Tatiana Volosozhar & Maxim Trankov
- Thread starter campbellka
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- Feb 27, 2014
Oh, sorry, but not now... I've got spare time today, and I've been working hard at the translation of another piece of the documentary, for which this thread was initially started - http://sporteveryday.info/pages/tat...eo/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter. (No, I haven't forgotten about it!
)Here it is, at last. This is the piece from the very beginning of the first video and up to about 17:10.
***
The Olympics in Sochi began for them a day before the opening ceremony of the Games. On February, 6, in the evening, the participants of the team event in figure skating entered the ice of the Iceberg Skating Palace. Russia was presented by the most noted skaters of our team. In pairs' event – as usual, unrivalled, head and shoulders above the rest – there were Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov.
For their short program, based on Lermontov's drama "The Masquerade", they have received very high scores – and now are waiting for the final results of the team competitions, which will be over on February, 9, late evening.
In the history of the top world-level figure skating there were three such pairs – that could show all the beauty and profundity of the relations between a woman and a man with such sincerity. People remember Lyudmila Belousova/Oleg Protopopov, Elena Berezhnaya/Anton Sikharulidze, Ekaterina Gordeeva/Sergei Grinkov.
And in the same way – for each other – skate the athletes, who, after an 8-years gap, again brought to Russia the gold of the World championship in pairs skating. It was not easy to get them agree for filming, because they, though being among the top celebrities of figure skating, don’t pursue fame in anything which is off-ice. For the viewers of the "1st Channel" they made an exception, not long before the Olympics. And even agreed to lift the veil of the mystery, which has been agitating their fans for several years already – what are actually the relations between Tatiana and Maxim.
MT: We feel like one. It was surprising for me, and it was surprising for Tanya… As if we were encapsuled together… only with Tatiana I felt what it means – when you are one with someone, when you are breathing in the same rhythm.
TV: I can say, that I skate for him, and I think that it can be felt by everybody that there is, as they say, "chemistry" between us… and I can say that it goes from the heart… it's not because the choreographer or someone has said so… I just feel it, I skate for him.
The world champions, the three-time European champions - Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov. At present, it goes like this – that the destiny of the first place at any competition totally depends on their performance: everyone knows that if Volosozhar and Trankov skate without mistakes, nobody is able to catch up with them. Can you imagine what a weight of responsibility lies on their shoulders in Sochi?
Before they became the top pair in the world, Tatiana and Maxim had had to go through many trials, both together and separately. It seemed as if the fate trialed and tested them – to make them then the most precious gift in their life.
MT: When I teamed up with Tanya, I think this was the main victory in my life. Now I skate, so that Tanya could win everything that she wants, and then I will be happy, and as for me – I have already won…
The breathtaking twists, when Tanya seems to fly sky-high from Maxim's hands. The incredibly massive throws with clear and confident landings. Combinations of side-by-side jumps. Very intricate lifts, which the judges score as high, as the single skaters' quadruple jumps. And all this with brilliant choreography and footwork. Both in short and in free programs Tatiana and Maxim have been beating their own records for two years already. Thanks to Volosozhar and Trankov, Russia has a fair chance to regain the top-rank place in pair skating.
Nina Mozer: It positively carries away… in view of what used to be in our pair skating, and now we see the same power – speed, and amplitude, and volume.
Successors to the traditions and heirs to the glory of the Russian pair skating celebrities of the past, Tatiana and Maxim now seem ready not to leave the rink at all, and willing to work day and night. But it has not always been so, when they were children – at least, for Maxim.
Valentina Trankova: Yes, when it was time to go to the rink, this often was going with tantrums…
This is the city of Perm. Valentina Ivanovna, the mother of Maxim Trankov, is in the ice palace, where her son did his first step as a skater. At first, it was not easy to make him go to the rink.
Valentina Trankova: He could hide somewhere in the flat… and when he was a bit older, I sent him ahead to the yard, while I went down the stairs, and he would hide somewhere in the yard…
Unlike Maxim, Tanya Volosozhar didn't need to be forced to go to the rink. She came to the rink with her elder sister, and it was obvious at once – she's got a talent.
