Running Around the Vacancy

Elena Vaitsekhovskaya
www.velena.ru
21.03.2006
translated by Trinity

     The second day performances, first in ice dance, and later in men’s short program, lead to a thought the most of the skaters peaked here in Calgary and not a month ago in Torino. Maybe there is an explanation. In Torino, everyone understood pretty well that the Russian skaters were the favorites in all four events despite the talks that the Russians won’t be allowed to win everything, and would get two, maximum three golds. The could mentally killed the strongest contenders. It could’ve killed their desire to have the hopeless fight. The vacancies are empty in Calgary. The medal fight acquired a completely different sharp taste.

     No one reporter or commentator even said a word about men’s event missing Evgeni Plushenko. That’s how high and intriguing the level was. Brian Joubert was the best in the short program, showing his personal best result, but staid in the third place considering the qualification round. Emmanuel Sandhu was second in the short program but failed first performance put him down to fifth. Stephane Lambiel is still in the lead, but he was only fourth in the short program. And nobody knows what to think of Nobunari Oda getting in the middle of all these “name” skaters. He was even more shocked himself. He even said at the press-conference, “Somehow I didn’t expect to be here, so I don’t know what to say.”

     This days predictions weren’t too nice for Russia. There was some weak hope for the men’s event, for Ilia Klimkin being able to at least get close to the leaders. However, Klimkin finished 10th after missing the triple flip. Andrei Griazev didn’t skate well in the qualifying round and you could feel that his first international competition , while he got here accidentally, costs him an unbelievable effort. Griazev could’ve gone for more “consistent” option, and exclude the quad. He picked the most difficult way and took the risk. He missed, falling on the landing, making a mistake on the flip. He fell apart, finishing the program with level two footwork.

     It’s hard to blame the skater. If he excluded the quad, he would simply postpone the inescapable stage of including the jump in the short program for one more year. He had to do it, because Griazev is a kind of skater who has to go for difficulty and being mistake free first of all, not for musicality and charisma.

     In the ice dance, it was initially assumed the best Russia team, Oksana Domnina/Maxim Shabalin would be able to place higher than sixth. What can we say about the team two!

     However, there was just as much talking about the second Russian team, Jana Khokhlova/Sergei Novitski. I don’t mean the compulsory dance. The top group are of equal strengths, and the compulsory results don’t mean much. So, the talks were mostly about the recent events.

     Khokhlova/Novitski made their senior debut this season and made some noise at the Europeans in January. It’s not often the first-times make top ten on the first try. More importantly, everyone who saw them remembered them because of their style, programs, costumes, intelligent image and rare movement culture that set the Moscow school apart during the times of Elena Chaikovskaya and Tatiana Tarasova.

     Maybe it shouldn’t come as surprise. Their coach Alexander Svinin and his wonderful partner Olga Volozhinskaya were Chaikovskaya’s students. After he retired from the sport, Svinin skated with Tarasova’s Ice Theater with his now –wife Irina Zhuk, who is choreographing for Khokhlova/Novitski. After they skated their free program in Torino, Natalia Bestemianova, Calgary’s Olympic champion, called Irina Zhuk to express her admiration saying that Jana and Sergei almost the only team in the World that wasn’t made ugly by the new rules.

     By the way, Khokhlova and Novitski, could’ve missed the Worlds. After they came back from Torino, they performed at the shows in Moscow and St. Petersburg with the rest of the skaters from the national steam. They decided to decline the second show in Moscow, set for March 10th. They went to Novogorsk to continue practicing. During their first day, they got into a bad accident returning home to Moscow late at night. Sergei started passing the huge track that suddenly blocked the road, and he didn’t noticed that a road was blocked by one more car just like that. He hit it with a pretty good speed.

     Jana was sitting next to him. She was buckled up and almost didn’t suffer. She got off easy, bruising her knee. The driver’s side was hit much harder. The skaters’ Ford was totaled. Novitski badly damaged his knees, and despite the airbags, hit his head against the windshield. According to Svinin, when he saw the skater several hours later, he looked like he had two heads.

     What was important that after such a strong hit, they both were alive. Sergei’s concussion symptoms disappeared in several days. It wouldn’t be hard to manage the side effects in the shape of scary bruises by using the masking foundation closer to the performances.

     Svinin was laughing, telling us how one reporter came to Novogorsk after the accident. She asked the coach, “Do you ever yell at your skaters?” He said, “What can I tell you”, and here was Novitski, coming out of locker room with the purple face.

     After coming to Calgary I couldn’t miss the chance to ask Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk more about their students.

     Svinin recalls, “Jana and Sergei are skating with us for the third season. They came to Sokolniki rink and asked us to take them. As it turned out later, they came secretly at first just too look from the side how Ira and I work. Maybe they liked something. Maybe it was because Jana and Sergei parents liked our team with Olia Volozhinskaya at the time. We met with them too, explaining that we couldn’t offer much to their children.

     - At the time, we had a very bad working conditions. It was just horrible. We had two 45-minute practices on the ice daily. The rest of the time was given to hockey. There was not enough ice so we trained everywhere we could. We paid for the ice during the public skating sessions at other rinks. We carved out some little spots and worked there. The team wasn’t put off by that. Their first year with us, they had to train in these horrible conditions. Ira and I were constantly waiting for them to leave. We would understand, but they staid.

     - There was enough dance coaches in Russia three years ago. Weren’t you afraid to take on the talented skaters without having any coaching experience and any students?

     - Then, Khokhlova/Novitski weren’t considered talented. It was more like hopeless. If you remember, tall and noticeable dancers were the leaders in Russia than. Jana and Sergei looked small comparing to them. So, that’s probably why they were considered as having no future even though under the new rules, flexibility combined with not being tall gives you a big advantage. Also, Sergei is very reliable and consistent partner.

     - How actively your skaters get involved in the creative side of the process?

     - We always discuss programs with them. They are educated and they know and love the music. Still, Irina and I are responsible for choreographing the free dance. We always prepare carefully, looking at the tons of the material, so the music choice is never accidental.

     - Did anybody tell you that debutants picking Bolero by in the Olympic year is very daring?

     - We didn’t expect it ourselves. We looked at many music options, and Bolero wasn’t even on the list. We skated during Torvill and Dean era, and I think Bolero was sort of a taboo not only for us, but for our whole generation. A person who helps us look for music brought the Bolero. He said it wasn’t the classical option, we wouldn’t even listen to that. It was a so-called Bolero-flamenco. We were so impressed by this music that all the other compositions got lost at once. We are very proud because not one person who came up to us to express their opinion said that it was plagiarizing.

     - Whose idea was that to have such an unusual “gymnastic” style?

     - It was mostly out of desperation and not having enough space on ice. We often had no chance to work on the amplitude elements and footwork, so we tried to look for the elements that we could practice in a little space and that could be memorable. This worked. After Khokhlova/Novitski appeared for the first time at Russian competitions, we were constantly asked where did they came from. Maybe our experience of skating in a theatrical shows played a part. We skated at the very small rinks. After we left Tarasova’s theater, we worked with Giuseppe Arena a lot. This also helped us to get a lot of knowledge for choreography.

     - Did Irina and you hoped that your skaters’ international debut would be so bright?

     - To be honest, we didn’t even dream about it.