldn't be up to underage skaters if they skate injured. It probably shouldn't be up to ambitious coaches or parents either. Evgenia apparently lucked out and din't cause her body long-term damage, but there needs to be an unbiased, objective doctor or someone making these decisions based on the long-term health of the athlete.

Its too tricky though, because well... i´m not sure if there is a coach who could do it.
I still remember Hanyu skating injured in CoC after the warmup incident.

 

[plushyfan]

There are many examples when the skaters were injured and they competed.

 

[andromache]

There are many examples when the skaters were injured and they competed.

There are injuries that it's okay to skate on and injuries that are risky to skate on.

The point is that kids/teenagers should not be given the choice of "A. take this big risk by training and competing on your injury, with X% chance of doing further damage or B. Lose all hope of a future in skating by taking some time off." Kids' understanding of long-term consequences is limited, and of course they are going to want to skate. It's either skate injured or admit weakness, and competitive athletes in a cutthroat environment don't want to be weak.

 

[silverfoxes]

Yes, it's and understandable that skaters at an important competition do not want to withdraw unless they absolutely cannot skate. That's different from someone who has an ongoing injury that isn't treated properly or given time to heal, and potentially made worse in the process. Back injuries in particular are nothing to fool around with - just ask Plushy.

 

[moriel]

There are injuries that it's okay to skate on and injuries that are risky to skate on.

The point is that kids/teenagers should not be given the choice of "A. take this big risk by training and competing on your injury, with X% chance of doing further damage or B. Lose all hope of a future in skating by taking some time off." Kids' understanding of long-term consequences is limited, and of course they are going to want to skate. It's either skate injured or admit weakness, and competitive athletes in a cutthroat environment don't want to be weak.

We have no proof yet that anyone was given such choice, though.

 

[andromache]

We have no proof yet that anyone was given such choice, though.

We don't, but with what happened to Adian and the discussion of skating while injured, I think it's important to remember that kids shouldn't be making these really important decisions themselves. Including (and especially) with ongoing injuries in need of treatment and time off to heal.

 

[moriel]

We don't, but with what happened to Adian and the discussion of skating while injured, I think it's important to remember that kids shouldn't be making these really important decisions themselves. Including (and especially) with ongoing injuries in need of treatment and time off to heal.

Well, i dont know all the story though.
The only info ive seen is that he competed while injured at russian nationals. But then, i couldnt find any evidence of how serious the injury was, if it was known at that point how serious it was, and if it was indeed a reason to WD (as i see tons of skaters competing while midly injured, i suppose that there is a line where its ok).

Where could i find more info on this, if avaliable?

 

[andromache]

Well, i dont know all the story though.
The only info ive seen is that he competed while injured at russian nationals. But then, i couldnt find any evidence of how serious the injury was, if it was known at that point how serious it was, and if it was indeed a reason to WD (as i see tons of skaters competing while midly injured, i suppose that there is a line where its ok).

Where could i find more info on this, if avaliable?

I didn't get too invested in following Adian. :confused2: But based on the reactions many of his fans are having to Eteri's words and Adian's ongoing physical health, there are problems. Perhaps someone else can succinctly summarize what we know about Adian's injury and its relation to his time with Eteri? I myself am not sure what is fact and what is rumor.

I'm not suggesting that there is a problem with kids skating injured at Eteri's camp. I am merely responding to another poster stating that "it was Evgenia's decision to skate injured so that the federation wouldn't forget about her" when, IMO, I hope that deciding to skate injured is left up to someone more knowledgeable and with a better grasp of long-term consequences than a kid who wants to win medals.

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Well, i dont know all the story though.
The only info ive seen is that he competed while injured at russian nationals. But then, i couldnt find any evidence of how serious the injury was, if it was known at that point how serious it was, and if it was indeed a reason to WD (as i see tons of skaters competing while midly injured, i suppose that there is a line where its ok).

Where could i find more info on this, if avaliable?

Maybe check the men's thread from that event. That might at least show if we were discussing it. I'm fairly confident we all knew about his injury going into nationals.

 

[moriel]

Maybe check the men's thread from that event. That might at least show if we were discussing it. I'm fairly confident we all knew about his injury going into nationals.

From what ive seen from the thread (i admit i followed it partially), i could not conclude that he absolutely could not compete.


@Andromache
Same here... But then i also tend to not pay attention to fans reactions and try sticking to the people who arent so emotionally invested in a skater.

 

[andromache]

@Andromache
Same here... But then i also tend to not pay attention to fans reactions and try sticking to the people who arent so emotionally invested in a skater.

But for a skater who isn't in the top-top echelons of skaters who get articles written about them all the (on top of the language barrier that comes with reading articles about foreign skaters), fans who happen to be posting on the Edge is usually the place to learn more about that skater.

I'm not taking any information from the rumors as fact, but it seems evident from Eteri's own words that there was drama between Eteri and Adian about whether or not he could skate, potentially related to injury.

Regardless of Eteri/Adian stuff, coaches shouldn't take the attitude with their students that if they can't skate then they are being wimps or weak, or that if they experience pain that they just need to shut up and tough it out. Aches and pains and injuries need to be taken seriously.

 

[ewdokia]

May be you know more than I do, may be you are even an insider in the "Russian FS kitchen" - I have no idea. But what is also clear is that you don't like Eteri. Hence, no matter what you write the halo of bias will be always present. And once again if she were that bad her champions would not stand up for her - she cannot force Medvedeva to do that - any coach in the world would be happy to have Medvedeva. She also cannot "hypnotize" Medvedeva. I travelled with them from Chelyabinsk to Moscow: they had fun together. Then the image of a cold-hearted monster somehow does not stick with me. Again, I have no idea what in fact happened to Pitkeev. If t Eteri was doing wrong and now she ridicules Adian that's really bad. But I don't believe it.