Olga Volosozhar (Tatiana's sister): I think that since the first day it was bound to become her lifework… It was easily seen, how she liked it, that she enjoyed skating…
They were born 2 thousand kilometers from each other. Tanya was born in Dnepropetrovsk, in Ukraine, and Maxim in the Urals. Both were beginning as the single skaters.
TV: Until 14 I was a single skater. I was such a tenderling, a cherished child, always watched over and cared-for by mum, and dad, and my sister…
The life stories of both Maxim and Tatiana were going parallel. They both were 15, when they were invited to the groups of the reputable coaches. Tanya went to Kiev and lived there with her mother for a long time.
TV: She took care of me for a long time, went to meet me from school almost until I graduated… I used to say "Mum, stop doing this, it looks embarrassing already"…
Do you hear the announcer? Trankov was skating at that time with Irina Ulanova. Do you remember the famous pair of 1970s, Smirnova/Ulanov? Irina is their daughter. In 1998 Lyudmila Stanislavovna Smirnova invited Maxim to her group, and he went – from Perm to St.Petersburg, alone, when he was only 15. He wasn't taken to the sports hostel, and kept it secret from his parents, that for 3 years he had to live in the rink building.
MT: There was a service company at the SKA sports complex, as it belonged to the Sports Club of the Army, and I lived with the soldiers in their barracks, slept on a bunk bed.
- And how old were you then?
MT: From 15 and till 18.
- And the soldiers were older?
MT: Yes. But they were always good to me, I was like "son of the regiment", I can't say anything bad of them at all.
Valentina Trankova: When we sent money to him, it always disappeared in no time, and Max used to say: "don't send me money, but if someone goes to St. Petersburg, you'd better send me food".
The pair Ulanova/Trankov existed for 3 years. And when it split, Maxim was left both without a partner, and without a place to live in. He was ordered to move out of the barracks of the service company within 24 hours. In fact, he found himself in the street. But luckily for him, he was given lodging by the family of his girlfriend, Alexandra, whom he met as soon as he had moved to St. Petersburg.
MT: We were both 18, and her father was a strict, serious man, not willing to entrust his daughter to some guy from Perm…
- To God-knows-whom…
MT: Yeah. And we lived in different rooms, everything was very decent…
- And you had a separate room?
MT: No, not separate, I lived in her brother's room.
In early 2000s, Maxim teamed up with a skater from St.Petersburg, Maria Mukhortova. They were coached by Lyudmila and Nikolay Velikovs, and won the Junior World Championship. And very often at the competitions, they were competing with a Ukrainian pair, Tatiana Volosozhar/Stanislav Morozov.
TV: It always happened so, that we were in the same warm-up group, and we saw how we did this or that… each other's jumps, artistry and so on… saw that we match each other in height, in some anthropometric data… and many people said even at that time, they would look good together….
MT: Different people, fans, for example, they used to come up and ask why we wouldn't try to skate together… And when I asked at the federation, that I would like to skate with Tanya Volosozhar, if it was any possibility to invite her, they said no, she is dating Stas, they have relationships and she wouldn't come.
At that time nobody could predict that they really would become a pair, though after a long time. And at that time each of them had their own personal life.
TV: I began to date with Stas when I was 17, and my mum saw it, too, that there was something between us… in fact, she was the first person whom I told about it… and after that, so to say, she handed me into his charge… she returned home, and I began to live on my own in Kiev, with Stas.
Tatiana Volosozhar and Stanislav Morozov were the best pair of Ukraine for 8 years. But there was always a little not enough for them to reach the medals at the international level. Many times they took the most disappointing, the fourth place at the European championships. And ahead of them there were usually Mukhortova/Trankov. Maria and Maxim were always trying something new. In 2006, when the place of the first pair of the national team was vacant, they even tried to work with the famous coach Tamara Moskvina. But their cooperation didn't last long.
MT: She coached us for two months, and then she, so to say, showed us the door… I was the one to get the "red card"…
- Did you argue with her?
MT: Yes… as I did with all coaches whom I worked with... I won't do this program, I won't do that lift, it doesn't look good and all that...
Maxim Trankov himself brought up in our interview a topic, which is well-known in the world of figure skating, about his not-so-easy temper.
Valentina Trankova: When he was a child, he was always fighting with his partners… "I do it better – you do it worse – it's because of you that we lose – no, that's because of you…"
The uncompromising nature of Trankov didn't change in the course of time. He didn't become less quick-tempered, but now this resolved character of him is rather applied to himself.
