Rafael Arutyunyan: “When an athlete comes to me and says that their motivation is to restore a quad jump, win a specific competition, or become recognized — in my opinion, that’s nonsense.”

Interview with Rafael Arutyunyan.

original source: RT dd. 20th November 2024 by Elena Vaitsekhovskaya

Sofia Samodelkina will be holding her second training camp under the guidance of Rafael Arutyunyan. According to the coach, the skater will arrive in California this Thursday for a standard three-week period. In an interview with RT, the specialist explained the main difficulty of working with modern single skaters, answered whether an athlete should strive to be good for everyone, and recalled Nathan Chen’s defeat in the Olympic season. Here’s a translation of his comments.

“Q: After the first joint camp, you said that Sofia Samodelkina is not raised to be a long-term athlete in the sport and that she needs a complete reboot. What exactly did you mean?

Rafael Arutyunyan: In my understanding, the concept of professionalism in our field is very simple: does a person live for the sport or not. When an athlete comes to me and says that their motivation is to restore a quadruple jump, win a specific competition, or become recognized — in my opinion, that’s nonsense. But if they are raised with the notion that sport is the meaning of their life, no additional motivation is necessary at all. It is exactly these people who become long-term figures in figure skating.

Q: I’ll try to argue with you. All Russian single skaters, often called “one-day wonders,” had nothing but training and performances during their active careers. One way or another, not only their lives but often the lives of their parents were dedicated to this.

Rafael Arutyunyan: That’s right. Only those trainings were mostly involuntary. The child was made to skate either by mothers and grandmothers or by a coach. Then starts the standard scheme: if someone skates better, the pressure from the side only becomes stronger, and the training more intense. When I say that sport is an athlete’s life, their conscious choice, I mean something else entirely.

Q: You have said, even during the times Aliona Savchenko performed, that being an athlete is not a profession, it’s a philosophy, but let’s simulate a situation: there is a young skater around whom there is an ongoing race for achievements. How in this situation do you convince yourself that you can catch up to those who are running away, if you do not join that race yourself? Regardless of the number of injuries, health, desire…

Rafael Arutyunyan: It’s very difficult to do, I agree. But that’s exactly what we, coaches, are here for. I myself am somewhat of a long-liver: by 2026, it will have been 50 years since I’ve stood at the board, and I consider myself someone who not only teaches the athlete but also educates them.

Q: That’s why I want to hear from you: what words can you find to explain to a skater, whose train, in the conventional sense, has already left, why she continues to train? What’s the sense of being a long-liver if every year new young skaters with quadruple jumps take their place?

Rafael Arutyunyan: What about the years Liza Tuktamysheva skated? You may disagree, but I don’t think that in sport it is necessary to set a goal to become first at any cost. For me, it is much more valuable when my athlete becomes a long-liver and is armed technically and artistically so that no one can touch them.

Yes, on this path, especially at the beginning, you’re not always able to win. But, firstly, you should always respect your competitors. Secondly, if an athlete maintains in the top six or three for several years, it indicates a very high level. Thirdly, even if you lose, there is no absolute tragedy in it. Positive conclusions can always be drawn from any result. Moreover, they often become the decisive factor at the right moment — there have also been such cases in my career.

Q: Can you give an example?

Rafael Arutyunyan: Nathan Chen’s defeat at the very first start of the Olympic season in October 2021 in Las Vegas. He was third behind Vincent Zhou and Shoma Uno then, even though he had won every competition he had participated in during the previous three seasons. Can ou imagine what a blow it is for an athlete to lose after three years of unbroken victories? And that was o-o-oh so good.

Q: I remember your concerns that Chen would come to the Olympic Games undefeated with a crazy psychological burden.

Rafael Arutyunyan: Absolutely. That’s why I think that the lost competition helped us a lot.

Q: Is Chen in your understanding an ideal example of a life in the sport?

