Eteri Tutberidze and Daniil Gleikhengauz commented on Alexandra Trusova’s decision to change a coach

Eteri Tutberidze and Daniil Gleikhengauz commented on Alexandra Trusova’s decision to change a coach and start a cooperation with Evgeni Plushenko.

Eteri Tutberidze: Of course, it’s impossible to get used that athletes leave. After all, over the time, working together, overcoming constantly arising obstacles we become a family.

Good athletes and specialists will always be invited and offered more favorable conditions. How to respond to these offers is totally up to them.

But our team is different because we ourselves bring up and create these athletes and specialists.

Of course, we will never offer more attractive conditions, otherwise trust will be lost. Working together, we give part of our lives, part of ourselves. – Tutberidze wrote on her Instagram page.

And short interview with Daniil Gleikhengauz for fsrussa.ru by Olga Ermolina dd.6th May, 2020

Since the news about the transition of Alexandra Trusova was spread by the media, can you confirm this?

Daniil Gleikhengauz: Yes, we can confirm that Sasha is no longer training in our group. Her parents informed us about this. Each of our coaches talked with the athlete’s parents on the phone. We didn’t manage to talk with Sasha personally. She did not answer our phone calls.

What was the reason? The media write that the coaches of your group did not give the athlete proper attention.

Daniil Gleikhengauz: Of course, this is an absolute farce. It is impossible to make Sasha a unique athlete who got into the Guinness Book of Records and is fighting for a leading position without working properly. How can a team not bet on one of its main athletes, who performs in seniors this season?

The work was huge. On the video posted on Instagram everyone could see Sasha’s shape on the eve of the World Championships, which did not take place for a well-known reason. I myself shot this video in training. We were going to perform in Canada with five quadruples. The season was very difficult. And I want to note that during the growth period, we not only kept what we had already learned, but also added new quadruple jumps along the way, and the program became more and more complicated all the time.

Sometimes not everything worked out at competitions, but the task of our coaching staff was to prepare each athlete for the competitions as much as possible, bring him to the peak shape. And then they go on the ice, compete with each other and judges give marks for their skating.

We worry about everyone. They are all our athletes, and we support everyone as our relatives, because we spend more time with them than with anyone else in life. Therefore, to say that Sasha did not have enough attention … This is absolutely not true. We spend almost all the time with skaters and completely give ourselves to work.

How can you comment on the choice of Evgeni Plushenko as a coach?

Daniil Gleikhengauz: Everyone knows Evgeni Plushenko as a famous athlete who achieved high results. But for now, it’s hard to say anything about his coaching career. Yet the are no athletes whom he raised. The athletes who switched to him, Sotnikova, Sakhanovich, Tarakanova, none of them showed better results than with previous coaches. I perfectly understand that they want to develop. They have a wonderful background, with the help of which for several years they have been trying to atract both athletes and coaches. I can’t talk about other groups, but we have already faced this. Both amounts and contacts are known.

Apparently, during this period, they found people who wanted to go to their conditions, to change something. This applies to both Sasha, although, given her age, everything is decided by her parents, and coach Sergei Rozanov. But he is an adult and makes decisions himself. It’s ridiculous to say that something did not suit him. This is my friend whom I invited myself to work with us. Prior to this, Sergei was engaged in extra skating classes. And like all the coaches of our group, he grew up, got knowledge, the technique that we have in the group. I spoke in detail about our work in an interview after the Junior Worlds, that we have a “common technique”. And when Sergei came to us, we also introduced him into our system and taught what we know.

Of course, we are disappointed with the transitions, but we will continue to work. We know where we are going. We have a system. We are a family. We move on.

Now the situation in the world is much more serious than our small problems inside figure skating. Therefore, I would like to wish that the coronavirus pandemic would come to an end soon, and all people could get back to a normal life.

Related topics: Alexandra Trusova, Daniil Gleichengauz, Eteri Tutberidze