Eteri Tutberidze: “When Lipnitskaya couldn’t stand Medvedeva, we made a schedule with no days off so they wouldn’t cross paths. Later, there was a similar situation with Zagitova and Medvedeva.”

Eteri Tutberidze explained why she works without days off.

original source: RIA Novosti / RIA Novosti

Eteri Tutberidze explained that she works without days off, partly due to managing conflicts between her skaters, and shared her preference for avoiding crowds outside of competitions. Here’s a translation of her comment.

“When Lipnitskaya couldn’t stand Medvedeva, we made a schedule with no days off so they wouldn’t cross paths. Later, there was a similar situation with Alina and Zhenya, and I continued working without days off. So no, I don’t have any days off.

For certain reasons in my life, I don’t like being around a lot of people. You can’t make me go to the theater—there are too many people, and I feel anxious. But competitions are different; that’s an obligation,” Tutberidze said.

Tutberidze also spoke about her approaches to working with Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva.

“In daily life, in ordinary situations, and at work, we always joke around. It makes everything easier to handle. With Alina Zagitova, though, she needed to be brought out in an extremely serious manner, with serious, stern faces. (Coach-choreographer) Daniil Markovich Gleikhengauz took her to a competition for the first time, and I watched online, saw them come to the boards joking and laughing. I thought, ‘That’s not right, don’t do that.’ And Alina made mistakes, skated her short program without a combination. I called Daniil and said: ‘This is all wrong, keep a serious face.’ He did—and she skated a clean free program.

With Zhenya Medvedeva, it was the opposite. Always jokes, talking about something else. It was always light and easy. Different athletes concentrate in different ways. Alina would go out with jokes and scattered thoughts, while Zhenya, on the contrary, needed to be distracted,” Tutberidze said.

Related topics: Alina Zagitova, Eteri Tutberidze, Evgenia Medvedeva, Julia Lipnitskaya