Rafael Arutyunyan: He always had the right attitudes. Do you know, for instance, that Nathan gave an ultimatum to his mom at age 11? He said that unless they move to California to train with me on a permanent basis, rather than short visits, he would never succeed in the sport. And many years later, it was not Chen who told me about this but his mom.

Q: It’s usually difficult for athletes to make independent decisions, even when it’s not about changing the familiar environment — many prefer to keep everything as it is but not to conflict with anyone.

Rafael Arutyunyan: At such moments, a person should understand that their own life is at stake. This is exactly what should be weighed on one scale, and on the other — the desire to stay good for everyone. But if you prioritize being nice in relation to the coach, friends, parents, and all others, your sports life might crumble. Especially in our sport, where you’re up against not only competitors but sometimes whole coalitions of judges and federations from different countries.

Q: Returning to the topic we started with: I can’t stop thinking that Adelina Sotnikova, Yulia Lipnitskaya, Evgenia Medvedeva, and all those girls who won after them would sincerely want to stay in figure skating for a long time. But no one succeeded.

Rafael Arutyunyan: We’re coming back to the question of upbringing again. In my opinion, these girls initially had a different mindset. Not for a long life in sports, but for a sufficiently immediate result. Again, I might be wrong, but I view sport in the way I perceive it myself. Many years ago, I had a good older friend — a strong and very extraordinary skater, who, unfortunately, passed away early. Once we were together at a training camp, and I suggested going for a run. And he replied: “You know, I’ve run so much in my life that I’d rather sleep.” For me, that was a shock. I genuinely didn’t understand how an athlete could ever say that he “had run enough.”

Q: Can such an internal attitude be reformatted?

Rafael Arutyunyan: Yes, but not when all a person’s aspirations are reduced to wanting to restore a quadruple toe loop or salchow. Because even if thy restore the jump but fails it at competitions, psychologically thy will be back at the level they started from. Rebooting consciousness is difficult. In a certain sense, you are immersing yourself in the unknown not knowing whether you can cope with your habits, with the discomfort that will inevitably arise, with the desire to accelerate processes that cannot be rushed at all.

Q: What do you mean by that?

Rafael Arutyunyan: I’ve seen many times how coaches, working with female athletes, try to restore jumps that the girls performed when they were in a completely different body and physical condition. There stands a coach at the board shouting: “There, there, almost got it!” In my view, this is absolute amateurism, though I admit that someone reading these words might not understand me at all.

Q: As an athlete, I perfectly understand you. But I also understand that in today’s times, for any careless phrase said to a student about their body, you can easily end up in court.

Rafael Arutyunyan: I speak differently to students. I ask, for example: when you ride in an elevator, do you notice that it says on the wall, “Capacity – six people”? Or when driving onto a bridge, have you noticed a sign saying “No more than two tons”? It is the same here. It’s not about any criticism or wanting to offend someone, but about basic safety techniques.

Before an athlete starts jumping complex jumps with me, I need to be sure that for a certain period, they had followed all my instructions. Including diet. They subjected themselves to a regimen, proper nutrition, achieved the physical form that would allow for complicating programs without the risk of a serious injury. And I will observe: what happens with the physical readiness of the person, with their body. If I see a result that satisfies me, we can build the next stage of work. I’m not interested in training-consultations, after which everyone happily takes a photo at the board and parts ways, pleased with each other.

Q: Do you plan to attend any competitions this season?

Rafael Arutyunyan: I’m not sure. I might come to the World Championships in Boston if necessary.

Q: Do you mean the need to join Ilia Malinin’s team?

Rafael Arutyunyan: Yes. But, I repeat, I’m not certain that it will be necessary. Ilia was in California not that long ago; he worked a lot with Shae-Lynn Bourne on choreography. He is, of course, very talented. What can I say — he steps out and immediately does it.

Q: Well, that’s a coach’s dream.

Rafael Arutyunyan: I’m not used to that. No matter how quickly Nathan, who essentially had no weaknesses, picked up everything, but for a skater to rapidly master absolutely new things for himself — that’s an incredible rarity in sports. And the main thing is that Malinin really likes it all.”

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