Eteri Tutberidze: “On the eve of Worlds 2019 I had to call the staff of “Sambo-70″ and asked to pack Zagitova’s bags and just bring her to the airport by car.”
Part of the interview with Eteri Tutberidze. About Evgenia Medvedeva and Alina Zagitova.
source: sports.ru
About Evgenia Medvedeva and her silver medal
Did it happened, that you understand not after the first training, but after the 5th or 10th that this boy or this girl won’t be an Olympic champion?
Eteri Tutberidze: Wait, but is it only about the Olympic medal? Is the medalist of the World Championships no longer count? I would not say that everything is for the sake of an Olympic medal.
Now I will touch upon the question of Zhenya Medvedeva. Yes, she became silver medalist in the individual competitions. Silver. Olympic. Prior to that, for two years she had been winning all the competitions. Do you understand that some athletes don’t get even some of these merits? But you should appreciate what you have. You should say: Lord, thank you very much, what it happened even with injuries, with the problems that we faced this season. Not always everything goes smoothly, and the more difficult the path to the goal, the more valuable the medal itself. You can’t take it off, you can’t be unhappy.
Fans then congratulated Zhenya almost more than Alina.
Eteri Tutberidze: Her path was more difficult. I absolutely agree here. It was longer and more difficult. But after all many do not have it at all.
For example, Alina Zagitova. To be in shape, she really had to be at the rink from 9 am to 9 pm. She went to the gym for a warm-up, general physical training, then choreography, ice, a cool down. Really – from 9 to 9, she had a 12-hour working day. And if she came to this Olympic medal this way and put her body in such order, she will not have any other way, this means that she needs to work that much.
For someone, maybe 5 hours is enough, but you need 12. And it’s hard, sometimes they think: now I will skate like the others – 5 hours. And it doesn’t work.
I have not seen, but heard that Nathan Chen just comes, collects his elements, goes to college, studies, writes notes, goes on the ice again, collects the elements. It’s great if it’s so, but for someone else it doesn’t work – someone needs to work hard in order to approach at least half of his results.
About Alina Zagitova and preparation to the 2019 Worlds
How did you persuade Alina to go to the World Championships, did you force her?
Eteri Tutberidze: It was already hee second World Championships.
Yes, after the mother returned to her life.
Eteri Tutberidze: Yes, Alina became difficult. She became like she was before I kicked her out. Realizing that she no longer spends 12 hours at the rink, she is absolutely not in such a shape, she does not want to go and skate in front of the whole world, realizing that she is not so strong, she may lose … She did not come to training – not because she was lazy, she simply could not overcome it morally.
And then she sat at home, did not pack her bags. We understood that she would be late for the airport. So I called the staff of “Sambo-70” and asked to pack her bags and just bring her to the airport by car.
I can imagine the headlines of the sports media: brought by force, packed her baggage.
Eteri Tutberidze: Sometimes you read these headlines, that she wanted to continue skating, but we didn’t let her, because we had the next jumping girls there. It is an insult. No, it seems to me that we led Alina on maximum.
And already realizing that that’s all, we choreographed her the program Me Voy – “I’m leaving” so that she was honest in front of the audience. And again we were accused of why we gave her such a program “I’m leaving”, if she wants to continue skating.
source: sports.ru
Related topics: Alina Zagitova, Eteri Tutberidze, Evgenia Medvedeva
It is interesting to see her POV on everything. She’s fascinating. I want to interview her. I wish the translation is better.
It’s interesting to see her point of view on this.