Valentina Chebotareva: Misha is charming, not spoiled young man.
Interview with Valentina Chebotareva. I translated the part where she talks about Mikhail Kolyada.
You have been coaching Mikhail Kolyada for 15 years, it’s probably a rare case in figure skating.
– You can say a solitary instance. There are coaches who specialize on initial preparation, others work with middle level, someone work only with masters. But we do everything not like others.
Don’t you afraid that he will go to another coach? Or the Federation of figure skating will decide to transfer Kolyada to a different group in the interests of Russian national team before the Olympics in 2018 …
– Mikhail has already received such proposals and no doubt, there will be more, but he believed in me as a coach, I believe in him as a student. I grew up as a coach near him, we have a human touch, and I think, he will continue to work with me. Moreover, I’m not the kind of person who will cling to the athlete, knowing that I have already nothing to give him. All decisions regarding sporting future Mikhail always takes with his parents. They are wonderful people, it has been very comfortable with them from the very first day. They have never told me that they do not like something, never interfered in the training process, although such things happens in our work. Actually, they have a large family, Mikhail has two sisters and a brother. All the guys are talented in their own way, but nobody else engaged in figure skating. Misha is the eldest, he is charming young man, not spoiled, modest.
A big name of the coach can seriously affect the judge’s decision and couple of extra points are never a waste.
– This applies only to small regional competitions. There’s nothing like this at the high level, as I understood, although, I was afraid of it. When we came to the international competitions for the first time, the judges who have never seen me before, came and told kind words after Misha’s performance. You just have to skate, to do your job with a soul and people will understand and accept you.
Your skater always repeats that he gets energy from the audience.
– Only recently he’s started to perform regularly in front of the large audience, we have a small amount of big competitions. In addition, he had to miss the whole season because of the serious injury – several surgeries, a plate in his leg. Mikhail even could finish his career. But we survived it all. When it was necessary to perform in front of the large audience, I myself terribly worried, but it turned out that audience helps him.
Experts, in particular Oleg Vasiliev, note that Kolyada’s performances give an aesthetic pleasure. He not only has dizzying jumps, but also has good skating skills.
– Well our sport is still called figure skating, not jumps on the ice. This is the merit of our choreographer Olga Klyushnichenko. She does all the programs, we do not have any choreographed by someone else.
Today everyone is talking about doping. How do you work in such conditions?
– I don’t worry about Mikhail, he has never taken anything banned. Another thing is that now you have to be also very careful and know the list of prohibited medicine not to accidentally get a disqualification. Before we go to the pharmacy, no matter what happens, we have to consult with the doctors: to call, to ask what is allowed, what isn’t allowed, not to make accidental mistakes. But I do not think that you can come up with a suitable doping for the sport with such difficult coordination.
Maybe something psychotropic for not to be scary to do quads?
– From the very beginning, we don’t choose chicken-hearted children. They got used to jump and fall and not to be afraid.
by Sergei Lopatenok online812.ru
Related topics: interview, men, mikhail kolyada, Valentina Chebotareva
“Our sport is called figure skating, not jumps on the ice”
Yes, it’s an important concept, some certain people don’t seem to notice or remember that…
That’s why I wish Misha try to work with some good choreographer. He has lots of potential, I think he has overgrown his current choreographer’s abilities.