Yes, I don’t like Eteri any longer, but I have reasons for that. However, with your point that just for that reason I’m biased and everything I write here, every evidence I give – even Eteri’s own former words can be ignored, I could argue the same thing for your side: you like Eteri so your statements should not be taken serious. Don’t you think that’s a bit of a childish approach? At least I provide facts / evidence. You on the other hand take any of Eteri’s words as god’s truth, just because you like her. So you ask others for proof and when given you ignore it with your main argument being “believe” in Eteri. So who is biased?

Adding I don’t know what you mean by “Russian FS kitchen”, in any case if you judge a poster’s opinion by nationality or belonging to a certain “circle” and not the content of his posts it speaks volumes on your own bias.

 

[ewdokia]

And if to blame (which won't help anyone ) then we should blame also Sergei Dudakov equally... the fact that he never gives interviews doesn't make up for the fact that his skaters skated with injuries..?

IMO Dudakov (or Gleihenhaus) might be blamed as well to a certain extent. But still the decision making, dominating coach in that collective is Eteri. Plus Dudakov I’ve seen showing compassion to his skaters in practice when things went wrong. Eteri openly admits she does not care, not even if her daughter is concerned. :noshake:

Back to Eteri, parents are very much involved in training life and they watch trainings all the time so if the training were that painful and hard on skaters with yelling and physical abuse don't you think someone would have already filmed it???

You have not watched that film last year with eteri even attacking at her own kid who was skating sick and with fever to work harder and not telling her she can’t, have you? ->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2Uv_Ub77GY – go to minute 20. If she acts like that even in front of the camera, you can imagine what’s going on there without TV-teams. :roll9:

And it’s plain simple to explain why parents, relatives, e.g. don’t film: as long as the kids have success and no health problems the feel no need to do so. Once problems starts, parents don’t want to cause their kids even more problems. Blaming a coach isn’t helpful in Russia. Remember that affair with Liubov Ilyushechkina when her dad was addressing Russian Fed on Pavlova’s coaching methods?

 

[ewdokia]

Well, i dont know all the story though.
The only info ive seen is that he competed while injured at russian nationals. But then, i couldnt find any evidence of how serious the injury was, if it was known at that point how serious it was, and if it was indeed a reason to WD (as i see tons of skaters competing while midly injured, i suppose that there is a line where its ok).

Where could i find more info on this, if avaliable?

Elena Vaitsehovskaya made two comments on Adian’s health on her block:

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/vellena/post388589419/, post dating 12th april, 12.23
With Adian everything it a more problematic (than with Sasha Proklova) – how it turned out he skated the last two years (!!!) with a serious back injury and with that he jumped a lot. Now he only skates, without jumps. Up to now it’s even prohibited to work out his back – this is necessary so that at first his spinal discs stay in place. It just takes time.

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/vellena/post404937939/page18.html, post dating 26th December, 20.10
Today I spoke to one very good sports doctor – we again spoke about injuries of juniors. He told me an interesting thing (I’ve never thought about it). When an athlete trains and performs a very long time with injuries, beside that injury microtears of the surrounding muscles will appear. The more the skater performs, the bigger they will get. If you don’t treat it in time, the microtears will deepen, inflame, which will lead to continuous pain. And after that, as soon as a state of rest sets in, it all begins to scar over. And the muscle tissue begins to change into scar tissue. By this process the muscle itself very strongly looses its ability to tighten, to let’s say support the spinal disc. This is it will get useless. And this is one of the most nasty results of overuse (!!!) in juniors. I just doesn’t’ appear immediately.


And before some people start to criticize: yes, Vaitsehovskaja does not like Eteri. But up to now any of her comments on Eteri’s skaters health turned out to be true (e.g. she also commented on Polina’s ankle injury, on her back and knew in advance she would not compete at GPF due to a knee injury).

It’s very sad how her post in April was still optimistic while her last one didn’t provide any prospects. However it’s clear what has caused Adians injury – skating for too long with an injury without healing it. I knew he was skating a long time with a back injury, but even I was shocked when I learned he had been skating with a serious back injury for two years (though it probably got really worse one year later). Unfortunately it also seems that Adian’s muscle complications had only been detected when he was treated in Germany in autumn after he had already started practicing again with Buyanova. I’m no fan of Buyanova either, but one thing you really have to appreciate her: contrary to Eteris she seems to try just everything to help Adian to recover. Pity Polina can’t skate with her.

 

[ewdokia]

Sergei’s take on how his ways with Eteri parted:
http://fs-gossips.com/sergei-voronov-i-earn-my-place-on-the-ice-by-my-own-work/

Excerpt:
“On the other hand, I fully admit that if everything had been fine in relationships with a coach at that time, the work on the program could have gone differently. I clearly felt that the attitude of Eteri Georgievna (Tutberidze) to me have changed and tried hard to clarify the situation. It is understandable that any conflict – it is a problem on both sides, and it would be foolish to blame only coach in all troubles. Therefore, several times directly asked the question: what happened? I am no longer interesting as an athlete? In response I heard the same phrase: “Such thoughts are devastating for an athlete.”

And one personal observation on the “jealous mama boy”: last year in Bratislava Sergei competed without coach and told us, that he was not funded for that competition. So he had to pay everything – hotel, start money, etc. - on his own and couldn’t afford to pay for his coach as well. Maxim Kovtun on the other hand seemed to have sufficient funding, as he went to challenger with coach. So if Sergej would be such a jealous brat with such a situation you might wonder he and Max seem to get around pretty well. Maybe it's attributable to the coach paying sufficient attention to both skaters? :yes2: