Interviews with coach Oleg Vasiliev, Maria Mukhortova and Maxim Trankov
Novogorsk, May 2008
Q: How do you rate the past season for your team?
Oleg Vasiliev: There were positive and negative aspects of the season. There was the problem with Maxim’s arm that prevented them from delivering a good free program at Worlds. It was a rather serious problem and it took us two months to find out what was wrong. We really found out about it just two weeks ago and started to treat the origin of the problem. Everything else was good in the season, except for some results that we had planned differently. Their first competition last year, the Finlandia Trophy, was very successful. They didn’t skate badly in the Grand Prix although there were a few mistakes. Overall it was a significant progress compared to last year. There was a progress in the skating itself, in their understanding of the situation, and therefore I’m rather happy with them. The season was a step forward and we are going into the right direction.
Maria Mukhortova: There is progress and the most important thing is that we realize what we are doing which wasn’t always the case before. We just used to come to practice, we were told to do something, we did it and we went home. Now we know what we are doing and why we are doing it. Everything goes through our heads.
Q: What prompted this development?
Maria: There was a change within ourselves and our coach helped us to change our mindset. We grew up and we got more experience.
Q: What are your plans for the next season?
Oleg: We know already that we’ll have a new free program. We’ve started to work on it. This program will be different from what they did before. It will be a very interesting program, it will be “their” program. It comes from the inside, and therefore it will be easy and interesting to skate for them. It’s always easier when you skate something from yourself than something that you don’t like. So this program will come to them much easier than the one they’ve skated the past two years. They didn’t feel this program (Rachmaninov), although they skated it and made a lot of effort to skate it well. But it still wasn’t “their” program that would have given them a complete satisfaction. This year we decided to go from their inner situation and to base the program on their personalities. So we think that it will be a good program. We are still thinking about the short program. We have different music to choose from, but it’s possible that we keep last year’s program. This decision has yet to be made. First we’ll finish the free program, then we’ll start with the short program. (Meanwhile, apparently, the couple did make a new short program).
Q: Did you choose the music for the new program yourselves?
Maria: We chose this music together with our coach and we really like it. We are enjoying working on this program and we think that this music really suits us. Maxim will be such a hooligan and I’m a young lady who tells him not to come too close to her. I think we’ll be able to illustrate that (laughs).
Q: Is the music still a secret?
Oleg: We don’t yet want to talk about it. We’re only saying that it is a Russian composer.
Q: What are your plans for the summer?
Oleg: We’ll be from June 22 to July 13 in Chicago , from July 14 to 31 in St. Petersburg , then we’ll go with the complete St. Petersburg skating school for ten days or two weeks to Sweden . We’ll be in St. Petersburg again in the second half of August. End of August, we’ll go to Novogorsk to the test skate. I think it will take place from August 25 to 31. From September on we’ll be at home (in St. Petersburg ) and prepare already for our competitions.
Q: Are you planning to attend any of the fall competitions?
Oleg: Yes, I’m planning the first competition for the end of September or early October. We didn’t yet make a final decision.
Q: You could come to Oberstdorf for Nebelhorn Trophy!
Oleg: This is very well possible. There is always an ISU seminary (judges’ examination). For sure it would be helpful for the athletes and for me as well as a member of the (coaches commission of the) Technical Committee.
Q: Where do you see the strong points of your pair?
Oleg: The strong point of this couple is their individuality that isn’t yet completely exposed. Technically the skaters have two different very consistent side by side triples in practice, and it’s just a psychological factor that prevents them from performing these jumps a 100 percent in competition. But we are working on that and I’m sure that we will achieve a 100 percent eventually. I think this is a strong point as not so many couples consistently can do two different side by side triples. They also have good triple throws, interesting and difficult lifts. All the elements that they perform are technically clean and are in accordance with the current judging system. These are their strong points.
Maria: And the spins! (laughs)
Oleg: We don’t want to reveal all our secrets (smiles). Everybody has their weakness, but we are trying not to show them to the public and spectators.
Q: How is the practice going now?
Oleg: These past two months since the World Championships, we’ve worked – besides on treating Maxim’s arm – on improving their skating skill, that is steps and connection moves. These basic elements for figure skating were our main task in these two months. I think that this task was fulfilled, and they both have improved their skating skills significantly. They master the blade, we’ve changed a few things. It had to be done. If it wasn’t done at the beginning of their pair skating career, it had to be done now. It’s never too late. This is important for good skating. Your German pair does have that. They skate softly, with deep edges, with flow. Maxim had problems with the basic skating all the time, not with the jumps or with the lifts, but with the skating itself. I think that he progressed a lot in these two months.
Q: Some people are saying that Mascha and Maxim are too reminiscent of Tatiana Totmianina and Maxim Marinin in their style. What do you answer to this criticism?
Oleg: First of all it’s not bad if Mascha and Maxim are compared to the Olympic Champions. It’s only positive, if the athletes Mukhortova and Trankov, who aren’t at their peak yet, already are reminiscent of the 2006 Olympic Champions. I think they are compared, because they have very similar body types. Tatiana and Max and Mascha and Max both have long arms and legs and a nice line, and it wouldn’t be reasonable if I as a coach wouldn’t use that. It wouldn’t be right to change their style and to make something different out of the tall Maxim and Mascha with her slight build. Why should they hide their natural advantages? These people are just of similar nature and so it probably has to be that they are skating in a similar way. It’s not like that I want that. We are starting from what nature has given to us and from what they can do as individuals. There are certain moments like the exit from a lift. If skaters with short arms and legs are doing it, it will look similar, and so it does for skaters with long arms and legs. They won’t have the same or identical style, they will have their individual style, and I hope that we are going to see this in this coming season for a100 percent, as we are building a program from scratch and we are not modifying a program like we did last season.
Q: How do you want to compete with the leading pairs in the new season?
Oleg: Consistency is our reserve that we haven’t used yet fully. As soon as they will be capable to perform their elements with, let’s say, 90 percent consistency, this will be that reserve that will allow them to progress. We are refining the elements, for example the twist and the side by side elements such as the jumps and spins, something will be new, something will be renewed, for yet something else we’ll increase the level of difficulty. Maybe we’ll replace some things in the free program with other things. We are working seriously to achieve the highest possible score with the technical skills that they have. In single skating, the Canadian (Jeffrey Buttle) won the World Championships, and he won, because he used the possibilities of this system for a 100 percent. He didn’t leave out one single aspect that he mastered. He was able to do a triple-triple combination and he did it. He was able to do all the triple jumps and he did them. His rivals may master technically more difficult jumps, but they didn’t do them. They didn’t use their possibilities. Therefore I think that our job is to do what we can do for a 100 percent. This will be not just one but two or three steps forward for the couple Mukhortova/Trankov.
Maria: I totally agree with Oleg. The most important thing is consistency and confidence – and to skate with so much joy that judges and spectators like it.
Q: Sometimes I have the impressions that you got rather low components in spite of performing well.
Oleg: (sighs) Judging in figure skating is always connected with a certain inertia, in one or the other direction. When Maria and Maxim moved up from juniors, they received component scores from 5 and 6, and it was very hard to overcome the inertia in the thinking of the judges within one season. Now another season has passed and I think that we’ll be able to reach the next level in the third season and to receive marks from 7 to 8 and maybe even higher than 8. It hasn’t do to anything with how they skated – good or bad -, but with the fact, as strange as it seems, that the judges will award the second mark more for merits than for the actual performance. This is a fact. This was true for my previous couple (Totmianina/Marinin) and now is true for the German couple (Savchenko/Szolkowy). We observe, the longer the athletes are skating, the higher rises the second mark, no matter if they skated well or maybe not so well today. The second mark is more or less the same. This involves the inertia of thinking and no judging system can eliminate this factor.
Q: How annoying is that?
Oleg: It is annoying, it’s a shame, but it’s practically impossible to fight against that. As Mascha said correctly, you have to skate with such a joy that it affects the judges.
Q: Thanks for the interview and good luck for the new season!
Maxim Trankov
Q: How do you rate the past season?
