Alexander Smirnov: Yuko and I haven’t made decision about retirement

Alexander Smirnov told about possibility to compete this season and his work as a coach.

Many of your fans, of course, are interested in the fate of the pair Yuko Kavaguti – Alexander Smirnov. Will we see you on the Olympic ice of Pyeongchang? As far as we know, there were no announcement about retirement.

– We are in the process of discussing this question. Soon we will see who will leave sport, who will stay, which shape who has. A lot will depend on my and Yuko’s state. Still, the age is serious and we don’t want to get another injury. As you know, all our previous skips of the seasons and important competitions happened because of injuries, including quite unexpected ones. Now we continue to train. But we try to soberly assess our chances. Is it worth to go for the tenth place? I don’t want to spoil my mood. If to perform, then it’s need to aim at the podium. However, I repeat, we have not yet made decision about the end of the sports career.

But, as we see, in parallel you quite actively engaged in coaching.

– While Yuko was recovering from injury last year, I decided not to waste time and began to help Tamara Nikolaevna (Moskvina – ed.) in training. I admit, I liked it, I get a lot of positive emotions from classes with children and adults.

So you can already say that after the end of the sports career, your future destiny will be connected with the coaching activity?

– Well, not for a vain I’ve devoted 30 years to figure skating. I know a lot about this sport, almost everything. And I liked the role of coach. I try to continue to develop in this direction. Let not all of my students become champions. But thanks to figure skating they will grow up beautiful, healthy, fit. This is also very important.

Is your son already skating?

– He’s only three years old (smiles). Recently I tried to teach him and his mother how to skate, but after 15 minutes he fell asleep. Apparently, he did not really like it so far.

And still. Do you want your son, like his dad, to become a famous skater?

– I think I will definitely teach him to skate and try to send him to a hockey school.

by Andrei Krylov for tverisport.ru

Related topics: pairs, Yuko Kavaguti Alexander Smirnov