Sergei Davydov: “Quintuples are only possible with a big prerotation? But there are also prerotations on quads. If you’re not “cheating”, it’s very difficult to execute the jump.”
Coach Sergei Davydov about Ilia Malinin and results of World Championships, development of figure skating and suspension of Russian skaters from international competitions.
source: Sport24.ru by Konstantin Lesik
Sergei Davydov: In general, from the competetive perspective, I don’t see much value in the quadruple axel right now. It’s not worth the amount of time and effort required to master it. The value of the element needs to be increased substantially, then it would make sense to include it in the program. The base value of fifteen points definitely needs to be raised. It’s a difficult element to execute. Therefore, I would pull it out for a good value.
So, the results of the World Championships are not very fair? Ilia Malinin landed a quadruple axel, but only placed third.
Sergei Davydov: Figure skating is not just about the quadruple axel. Malinin is a young skater. It’s too early to compare him to Shoma Uno in terms of skating and presentation. That’s why I believe everything was fair.
The axel and quadruple jumps should be included in the program, but not only them. There should also be skating, presentation, program, costume, and spins.
And what about the quintuples? Petr Gumennik, for example, said that it’s only possible with a big prerotation.
Sergei Davydov: But there are also prerotations on quadruples if you look at the jump. If you’re not “cheating”, it’s very difficult to execute the jump. It’s still a prerotation – to turn, a person first rotates on the ice. It’s normal. Some people rotate more, some less. If there’s not enough push, they rotate more.
Is that fair?
Sergei Davydov: A computer and clear graphics would bring some clarity to evaluating this moment. The human eye will never notice it.
How do you see the future of figure skating? Will there be more quad jumps in 10 years?
Sergei Davydov: Yes, there will be more. Everything is increasing now.
But the World Championships showed that it’s not always necessary to do a lot of quad jumps.
Sergei Davydov: That’s another question. If you want high scores, you have to do everything: a lot of quads, spin well, skate well, present well, have a great costume. Then you get a lot, and then it’s figure skating, not just jumps. The number of quads will grow, because people want to win. At the moment, there is a race for quads, we are moving away from the program, we are a little off balance, figure skaters have fewer super programs, because difficult elements take time for gaining speed, but we are still trying to find a balance.
The IOC has recently introduced criteria for allowing Russians to participate in international competitions. CSKA figure skaters have not been lucky in this regard.
Sergei Davydov: I think this political game will continue for a long time. It will drag on for a long time. I don’t think we need to worry too much. We just need to keep working, keep moving forward. Everything will fall into place there and everything will fall into place for us too.
Are you mentally prepared to compete under the same conditions next year?
Sergei Davydov: This year was almost the same for me as the previous ones: there were junior competitions, Grand Prix stages. I didn’t travel to many international competitions before, and I didn’t notice any difference. Maybe they noticed it in “Khrystalny”.
Related topics: Ilia Malinin, Sergei Davydov
Davydov is outspoken and factual. This was a very direct interview. Normally with certain coaches it’s a bunch of fluff.