the proud papa!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUue0QphkPn/ this is really unbelieveable! look at the other older boys!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUpAoSwjF1b/? awesome!
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p.66
To ruin someone’s skates and in this way to ruin their owner, is very easy. You can blunt the blade on a grinder; you can rub them on the floor or radiator till they become rough or jagged; you can put small nails or tacks in the boots. Sometimes the skates are even stolen and thrown on the street.
Once, in the Palace of Sport “Yubilejny” a pair of skates was even thrown on the roof. Someone had made a bad joke. But the skater needed them just for the training, there was no competition. Luckily, there was a repair of the roof going on at that time and the skates were found after several days.
When I fly on an airplane over the border, the thing I like less is to be separated from my skates. Every time I give them to be taken to the luggage department my heart sinks – what if they are lost?
Till the tragedy at 11th of September in New York we were allowed to take the skates with us in the airplane as hand luggage. But after the terror attack the situation changed. According to the new cruel rules the skates are taken to be a cold steel and cannot be brought to the passenger cabin. All are equal in the eye of the law – it is not important who you are – an Olympic champion or a beginner.
For the figure skaters all around the world this law turned to be a disaster. Without your skates there is no sense to participate. If they are lost, all is lost, you go out of the competition at that moment. You cannot put new skates on, because you have to become used to them and they have to become soft. This process may take even months.
The skates of the professional are alive and very fastidious creatures. They are affected by every thing – hotness, cold, humidity. And to America they fly for ten hours!
p.67
Of course, everyone, who continuously travels around the world and performs on the ice all the time, has a special hit proof suitcase. But however hard it is, it is influenced by the outside conditions. For example it is very often thrown up and down. There is no difference what it is inside the suitcase for the people, who emplane the freight in the luggage department of the airplane. So there is no guarantee, that when you open the suitcase you will be not surprised unpleasantly: the blade can be damaged, the boots can be folded, the hooks for the laces can fly away.
The prohibition for the skates to be taken as a hand luggage was extended from the international to the domestic flights too. We asked the airlines many times to make an exception for us, we even made scandals. Sometimes they understood and helped us. Then the skates were taken to the cockpit and locked there. But we could not always convince the airlines, domestic or international, to make even such a compromise.
I was flying to America for a show once. At the Russian airport we agreed with the administration of the airlines and my suitcase stayed undisturbed in the cockpit.
In Frankfurt we had to transfer to another plane. With my suitcases I went to the checkpoint.
- What is this?
- Skates.
- You cannot take this with you in the airplane.
- But I have just transferred from another airplane and there my skates were with me.
- We are not interested in that.
p.68
We argued for a long time. I tried to convince them that nothing frightening would happen, if my skates flew in the cockpit.
We called the leaders of the guarding service, but the administration of the airlines insisted on having their way. At the end I gave up. Embittered and upset, I went to the counter and gave my suitcases to be taken to the luggage department.
The girl there smiled and said:
- But you have to take the next plane.
- Why?
- Yours has just taken off.
While we had been arguing I had forgotten to look at my watch. I had to fight for my skates, for the most precious thing I had. With foam on my mouth I had been proving, that they had not to be taken away from me. But the result was that my skates were taken and I have missed the plane. Fortunately, this time the skates arrived safely in America .
I am very nervous when my skates fly separately from me. When we land, the first thing I do is to go and take them. I look at the computer base if my luggage is already there. And then I start watching the bags of the new arrivals coming foreword. In these minutes my nerves are strained to the utmost. And if your suitcase comes with the last ones, you start looking at the stranger’s luggage as if it were the armour of your personal enemy. And when at the end you see your suitcase with the skates, you draw a sigh of relief. It means you had luck again.
Fortunately, at important competitions, my skates were never lost and they arrived with me.
At training camps they were delayed some times. They were lost, traveled for two or three days nobody knows where, and then they arrived. In such cases I was excessively nervous, like a pea on a drum, I could not think of anything else.
p.69
Once a very sad story happened with one of the figure skaters – an Olympic champion.
