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Interview
Tatiana Tarasova: “I am going to start all over again”
Starting from the next season Tatiana Tarasova is planning to give up coaching. But it does not mean that she would leave figure skating. In the nearest future the great coach is planning to do something different.
VN: Mrs. Tarasova, please, tell us a little bit more about your plans.
TT: People say: “Never say never”. But I am planning to start all over again, from the very beginning. As from the next season I will not coach anymore. Instead I will devote myself to giving consultation the skaters or putting up programs for them. I have already received many different proposals such as seminars or teaching in the summer school of the wonderful Michelle Kwan. I am sure there will be many other proposals - hopefully, from our Federation (Figure Skating Federation of Russia), too. They could, for example, assign me to one of the Skating Arenas in Moscow. If this will not be profitable, I will continue to work with Elena Vodorezova. I will enjoy helping her with young skaters in the Figure Skating School “CSKA”.
VN: What influenced you to make such decision? Is it because you don’t see any skaters that have as much potential as Alexey Yagudin did?
TT: “Yagudins” are not being born every day. It is true that after Alesha (Alexey) retired from the amature sport I wanted to give it all up, too. But I am happy that I didn’t. This way I was able to work with many different skaters - Sasha Cohen, Johnny Weir, Shizuka Arakawa. This summer I was helping Michelle Kwan for three months. Working with her was an inspiration to me. I felt like I was thirty years old and was not moving, but flying around. Knowing that I “laid a brick in the fundament” of all those skaters makes me feel happy. It’s great when I hear Shizuka speaking Russian (she’s learned a couple of worlds), when I receive letters from Johnny Weir that start “Ìîÿ êðàñàâèöà” (“My beautiful” - in Russian). A while ago Sasha Cohen presented me her book with the words of gratitude signed on it. She personally came to the rink where I worked to give me this precious book.
VN: Do you students ever become jealous? For example, how did Shizuka feel about the fact that you were making programs for Kwan?
TT: I didn’t ask her. It is my profession - to help skaters. I’ve never swore that I would work only with one of them. I do what I can and what is interesting for me. I don’t go after any of the skaters, don’t “grab them by the hands”. I hardly speak any foreign language. But if somebody needs me, they manage to get my phone number, just the way Michelle Kwan did.
VN: How will you plans affect your nowadays skaters - Andrey Gryazev, dance couple Olga Orlova - Vitaliy Novikov?
TT: I keep on working hard with Andrey. It would not have been right to leave him during the Olympic Season. As for the new couple... I put them together but they will continue their training under the guidance of the young coach Nikolai Morozov. This dance couple is very interesting and, hopefully, they will have promising future. And Kolya (Nikolay) is a very creative personality, talented and extremely hard-working coach who has a lot of ideas in his head.
VN: How would you explain that your generation presented so many talented coaches?
TT: We tried not only to realize our potential, but also to express our inner self in what we do. And we had something to say. Elena Chaikovskaya, Natalia Dubova and myself created a new dimension of figure skating and ice dancing. Every one of us went her own captivating way - through tears and success.
The present moment has to bring new talented coaches, too. They will have to create something of their own in accordance with the new rules. Frankly speaking, I don’t like those rules. But the next generation will learn to combine difficult elements and composition in accordance with the new rules. The most important is not to put technical part above the presentation.
VN: The Figure Skating Federation of Russia is approaching the election. How do you think, does the Federation need new tendencies?
TT: Frankly speaking, I didn’t think about it. I, personally, have no desire to become the head of our Federation. It’s not mine. I think changes are good when the situation in the sports is bad. Figure Skating in Russia, on the contrary, is heading forward and I consider it to be one of the most successful sports. That’s why I leave the question of “friends and foes” outside the skating rink. The results are what counts. I understand that you are asking me about the President of the FFSR Valentin Piseev. I was not a special friend of his, not as Stas Zhuk. He was his friend. But I would never say anything bad about him as a professional, and, to my mind, that is exactly how people should be judged.
VN: You might know that Elena Chaikovskaya has a different opinion. After the World Figure Skating Championships in Moscow she addressed Valentin Piseev in an opened letter, accusing him of having collapsed the national figure skating.
TT: I do not agree with Elena Chaikovskaya about the other letter, too - a letter for Khodorkovskiy, that she and Ira Rodnina signed earlier. I am a different person and I am interested in other things. I like working with skaters during the summer months, when programs are being composed, new elements are being created, when we look for a perfect musing and costumes. I consider this to be the most important job. I like being a creator in my own lab. And I wouldn’t want to go to the competitions: not because I don’t trust the new system, or I didn’t trusted the old one. I just don’t want to think, standing at the rink-board, how many people arranged things with each other.
Starting from the next season Tatiana Tarasova is planning to give up coaching. But it does not mean that she would leave figure skating. In the nearest future the great coach is planning to do something different.