Interview Maria Mukhortova/Maxim Trankov Russian Nationals 2007, Mytishchi
Q: Did you realize by now that you are Russian Champions?
Maxim: Well, yesterday, after we skated, we had interviews in the press room and then we went to the doping control, so we were busy the whole time and we didn’t have time to think, and I only realized that I’m Russian Champion after Andrei Griazev skated. He is my friend, I was rooting for him and after he skated I knew that he had a good chance to win and I realized that I am also Russian Champion when we congratulated each other. We both have gone through difficult times and this time it went well for us.
Maria: I haven’t really realized it until now, even when we were on the podium I didn’t fully understand what happened. I was still upset about the mistakes.
Q: You had some difficulties in this season so far, and you changed coaches several times – from Nikolai Velikov to Tamara Moskvina, then to Artur Dmitriev and finally to Oleg Vasiliev. What happened?
Maxim: Well, we went from Velikov to Tamara Nikolaevna (Moskvina) only because Nikolai Matveevitch suggested that we go to Liudmila Georgievna (Velikova), because she is working with senior couples. But she is a soft person and we knew that she would not be the leader among us. We need a strict coach who puts us in our place. We went to Tamara Nikolaevna, because there weren’t any other coaches at this time. At the World Championships (in Calgary ) she said that she would take on a second pair. We weren’t so happy at first, because we had seen her work with Obertas/Slavnov, and we didn’t like her programs, her way of coaching, her elements, but as we had no choice, we decided to give it a shot, because she is a great coach and has produced many Olympic Champions and medallists.
Q: When I saw you last May in Novogorsk you seemed to be happy with your situation.
Maxim: Yes, we worked a lot for a month, did new programs and were busy. But then we couldn’t keep up with her speed and lagged behind her plan and because of the other elements we started to struggle with our jumps, like Julia Obertas. We both struggled with the jumps, although I never had problems before and the throw jumps that we were doing at a hundred percent since we were juniors started going wrong. Our relationship with Tamara Nikolaevna deteriorated. That was because of me, because I like an artistic approach and Tamara Nikolaevna didn’t value our opinion so much. She was the boss and we had to follow. We didn’t like that. She noticed it and said that we maybe should go to another coach. We didn’t want to leave her group and asked Artur Dmitriev to help us. But Artur is not working as a coach in Russia. He is the pair skating consultant of the National Team. He is very busy, he is performing in shows. So we spend only ten practice sessions with him in three months and basically we trained alone. Of course, we got into serious trouble. It is very hard to train alone. We can’t do it, we are not professional enough. When we came to the Cup of Russia, Tatiana Druchinina (Dmitriev’s wife) helped us a lot. Without her, everything would have gone downhill even before. The nervous and physical pressure was high at the Cup of Russia and I injured myself in the short program on the triple toe. We skated the free program and I aggravated the injury. I couldn’t train for two weeks after the Cup of Russia. So we’ve been training with Oleg Vasiliev for four weeks and everything we did here was the result of two weeks of training.
Q: How did you switch to Oleg Vasiliev?
Maxim: Tatiana Anatolievna Tarasova helps us a lot. She told us that we have to start to practice seriously, because we lost a lot of time already. We said that we are about to quit, because we don’t see any options. She said that she is going to talk to Oleg.
Maria: We decided always together when we switched coaches.
Q: How do you feel with your new coach?
Maxim: Very comfortable. Of course, we’re working a lot and very hard, and he never promised that it’s going to be easy. We like that he is very calm. He is not like Tamara Nikolaevna, who is hectic and running around all the time, pushing us. Masha and myself are a bit different. Oleg is calm, he extinguishes the emotional fire. We have an explosive character. He is working calmy, and maybe we were looking for that. We have been with him for only four weeks, but so far this is the best solution, also concerning the technique. Masha and I never were able to skate a good short program. We did clean longs, but we always had some mistakes in the short. When we skated a clean short here at Nationals, I was very excited, because it happened for the very first time. We did everything like in practice, not better and not worse.
Maria: He is constructing the practices in an intelligent way. He notices when we get tired and he can push us so that we don't tire and that we can give the maximum.
Q: How did you overcome the difficult times you went through?
Maria: It was very hard and we thought that we will stop competing and go to a show or ice ballet. I really was fed up with everything, with the pressure. I was broken. Maxim didn’t help me much getting out of that situation, but our new coach, Oleg Vasiliev, did. He is supporting me. We have talks, separately from Maxim. He is talking to us separately. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but it helps. He is taking control and makes sure that we focus on our work.
Maxim: It was harder for Mashka than for me, obviously as I always believed in myself and knew my place under the sun. It was difficult for Mashka, because she got a lot of negative feedback, that she is cold, that she is not as good as I am and it was difficult to convince her that this is not true. Oleg is helping her a lot psychologically.