He was flying for a show and his skates and costumes were given to the luggage and lost without a trace. Desperate, he went to the administration of the airport and they told him:
- Wait for three days. If the luggage doesn’t come back, write down an application and value your lost belongings.
Three days passed by. Neither the skates, no the costumes were found. And the costumes of a figure skater are very expensive – sometimes the price goes to ten thousand dollars. He wrote a claim – the compensation appeared to be around ten thousand dollars. But only he thought so. The airline thought differently. They decided to pay the sportsman four hundred dollars and told him “Goodbye”. Nobody was found responsible for the lost belongings and competition.
There are cases when the skates are lost or delayed and the sportsman misses the competition. You always sympathize with those, who had such an experience, even if they are your enemies. Because all of those, who had happily met their luggage at the end of the flight, are subconsciously afraid, that something like that can happen with them too. You run like a mad one to look for your suitcases. And you never know if happiness will smile to you this time or not. It is a lottery every time.
It is true, I always fly in the business class and our luggage is looked after carefully. But mistakes happen here too. There are several airlines, which I don’t like. But when there are no tickets I have to buy from them. And then every time something goes wrong! Perhaps my negative thoughts are materialized. Perhaps I just have to change my attitude!
p.70
The skates and the ice are the most important things in every competition.
The ice in the different countries is different. It can be hard or soft, it can even crush under your feet. All depends on the quality and temperature of the water used to flood the ice rink. The quality of the ice on the rink is very important. It should be hard for the hockey players and soft for the figure skaters, so that they skate easily.
When I was falling down much and got injuries, especially in childhood, the ice was for me very cold, merciless and repulsive. You become bitter at it, start fighting with it, but at the end you win – the falls happen not so often, you make complicated elements.
Then, when you become a champion, when you start winning competitions, your attitude to the ice changes, you begin to like it.
Now, when I go out on any ice rink, I easily define and see what for an ice it is. But I never become bitter at it! Just the opposite – I negotiate with it, ask for help, sometimes we even make discussions! You have to talk to the ice like to a close friend and better in private.
I talk with it before important competitions – I ask for help, so that I skate the program faultlessly, I ask him not to put something under my skates. We talk at trainings too, especially when I try to make difficult elements and I can’t. Most often I talk with the ice at home, on the ice rink of the Palace of Sport “Yubilejny” in Petersburg.
But in the other countries I ask help from the ice too. No matter what the language is of the country, where the Olympics take place, I always speak in Russian to the ice. And he always understands.
It is true, sometimes the skates and the ice put the sportsman to a real trial.
Once I almost lost the toe of my right foot.
p.71
We were in a training camp in Spain. I jumped, landed, but the leg sprang aside and with the heel I made a hole in my right skate and in my leg.
I felt as if I had cut my toe. In the first several minutes there was even no pain, I felt only as if I had no toe. And then through the boot, through the laces there spurted blood. When I put off this boot, the blood started streaming stronger. A puddle appeared, the ice turned red.
The ambulance came after half an hour. The pain was wild, I was feverish, spasms began.
It appeared I had cut a tendon. The Spanish surgeons made seventeen stitches.
While all the others were training I was lying in the hospital. Then I had to learn how to walk with crutches. With them I went out of the airplane back home. Mom saw me and started crying. I had not told her anything before, not to worry her.
Straight from the airport we with mom and Alexey Nikolaevich went to the hospital, where I had to undergo another operation.
This injury is sometimes felt even till today – my toe doesn’t work properly. By the way, the right leg plays the essential part in several difficult jumps; you land on it.
After the operation I could not do anything for a whole month, the toe could not move at all. Then, gradually, it started to restore.
My first performance after this injury was in England. I nearly failed, because there appeared in me a fear – I was afraid to jump, I was afraid not to injure the toe again. Eventually I overcame the fear.
Now this injury doesn’t trouble me, but from time to time I feel it. Especially while I am doing a certain element – the arabesque spiral with a spin on the right leg. Once I had a cramp in this leg in a competition.
Who's the lucky person who took this photo I wonder!