TV: He has an interesting, creative personality, persevering, too… He doesn't like to do things by halves… and I like this perseverance of him… maybe even stubbornness…
Valentina Trankova: Thanks to Tanya… she is pure gold. And as Maxim says: "I am lucky that I have such a partner"
Nina Mozer: Tanya is nice, easy to deal with… she is so kind, tender-hearted…an angel.
At the Olympics in Vancouver Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov were not skating together yet, they were skating with their previous partners. Here are the pictures, taken in January 2010 – Maxim Trankov and Maria Mukhortova, together with their coach Oleg Vasiliev, are trying their costumes for the Olympics.
At that time all of them were under serious pressure. Nobody spoke of it aloud, but it was clear, that they had good chances to be a success in Vancouver.
TV: Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov - they were a well-known pair, a promising one; they were quite ready to fight for a medal in Vancouver….
For the previous Olympic Games in Turin, Oleg Vasiliev had prepared a pair of champions of those Olympics – Totmianina/Marinin. By the same scheme, he tried to work with Mukhortova/Trankov. In Vancouver things, at the first glance, were coming along all right - but in fact the relations were already strained.
MT: During the last two years Oleg Kimovich used to tell me quite calmly, that I didn't match his requirements… that I was hindering Masha's progress, and that after Vancouver they would be looking for a new partner for her. And this was told me many times before the Olympics, and I grew reconciled to a fact that after Vancouver I would finish my career.
Later, after the Olympics, Vasiliev started to convince that by this, he had only tried to motivate him, to make him work harder. But Trankov's thoughts were already far away.
MT: Because I felt really sick after each performance at that time… I felt collapsed in mind and body, absolutely done in.
Meanwhile, Tatiana Volosozhar and Stanislav Morozov were going to finish skating together. Stanislav thought of working as a coach. Even before Olympics in Vancouver he went to Moscow to see Nina Mozer, and they decided to work together. Only one vital question remained unsolved – with whom and for which country Tatiana would skate.
TV: Yes, we had different variants… Canada, France or Russia.
In Vancouver, after the competitions and all the Olympic emotions were over, Stanislav asked Maxim to have a talk with him. He wanted a reliable and promising partner to skate with his girlfriend.
MT: It was Stas, who phoned me. And I said: "No, I'm finishing." He said: "Is it your final decision?" And then I said openly: "If Tanya wants to skate with me, then I agree. If not, I won't go on skating with anyone else".
They began to work together three months after the Olympics. And very soon it became obvious, that it would bring result.
Nina Mozer: When they went to the ice, took hands and skated along - in the same rhythm, same pace, in the same direction – it was quite clear, that it will be good.
***
So, that's it... Another large piece is almost ready, but I don't think I'll manage to finish and polish it today - probably tomorrow...
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- Mar 6, 2014
borzaya I think I have an article were they wrote down everything they said in the documentary.
Would it be easier for you to translate it from a written text?
Thanks for that part of course. I'm always amazed how just a new partner would change Maxim 180°....
Glad that that happened of course
Would it be easier for you to translate it from a written text?
Thanks for that part of course. I'm always amazed how just a new partner would change Maxim 180°....
Glad that that happened of course
Thank you thank you thank you borzaya 
This is really sounding like a fairytale
Poor poor Maxim 
I find it amusing that with his former partners he was like "It´s your fault, I do it better". Now with Tanya it´s the complete opposite, he just CAN`T blame her for anything, always blames himself.
This is really sounding like a fairytale
Poor poor Maxim I find it amusing that with his former partners he was like "It´s your fault, I do it better". Now with Tanya it´s the complete opposite, he just CAN`T blame her for anything, always blames himself.
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- Feb 20, 2014
I don't post often but I read this thread everyday. Thank you for all the pictures and translations.
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- Mar 6, 2014
He wants to keep his queen away from anything bad
He does it on instagram as well. As soon as someone just hints something bad into Tanya's direction he always defends her
As I said, amazing how nice company can change a person.
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2014
Well, it is said that it was so when he was a kid!
It is quite natural for children, I think...Oh yeah, that´s true. I read a bit too fastWell, it is said that it was so when he was a kid!