Maxim Trankov: It’s a little difficult for me to rate it. There were good things, and a lot of less good things, but we learned many elements, new elements. We learned to do our elements cleanly, we learned to work on our programs on a high level, to interact with our new coach and between us. That was a plus. The minus was that we didn’t make it to the Grand Prix Final, although we were ready to participate in a competition of this level. (Another minus was) my neck injury that led to the well known not so good result at Worlds. Considering my injury it was a good season overall. I had this (injury) problem already at Europeans, even in our two Grand Prix events, at Nationals, and we still got some quite good results. I can’t say that it was a bad season.
Q: How are you treating your injury now?
Maxim: It’s complicated, because I luxated the first cervical vertebrae, and this is the one that holds the head. The doctor told me that you can’t fix it with massage but only with osteopathy which needs a lot of time. We’re doing that now and I feel that my body is adjusting. My body already orientated itself to the left. I adjusted to the left, for the jumps and for everything else, and that wasn’t good. It’s better now and I didn’t have any problems anymore with my arm during the last one and a half months. Obviously I was doing less lifts and twists, but I started doing more now and so far it’s fine.
Q: How is the preparation of the season going?
Maxim: We are focusing on improving the quality of our (triple) twist, to do it with a good split and to add more difficulty. We actually did a good twist last year. We mostly got a level one or two, but we did it well, and now we need to increase the difficulty to achieve a higher level. We’ll have a new free program. Considering the short program, I don’t know yet, we didn’t think about it if we are changing it or not. It’s 50:50. But personally, I’d prefer to change it!
Q: Why? Otonal was a very nice program.
Maxim: I’ve just enough from it, I always want to do something new, I like building up something new and skating to it. I’m very happy that we are changing the free. I never liked it from the beginning.
Q: You didn’t like it? But you told me one time that you like Rachmaninov.
Maxim: I like Rachmaniniov, but I couldn’t skate to this music. Rachmaninov is my favourite composer, but it was hard for me to skate to this music because I never felt adequate performing to it. I never was satisfied with how I interpreted this program. It was hard from me, choreography-wise and emotion-wise. I didn’t pull it off. Therefore I didn’t like it so much.
Q: But you like the new program, don’t you?
Maxim: Yes, because this program, if it works out as planned, is about Mascha and myself. We don’t really have to play anything on the ice, because it’s just us. We’ll play ourselves.
Q: What are your goals for the new season?
Maxim: Our goal is to qualify for the Grand Prix Final, because Mascha and I never competed in this event. It will be together with the juniors for the first time, and it would be interesting to compete in the first combined Final. Secondly we want to fight at least for the same place at Europeans that we had last season (second) and to come as close as possible to Aliona Savchenko/Robin Szolkowy, meaning not to lose so clearly and even try to win if this is possible. At Worlds, we just want to progress. We made a step forward (this year). We were 12 th , then 11 th and now 7 th , and we could have been 6 th , we only lost because of one element. I think we can compete for a spot in the top five or top three at Worlds. It’s hard to say anything about Russian Nationals, because this is an unpredictable competition.
Q: How do you want to compete against the current top teams, the Gemans and the Chinese?
Maxim: In order to compete with the Chinese, you mainly have to do your elements cleanly, because the Chinese don’t show very clean basic skating. The Chinese are a much smaller problem to me than Savchenko/Szolkowy. Savchenko/Szolkowy are extraordinary and have a well-carved style. I like them a lot, and they are interesting to watch. They do have their weakness, and we just can’t show any weakness (competing against them). We looked bad compared to them especially in the skating skills, because I wasn’t so strong in this area. I’ve worked a lot now on the footwork, on the basics, because nobody taught me this when I started skating back in Perm. There was nobody. The boys there are also just starting now to learn it, with 18 years. But nobody taught me anything back then. So when the new judging system with all these steps came it was hard for me, because I couldn’t even do the simple stuff, to be honest. Now it starts working out and I understood what I have to do with my feet. I think I’ll able to add the rest, too.
Q: Thanks for the interview and good luck for the new season!
