Evgenia Medvedeva: “The main secret is that Tutberidze does everything in her power to be the best.”
Evgenia Medvedeva for the French newspaper L’Equipe. About her career, training with Tutberidze and Orser, Kamila Valieva and Olympics.
source: L’Equipe, Russian translation by Team.Moonbear
Evgenia Medvedeva: At the moment it’s better for me not to compete, but who knows where I’ll be in a few years.
Like Kamila Valieva, you won all the competitions in your first senior season and did not lose for two years.
Evgenia Medvedeva: It was a lot of fun in these two years, I won everything: World, European, Russian Nationals, Grand Prix Finals. For me at the time it was not very difficult. I was so young, I had fun training and competing. Doing jumps, skating programs, I really liked it all. I liked the atmosphere of the competitions, when everyone knows that you are here to win … and you win, maybe even with a world record. Psychologically, it was not difficult, I enjoyed everything that was happening.
You trained with Eteri Tutberidze for many years before you left her and then came back. How do you explain her success?
Evgenia Medvedeva: We went through a lot with Eteri, there were many ups and downs between us. In Toronto, I discovered a completely different system, mood and rhythm of training. One is not better than the other, there is not much difference. When I returned to train with Eteri in 2020, I found the same atmosphere and almost the same team as two years earlier. The main secret is that Eteri does everything in her power to be the best. This is the secret: direct all your energy to the result. I am very proud of Kamila, her jumps, flexibility, artistry. She does everything at the highest level. I just hope that she will be able to cope with everything during the Olympics, I wish her all the best.
You saw the emergence of quad jumps in women’s singe skating, which appeared in 2019 at the senior level. Will they be necessary to win an Olympic gold medal in Beijing?
Evgenia Medvedeva: The future Olympic champion will definitely need two quads, maybe three, and a triple axel. I don’t think anyone expected such technical improvements in just a few years. I don’t know if that’s amazing or a little scary! In a few years, we will see if the level will continue to develop or not.
You were the last figure skater to retain the World Championship title. Are you very proud of it and do you think it can happen again? A new generation of skaters is quickly replacing the previous one in the first places …
Evgenia Medvedeva: Of course I’m proud of my career, even if I don’t look back too much. There are many skaters who deserve to win several titles in a row. But technical developments and competition are such that this may not happen immediately. There is no doubt that these skaters are writing the history of our sport. A golden story.
Related topics: Eteri Tutberidze, Evgenia Medvedeva, Kamila Valieva
Few are willing to pay the price to be the best, to be the champion of the world. It takes extraordinry determination, extraordinary hard work, sacrifice, committment, endurance, guts, the willingness to do whatever is asked of you; trying when you are too weary to take one more step.
Few coaches know how to lead someone to the top. Fewer can lead more than one. Vince Lombardi was such a coach. His players hated the agony they suffered from the work load he required, the concentration, the whole nine yards, but loved him for drawing out the best in them and winning title after title.
Zagitova only won 1 world championship. She won 1 Olympic Gold. She didn’t win that year’s world. She was 5th.
@veronica
It is perfectly correct. What they meant was “you were the last one to retain (defend successfully) your previous title.” Because Osmond retired after 2018, Alina retired after 2019 title and Anna has only one world title.
But evgenia had both 2016 and 2017 titles.
“You were the last figure skater to retain the World Championship Title”?? Maybe is not translated correctly. Zagitova was Gold medallist Saitama’19 and Medvedeva Bronze at their last competition.