Elena Tchaikovskaya: Everything was predictable
Pair’s competitions were marvelous, but as always nothing can compare with ice dance drama. Russian ice dancers, coaches and Tarasova were shockingly open yesterday. So many things was said!
So, let’s start with Sinitsina and Katsalapov and their coach Elena Tchaikovskaya‘s comments after the short dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wge-uDYQVYA
video by 1tvdance
Nikita Katsalapov:
We have some questions about our marks, but frankly we are very pleased with our performance. Today we performed emotionally stronger and cleaner than at Russian Nationals. That’s why it can be such a small thing, a little roughness in the edge, a little wiggle and it can cause a decrease of the level and the element won;t be counted. I’ll ask to tell us what we need to work on.
Elena Tchaikovskaya commented to Elena Vaitsekhovskaya:
– I have no questions for execution. The guys did everything exactly as they were supposed to do. Marks, which they received are a different story that has absolutely nothing to do with their skating.
You do not agree with the marks for all three moments where the levels have been lowered?
– Yes. But everything was predictable, so we were prepared for such variant.
How did such things show up?
– I can’t tell you that, but the situation is well known for me to understand what’s happening.
Can it be “healed”?
– Of course. You need to skate like Vika and Nikita just skated and the judges’ attitude towards them will inevitably start to change. If now the levels of difficulty hadn’t been lowered, guys would have received more than 70 points and would have been where they were supposed to be – in the lead.
You have started to work with Sinitsina and Katsalapov not so long ago, but your “hand” is already strongly evident in their dances. How did you achieve this?
– First of all I demand from my athletes absolutely clean execution of the elements and an absolute musical accuracy. Parallel feet, although now it is almost completely gone from ice dance, speed, and of course be danceable. I just no longer can look at constant kicks, flips etc. in ice dance. In terms of these qualities Nikita is a huge talent, Victoria also has impoved a lot during the last season, when she was working with Marina Zueva in USA. That’s why I agreed to take this pair without hesitation.
Which part has played the fact that before you athletes were coached by your former student?
– A big one. It is, so to speak, a one “hand”. Each new coach always tries to remake an athlete “for himself” and losses a lot of time for this. Here, initially it was clear that I almost won’t have to to redo anything. Now the main thing is to show all the things that we have worked on.
Nikita used to have psychological mistakes, in those elements which he does confidently at practices. How did you manage to deal with this problem?
– There is a great proven way: in the morning you come to the practice and do the same twizzles. It doesn’t matter whether you have time to wake up, or not: went and did. Coach’s task, in fact, is to make an athlete execute a program automatically. We did not have much time, but managed to make a large enough number of repetitions to be absolutely confident in the result.
Related topics: European Championships, ice dance, Team Russia, Victoria Sinitsina Nikita Katsalapov
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