Interview with Jana Khokhlova/Sergei Novitski
NHK Trophy, December 2006

Q: Sergei, you’ve had an injury at the beginning of the season. What happened and how are you now?

S: The injury is still not healed completely. I had an injury in my ankle joint, and I couldn’t skate for three weeks. I underwent therapy, of course. The strong pain is gone – I couldn’t even put on the skating boot. I’m still in pain sometimes when I bend the foot, but it doesn’t disturb me skating. It happened at the beginning of the season, in September. We had to skip the test skate.

Q: The first part of the season with the Grand Prix went well for you. You won your first medals on the Grand Prix. How do you explain your success this year?

J: We checked on many things after last season. This year, we tried to put together more difficult elements and more difficult programs, although we’re very limited within the rules. We tried to earn many extra points on our elements and to get high levels. We’ve just worked very hard and we set new goals for ourselves this season.

Q: You missed the Grand Prix Final narrowly, but did you expect to compete for a spot in the Final this year already?

S: We expected that we can fight for it. If we go to a competition thinking that we can’t compete with the others, then we don’t have to go at all. Therefore we tried our best, of course.

J: When we saw the roster we realized of course that we have a chance and we did the maximum. We could hope to finish third in our first Grand Prix and we could hope to be second or third here (at NHK Trophy), depending on how we skate. It’s sad that we didn’t make the Final. It wasn’t meant to be.

Q: You mix Spanish and Oriental music in your free dance. How did you choose this music?

J: Actually our coach (Alexander Svinin) picked the music, as always. We obviously have to agree, but mostly it’s the decision of our coach. We had a lot of different versions of this music and changed four times. Sometimes the slow part wasn’t fitting, because we didn’t like it or because you heard castagnettes and we didn’t want it, because we used it last year. Finally we found this version and everybody liked it and we all were convinced that this is the right music.

Q: What other versions of music were you looking at?

S: I don’t remember exactly, but they were all versions of this music (Concerto de Aranjuez), but totally different arrangements and parts.

J: We didn’t want to do an Oriental program. At the beginning, we had a version with drums. Alexander Vasilievitch (Svnini) wanted some half Oriental piece with Spanish motives, but I said right away that I don’t want it. Then we decided to pick something Oriental (for the middle part) and it came out quite well.

Q: But don’t you think that this music is similar in style to the Flamenco Bolero you used last year?

J: Yes, maybe, although we tried to do something completely different. We just have our style. Maybe it looks similar to some people, but we tried to make it look different.

S: And it’s not a pure Spanish program like the Flamenco.

J: We don’t want to express the Spanish style so much but something lyrical. It’s about the relationship between man and woman. There is not one hint at Spain in the program, not in the gesture, nor in the choreography, not at all. On the contrary, we want to go into an Oriental direction as you can see in our costumes. We chose them on purpose to be different from last year’s programs.

Q: You mentioned that your program is about the relationship between man and woman. How is your personal relationship, if I may ask? Are you a couple off the ice?

J: No. We are good friends, we have a very warm and friendly relationship. Sometimes we quarrel about professional problems, but in general our relationship is very good.

Q: You have been skating together for a few years now.

S: Yes, for five years.

J: The longer you skate together in ice dancing the more the understanding for each other grows.

Q: What were the biggest obstacles you had to overcome in your career so far?

S: The past season with everything that happened was very difficult for us.

J: Something happened before each competition. I don’t remember that we ever had so many problems. I was sick before one Grand Prix. Sergei injured his foot before Russian Nationals. Then he was sick before Europeans, he had a stomach upset. It was the same before the Olympic Games, we left for a training camp and he had almost 40 degrees fever.

S: I was in bed for one week. We had some problems before each competition. And then we had a car accident before Worlds.

J: We had a hard time before each competition. We couldn’t follow our two weeks preparation plan in a single event. We always had some adventures that destroyed our plan. We had to prepare under extreme circumstances in one or one and a half week and we couldn’t prepare a 100 percent.

Q: How did all this make you stronger?

S: What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

J: Basically yes. It does build your character. If we can cope with conditions like this it will help us in our further career.

Q: You have skated in China and Japan this year. How did you like it?

J: We really like Japan . We’ve come here for the third time. We were for the first time in China. We liked it there, too, everything was great, but in Japan we have already our own fan club, many fans are coming with Russian flags, ask for pictures and give us photographs from our first NHK Trophy and from last year. We have quite a few fans here and obviously it’s nice that they like us remember us, write us letters – even in Russian. Just yesterday we received a card from a girl who wrote that she liked us last year and how happy she is to have seen us again this year and that she can’t wait to see us again at Worlds in Japan . It’s great to have so many fans in Japan . Personally I also liked France . The city ( Paris ) is very impressive. We did a lot of sightseeing as we have competition only on two days, and we walked around even in between practice and competition, we visited the Eiffel tower and the Louvre. The only thing we didn’t see was Notre Dame.

S: I really like it in Japan , the only disadvantage is the difficult time change. Japan and China are not so far away from each other, but it was much easier in China.

J: Yes, we didn’t have any problems there and slept well. But here … I had these problems for the first time. I overcame the time change more easily the past two years. The third night, I’ve slept only for three hours. Maybe it was just nerves, I don’t know.

Q: Did you do some sightseeing in Nagano?

S: We only walked around for two hours on the first day after our arrival.

Q: How do you spend your time in between practice and the competition?

S: Sleeping.

J: Well, it depends on how much time there is in between. If there is not much time, we go back to the hotel of course and have some rest, we try to sleep for a little bit if possible and get ready. Anyway we girls need more time until we have done our make up and our hair. You need two hours to get ready. It’s easier for the boys. If there is a longer break I try to go for a walk, focus, listen to music. I remember when we were in France and had such a big break between practice and the competition that we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We slept a little bit, we ate something, slept again. Then I couldn’t take it anymore and went out for a walk in the park just next to the hotel, and while I was walking, I met all the other athletes! Everybody was walking around with their (music) player and was lost in their own thoughts. It was a very nice, quiet atmosphere.

S: It really depends on the length of the break. For example, at the Olympic Games the practice was over at 10 in the morning and the competition was at eight or nine in the evening. Of course, you don’t know what to do with this time. You go for a walk, you rest, you lay down for a while. Mostly you get ready mentally for the competition. Anyway our thoughts circle around the coming competition. It’s difficult to think about something else. You have to focus on the competition but you should not get caught up into that too much.

Q: Do you discuss questions like this with your coaches or are you working with a psychologist?

S: We don’t work with a psychologist, we just have our coaches.

J: At the beginning of the season, in the first competitions, your are more nervous, of course, because the program is new. It’s much more polished at the end of the season and you do everything automatically, meaning you don’t have to be too nervous because of the elements anymore. I remember China , for example. We went out to skate our free dance and I was focused on each element. You are even afraid that you don’t have enough strength to skate your program until the end, because you concentrate on each lift, each turn, each single detail and that takes away a lot of strength. At the end of the season you skate your program and you don’t have to think about it that much. It’s enough to remember what comes next, and so I just need good concentration and not so much strength at the end of the season. Everything happens by itself.

Q: Thank you very much and all the best for the remaining season!