Eteri Tutberidze: Figure skating is not getting younger, it’s evolving
Translation of Eteri Tutberidze’s part from press-conference with Russian skaters and coaches.
– Our group showed good results. Both juniors and seniors. They all showed themselves. It was a difficult year, strong competition within the group. It was psychologically difficult. Alina and Zhenya they are like two daughters for me, for both I want health and all the best. It was pity when Zhenya got injured in the middle of the season. And it is a great pity that Alina and I lacked experience at the World Championships. But it’s impossible to win everything. Now there is anger. I still have it for sure! I know, everyone was worried about Alina’s motivation, so there’s plenty of motivation.
Many fear that Zagitova will repeat the path of Lipnitskaya. Can we compare them?
– Lipnitskaya and Zagitova are different athletes. Julia got enough. I did not see this with Alina. There is motivation, but there were not enough experience and, perhaps, shape. She let her head go a little bit, that’s why it didn’t work out. But this is not related to motivation.
They wrote that Zagitova is three centimeters taller now. Maybe it’s somehow connected?
– She has been three centimeters taller already during the preparation for the Olympics. So three centimeters have nothing to so here. Only we noticed them. In Milan, a week of illness, a question of acclimatization and a lack of experience affected. Alina was just a little weaker than herself.
It is generally believed that female figure skating is rapidly going younger. Even goes into childhood. Do you see this as a danger both for the sport and for the skaters themselves? (This question caused a tough reaction from Tutberidze)
– Where does it grow younger? Open the list of Olympic champions, has it gone into childhood? How old was Sasha Cohen? Tara Lipinski. What are you talking about? They are all very young. Or did you just say that because it sounds great?
People talk about it now.
– And when they say, did you looked into the history? Asking a question you have to be prepared. Then let’s list the Olympic champions, how old they were. You are not ready to answer, yes? Then why ask the question? Wrong. Nothing becomes younger! Everything remains as it was.
At the end of the press conference Tutberidze again returned to this topic.
– Where is the journalist who asked that the figure skating is getting younger? Sport is not getting younger, it is evolving, it’s a normal process, do remember how they jumped 20 years ago? Who then thought that in many years girl with 3-3 will be on the 24th place? This is the process of evolution, not the process of youthfulness. Figure skating is not getting younger, but evolving. And we was not the first who decided to go for quadruple jumps.
by Dmitri Zelenov for sport-express.ru
Related topics: Eteri Tutberidze
When you look at footage of Katarina Witt in the 1980s, she looks like a heffa compared to the champions of today — and she was not because she looked like the mature woman she was, and not the still-to-develop girls that are the “women’s” champions of today (excepting Osmand).
it will be lovely is we can read what trusova and zagitova said… about kolyada; he should work harder if he wants anyone wonder about him lol
Well, she’s right about Lipinski and Cohen, but he point is they shouldn’t have been competing in the women’s category either, given they were 16 and thus their centres of gravity were still in their sternums (the case with pre-menstrual girls, boys, and adult males) rather than their pelvises (the case with physically matured females).
Well, Sasha isn’t an Olympic Champions, as for Tara…Yeah she was 15, but what? She won and we have never heard about her ever again (I mean as an athlete). So that’s the role model for future champions? Well that’s the problem. Then we had a beautiful era of great rivalry between Yuna and Mao and then again something went wrong and he again have one-day champions( I don’t think it’s good for the sport.
I miss Yuna and Mao like crazy. It was really the last time we had real, beautiful women’s skating instead of little girls who can consistently do 7 triples but get outrageous scores compared to the rest of the field. I don’t like the “one-day champions” either, I think it’s hard to root for skaters when you know they’ll be gone in 2 years.
I hope Kaetlyn Osmond winning Worlds is a sign for the direction the sport will go, but I’m afraid we’ll quickly be overrun by Russian quad-jumping babies again…
Also, Eteri says the girls are like “two daughters”? Suddenly I have the picture of Cinderella’s stepmother stuck in my head…Last time I checked, you don’t starve and abuse your daughters for your own gain, then claim they just somehow got anorexia and you had nothing to do with it…
Could you translate the full conferance?
There also a part about Nina Mozer’s half-year break from coaching, Couple of words from Trusova, Zagitova and Kolyada. Ok, I can translate the rest)