Interview Oksana Domnina/Maxim Schabalin
European Championships in Zagreb , January 2008
Q: Did you realize by now that you have won the title?
Oksana: I think when we get home we’ll fully understand our victory, but right now we are very calm about it. There are not so big emotions. We are very happy, but maybe we are tired and therefore we don’t have many emotions.
Q: This season was successful for you so far with a victory at the Grand Prix Final and Europeans.
Oksana: We are training in order to make steps forward. Therefore there is nothing surprising about that and we’re not shocked about it. It’s not like we appeared out of nowhere and rose to the top immediately. Our career went through certain stages. We’ve been skating together for five years already, and in those five years, we’ve grown step by step and moved up. It wasn’t like we teamed up and were in the top three right away. We also stood in this line.
Q: How have you changed during this time?
Maxim: Everybody is changing from day to day. So of course we’re not the same persons as we were last year.
Q: How did you become an ice dancer?
Maxim: First of all my parents picked figure skating. Then I went into dance, because there was a young coach, Oleg Sudakov (in Samara) who saw something in me and suggested that I should try ice dancing. I was rather fat until I was ten years old.
Q: What do you like about ice dancing?
Oksana: Dancing itself. The relationship between the partners. I think it’s more interesting anyway when there is a sort of inner dialogue between the partners.
Q: What do you like about Maxim?
Oksana: Patience. His good character. Courage. Beauty. (laughs). I can’t find any minuses.
Maxim: Because there aren’t any.
Oksana: Of course, there are some! There are no people without any minuses. But he is a really good partner.
Q: And what do you like about Oksana?
Maxim: She is just the best. In everything. As woman, as a dancer. She is a goddess.
Q: What do you think what her strengths are compared to other ice dancers?
Maxim: I think no words are needed, it’s so obvious. When she goes out on the ice, you don’t see the other dancers anymore. She draws attention immediately.
Q: Tatjana Tarasova suggested you this free dance, didn’t she?
Oksana: She suggested the music, but all ideas for the program came from our choreographer. She suggested the music to us, and we first declined to use it, but at the end we had to return to it. It’s a good dance, with soul and lively. But to be honest I liked last year’s free dance better.
Maxim: I like it. We wanted something different at first, but now I like it.
Q: Does Tatjana Tarasova work with you?
Maxim: She is helping from time to time, especially concerning the components of the program. We are grateful for that. She radiates a certain kind of energy. Technically she isn’t helping us as we have our coach, who is excellent. But there comes always this inner energy from her that lights you up.
Q: What are your plans for Worlds?
Maxim: We want to show skating that will deserve the gold medal.
Q: How long do you want to compete?
Maxim: For now until the Olympic Games in Vancouver, and then we will see.
Q: Do you have any hobbies?
Maxim: Of course. There are many and new ones are added periodically. Not long ago I started to play the guitar. I like a lot to read, to travel, in general I try not to lag behind real life. Last summer, I went to the Elbrus mountain (in the Caucasus) and practiced Yoga. I took part in a class. I started to practice Yoga last year. It helps me and it is very interesting.
Q: Do you practice other sports?
Maxim: Well, I’d love to, but my limited time doesn’t allow me. I love soccer, I love car racing. But you have to limit yourself.
Q: What else do you like to do?
Maxim: I like watching movies. Even when I was a child, I loved going to the cinema. There was a time when going to the cinema wasn’t very popular. I remember that I would go and buy five tickets, because they wouldn’t show the movie if only one ticket was sold. So I would buy five and watch the movie by myself.
Q: You must have had a lot of pocket money!
Maxim: No, the tickets were really cheap.
Q: Wasn’t it boring to watch the movie alone?
Maxim: I am not afraid of being lonely. I prefer to be by myself than being in just any company.
Q: What are your hobbies?
Oksana: Sleeping! There is no real hobby. I like going to the cinema and listening to music. Maxim loves the mountains, but I don’t have such hobbies.
Q: What kind of music do you like?
Oksana: Different kinds, I only don’t like rock music. I can listen to rap, pop, soul, classical music, depending on my mood.
Q: Do you go to the ballet?
Oksana: Unfortunately, only rarely.
Maxim: There is just no time for it.
Q: You are listed as students. What do you study?
Oksana: I’m studying psychology.
Maxim: I’m studying civil administration. So I could become a politician (laughs).
Q: Are you aspiring to become a politician after your skating career?
Maxim: No, this is not my world. When I’m done with skating, I’d like to buy a yacht and travel the seas. I’d wear an eye patch, like a pirate, and I’d take Vazgen Azroyan with me.
Older interview from Cup of China
Harbin, November 2007
Q: What goals did you set yourself for this season?
Oksana: The past two years already we’re setting the goal for ourselves to win, everywhere and against everybody. But I think that’s the goal of any athlete, who wants to achieve something. The goal is to be first, to be the best.
Maxim: Yes! I totally agree.
Q: What conclusions did you draw from the 2007 World Championships when you skated well but finished fifth?
Oksana: We drew the conclusion that we skated well for us, but the circumstances were as they were and that’s it. But in general we learned that we have to work, work, work, a million times to work harder.
Maxim: Yes.