I still think it applies quite good with his adult career though
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- Feb 27, 2014
Thank you, orangella, but there's no need... I've already got used to cope with it like that, just listening to the video... I saw the text here (it is unfolded beneath the video clip), but it is not complete, many things which are in the video, are not mentioned here...borzaya I think I have an article were they wrote down everything they said in the documentary.
Would it be easier for you to translate it from a written text?
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- Mar 6, 2014
Not that's not the text I meant.
But of course I'm glad that you can do that from only listening too
That's really cool. Thank you again
OMG guys! Whoever posts next will mark the 2000th post
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- Mar 4, 2014
Not that's not the text I meant.
But of course I'm glad that you can do that from only listening too
That's really cool. Thank you again
OMG guys! Whoever posts next will mark the 2000th post
Thank you, Borzaya! That translation was so interesting and well-done. I loved reading it.
:- Joined
- Feb 16, 2014
Thank you borzaya for transcribing the documentary! It was great to read!
I love the pics Max posted today (well maybe not that last one), but the lips one is my favourite. And I didn't even notice he changed his instagram name again... this is name number 5? or 6?
I love the pics Max posted today (well maybe not that last one), but the lips one is my favourite. And I didn't even notice he changed his instagram name again... this is name number 5? or 6?
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2014
So this is totally off topic... But, I was sitting in traffic today; and I was thinking about how nuts fans would go it V/T got the opportunity to do a bridal spread like V/M did a while back... - How cool would that be?! ...One can dream...haha
what do you mean by "bridal spread" and also "V/M"? Sorry,my english isn't perfect.
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- Feb 13, 2014
what do you mean by "bridal spread" and also "V/M"? Sorry,my english isn't perfect.
No, that's totally fine!!!!
Welcome, by the way!The ice dance pair of Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir were featured in a bridal magazine where she was dressed up as the bride and he was the groom. They took a lot of different pictures in different wedding dresses and such - it was odd but cool, lol. (Odd because they're not dating or anything... But cool because they portray a couple in love on the ice.)
This was a behind the scenes video from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFtVE9GcsC0
Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.414041568727263.1073741839.192209947577094&type=3
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- Feb 13, 2014
Yes, thank you, Borzaya! It's wonderful of you to remember and take the time to translate in such detail. It's the tidbits that are the most interesting to read about.
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- Feb 13, 2014
I actually think that was really odd and contrived of them since they've clearly stated they aren't a couple in real life or anything near. In fact, I think they've overshared their real life romantic lives with their reality TV show... which also contributed to the magic not working as it did in 2010 any more because everyone knows how fake their on-ice "romance" is.
(and I say this as someone who really liked V/M in 2010) Today, their on-ice "romance" comes across to me as fake and trying too hard.I far prefer V/T to continue as they are and keep the details to themselves if they prefer but share the honest moments without faking anything off-ice for show. I also love that V/T can portray different characters and styles in their competitive programs instead of just doing the same thing over and over. Their chemistry shines through anyway.
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2014
I actually think that was really odd and contrived of them since they've clearly stated they aren't a couple in real life or anything near. In fact, I think they've overshared their real life romantic lives with their reality TV show... which also contributed to the magic not working as it did in 2010 any more because everyone knows how fake their on-ice "romance" is.
I far prefer V/T to continue as they are and keep the details to themselves if they prefer but share the honest moments without faking anything off-ice for show. I also love that V/T can portray different characters and styles in their competitive programs instead of just doing the same thing over and over. Their chemistry shines through anyway.
Oh, I agree. I called it odd too, lol. I think it's really weird that they did a bridal spread when it was pretty well known amongst fans that they weren't dating. I also hear that their reality show was "interesting" (hope to see for myself soon)...so I'm not really sure about how the show may have affected them.
I love V/M - sincerely, I do. However, I do think that something happened post-2010 Olympics and they just didn't seem to click as well maybe a year or so later? However, I think post-Sochi (and maybe a little before), they seem like they're back to being on the same page a little bit better.
And fair enough. I think it'd be sort of neat to do a similar spread if they get to a point in their off-ice relationship that they decide to have a big wedding or something. However, I also don't expect them too; and if they did, I might end up feeling like I did about V/M's (that it was a little weird). And I'm glad they're going to continue on for a while longer. They're certainly something special and unique
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