Oksana: Maxim! Say something more.
Maxim: We did everything that depended on us. We did our job well, as we always try to do it and as we continue to try to do. The conclusions are, no matter what you are doing, there are circumstances that you can’t influence, unfortunately.
Q: What is new this season?
Maxim: I have a lighter version of my body. I don’t have a meniscus and no appendix, this is new! (laughs). And I lost some weight. Some people try to lose weight and have difficulties to do so, and I’m trying to gain some weight and it’s a problem for me.
Oksana: He lost some weight because of the illness and the surgery, and now he can’t get it back.
Maxim: We increased our workload even more compared to last year, and we will increase it even more.
Oksana: Anyway everything is getting more difficult technically with each year and you have to have a certain physical preparation.
Maxim: Yes, we started to work seriously with an off-ice trainer, and I think we’ll continue working with him throughout the whole season. We’ve worked with him a year ago, we tried it. This year we worked with him for a few months.
Oksana: Unfortunately, we lost some of this physical preparation because of the surgery of Maxim.
Maxim: I don’t think it was in vain.
Oksana: No, it wasn’t in vain, that’s sure for a 100 percent. But the surgery still threw us off track a little.
Maxim: Flexibility is developing from day to day, strength is developing from month to month and endurance from year to year. Therefore this is a long-term work.
Q: When did you have your appendix surgery?
Maxim: Somewhere in the middle of September, on the 15 th or 16 th . I was in hospital for two weeks.
Q: How big was the chance that you’d miss the Cup of China?
Oksana: The competition was in danger until the very last moment, before we left. We really wanted to come. Thank God, everything was fine with our health last month and we were able to prepare. One week before we were confident that we can compete.
Q: How many run throughs of your free dance did you have?
Maxim: We did run throughs almost every day. We constantly made some changes, because we didn’t have time before. What we usually do in July and August, we now had to do in September and October. We tried to catch up with the time we lost. So we got into shape and we easily skate through our original and free dances. But the quality wasn’t good enough here.
Q: When you came out of hospital, when did you start practice?
Maxim: One week later. It was rather fast.
Oksana: And dangerous.
Maxim: There was no choice. The choice would have been to withdraw (from the Cup of China), and we didn’t want to do that.
Q: How did you choose your original dance music, a Cossack dance?
Oksana: This is a program for Maxim
Maxim: I don’t think there is much to say about it. The music says everything.
Oksana: We started to put together an exhibition program for the Averbukh tour. Sergej Georgevitch (Petukhov) brought this music. We said, this is great music and we have to save it for the original dance. It was waiting for a half a year. We had no problems in putting together this program as far as I remember. It went really easy and it suits our mood. When you don’t have energy, it’s hard.
Maxim: It went really well, even in our first competition. Usually at the first competitions Sergej Georgievitch isn’t happy with how we interpret the program, only towards the end of the season he is pleased. But here we grasped it pretty well.
Oksana: He was happy with the character of all three dances here.
Q: What about your free dance?
Maxim: This is a difficult story. We started to make a program to “Schindler’s List”, and we felt it was coming along well. “Schindler’s List” is a tragic theme. We heard the music and decided that we need a fast part, because it (the slow part) was long. We found a fast part and thought it was good, but when we put it together it looked like hodgepodge. Then Tatjana Anatoljevna Tarasova came and said that it’s not working.
Q: When was this?
Oksana: This was end of July. Considering this – we usually put together our program in May. In May we couldn’t do it, because Maxim had knee surgery. So everything was dragged on to July. We put together the original dance in July. Then we put together the free dance and changed it end of July. So you can say that we started to work on the free dance in August. I think if he were able to put together the programs in May, even Maxim’s surgery in September wouldn’t have thrown us off so much. But so, obviously, the knee and the appendicitis, all came together. It is actually surprising (how we did here).
Maxim: We coped with all of it, thanks God.
Q: What is the story of your free dance “Waltz Masquerade”?
Maxim: Maxim is a complacent playboy from St. Petersburg, a nasty guy, who saw everything in life, doesn’t believe in anything. She is the innocent victim, a young girl…
Oksana: … whom her parents force to marry him. It’s the wedding. She is unhappy, but he his satisfied that he conquered me.
Maxim: Not conquered, but just got her. She doesn’t love him. It’s a tragedy.
Oksana: It’s a tragedy for me! At the end he kisses me and I’m like dying.
Maxim: That’s almost like a rape.
Oksana: When you explain the story, it’s obvious. You can understand it right from the beginning.
Q: Was the Waltz your back up?
Maxim: No, Tatjana Anatoljevna suggested it to us in the very beginning.
Oksana: She recommended this music at the end of last season, but we were skeptical.
Maxim: When we started to work on our (first) dance (Schindler’s List), we felt that it was coming along well.
Oksana: But then we had to add a fast part, which didn’t go at all with this tragic theme. But the whole four minutes, for that (a program) you would need someone to write some strong parts. I don’t know, maybe we’ll think about it for the future.
Q: You could first try to do an exhibition program.
Maxim: Probably we’ll do just this.
Oksana: This music is just beautiful. It gives you goosebumps.
Q: Thanks for the interview and good luck for the rest of the season!
