|
This is an TV interview from the Russian talkshow "Naobum" in February 2003 by Nika Strizhak
Q: I’m very glad to see you here. Thank you for finding some time for us despite your intensive shedule. Evgeni: Hello everyone, first of all ....Actually it’s my life. I have such life. I began skating when I was 4, such a little boy and my mum introduced me into the figure skating... Q: You couldn’t even imagine that everything would happen in such a way, could you? Evgeni: Of course I couldn’t. My mom used to say: “All we wanted is to try to skate, to see what you’ll be able to do”. My parents didn’t think of any medals or World Championships. Q: I wonder how much time passed before coaches began to examine you closely and perceive seriously. Evgeni: Well, you know after 3 months of skating I took part in my first competitions. Q: Really?
Evgeni: Yes, really. I participated in the contest alongside with children who had already practised for 1-1,5 years.
Q: Was a special program designed for you? Evgeni: Yes, I already had my own program at that time. Q: Do you remember what elements were you able to execute then? Evgeni: I wish I remembered.. I wish I had it on the video.. but.. at that time no videos were taped. I remember I performed at those competitions very good. I was the 7th of 15. Q: Not so bad! Do you remember getting the first loud applauds and your bowing to the spectators? Evgeni: I remember clearly being 7 years old. I took part in the contest “Crystal steed”. I won that contest. A lot of people used to attend such children competitions. And I was so glad to have skated the program perfectly well! Experts told I would become number one in Russia. Q: Really? What did you think of those comments? Evgeni: I didn’t understand what they were talking about. Those people were such serious, much elder, experts and sportsmen. I wasn’t in earnest about their words. Q: What an odd fate you’ve got! Your mum took you to the skating rink when you were so young and designed your future... usually children fall, stand up, fall again and quit. Don’t you worry about that, about constant cold in your life, about such Ice Queen Empire? Evgeni: Well, thanks to the last researches our palaces became much warmer. However falling down always hurts badly... Let me tell you why my mum introduced me into figure skating.. I used to fall ill frequently. I had been ill with pneumonia for some time, and then recovered and we went shopping with my mum. She met a friend of hers. The friend looked at me and told my mum: may be you should take him the skating rink, let him go in for figure skating...
Evgeni: Of course mum’s friend knew nothing about that. So my mum replied: “We need to buy skates, they are expensive.. besides there is nowhere to skate... it’s so cold in the open air..” The friend answered: “You don’t need to buy anything. I have a daughter who disliked skating. We can give you her skates, present you with the skates ”. Later this day I skated on the real ice not far from my house. Then mum’s friend appeared again. She was quite astonished. “What are you doing here? - She asked my mum. – You should have taken him to the Palace of sports. There he’ll be able to practise, train and go in for figure skating”. And there it turned out that I was good at skating. Q: You know, fathers often want their boys to go in for hockey. Have you ever played hockey? Evgeni: I started practising figure skating and liked it a lot. After the skaters were done it was time for the hockey players to train. I didn’t go home, I watched them playing. It was so exciting! I told my mum: “I want to go in for hockey, I don’t want to skate”. She replied:”Skate for a month and then we’ll see.” After skating for a month I liked it so much! I told my mum: I don’t need hockey. Q: Let’s thank his mother. (Applauds). Evgeni: Thank you, Mum. As a little boy I was a fidget. I used to fuss and bustle all the time. My mum used to tell me: “Can you be quiet? Rest a little bit? Sleep?”. But I was always busy doing something. One can say I’m persevering and firm of purpose. Yes, I guess it’s true. Otherwise I would have achieved nothing. Q: So you have such a trait of character as “I have to prove it, prove it to myself”? Evgeni: Yes, especially “to myself”. I’ll tell you a story. Once I couldn’t execute the element. It was a jump. I had already been able to execute that jump but then problems appeared and I lost that art. It’s just that I didn’t feel free to execute it. So I practised all the time during my training, then stayed for the next training still unable to jump, then stayed for the next one. Three trainings in a row! By the end of the third training I could execute that jump perfectly.
Q: According to the horoscope you’re a scorpion, aren’t you? Evgeni: Yes, I’m a Scorpio Q: Do you feel like a Scorpio? At least I wouldn’t say that... Evgeni: You know, the thing is that I never read horoscopes so I know nothing about myself as a Scorpio. Q: Then we’ll tell you! Evgeni: Tell me, please. Q: Scorpios - they always criticize themselves severely for all the failures and mistakes they did. Do you? Evgeni: I began taking part in the competitions when I was very young. In the age of 15 I took part part in the World Championship. I could win it. But I didn’t. I was the 3rd. I heaped reproaches on me: “What did you do!? Why didn’t you execute that jump? You should have won!.” When 16 I went to the World Championship again. I was the 2nd. And I started reproaching myself again: “What’s is going on? I work hard, I practise a lot. On the trainings everything goes OK but on the competitions I fail...”. A year ago one important event happened in my life. I told myself: “Zhenya, you are young, you have plenty of time. Skate, practise, live to your heart's content. And you know what? I won the World Championship, Euro, I won all the competitions on the Earth except for Olympic Games (I was the 2nd). Now I skate and never reproach myself, though I am still very fastidious. Q: Do you often tell yourself something like: “Well done! What a nice skater you are, Zhenya”. Do you often praise yourself? Evgeni: St.Petersburg Grand-Prix has been over recently. I proved myself that I can skate brilliantly. Q: How is that?
Q: You are speaking so light-heartedly: “I did quadruple, double, triple..”. Is there any sort of statistics: how many times should one fall to execute for example quadruple? Evgeni: There are sportsmen who can do everything easily. Once I had to practise a jump for 4 years! Q: If you fail to jump then you fall, is that correct? Evgeni: Yes, I fall, I lose the tempo.. There are sportsmen who need a week or two to learn the jump. But on the other hand if I learned the jump I can do it with easy any time I need. I don’t know exactly how it goes in the figure skating.. Q: Do you practise your elements only on the skating rink or at first you do that in the gym? Evgeni: If there is enough space one may jump in the gym or anywhere where there is a good floor. Even very complicated elements are possible to jump.. I can jump 3 ½ on the floor. Q: On the floor?!? Evgeni: Yes. Q: Very big temptation to ask you to show. Evgeni: I can do that. Q: Cool! Let’s take off the microphone.
Q: Thank you. And what about your famous paths? Why are they difficult to execute? Evgeni: Well, you know there are enthralling, eye-catching elements and there are complicated elements. My point is that eye-catching elements may be simple: different loops, pirouettes and so on. On the other hand there technically difficult elements. We’ve just begun preparing a new program for the next season. There is a very difficult path for me to execute. I’m not sure whether spectators will understand that it is difficult. Q: So you mean that difficult elements are designed for those who are experts in figure skating and for judges. Evgeni: Yes, difficult and eye-catching at the same time– that is the best. Q: Did you like dancing? Evgeni: Yes, I liked it a lot. I practised Russian folk dances for some time. Q: So you know what “the verevochka” is. (it’s an element of russian dance translation is “the string”). Evgeni: Yes, yes... I could do that. My coach even told me: “choose between figure skating and dancing”. Q: Really? Evgeni: Well actually he told that my mum. Q: Did you make up your mind or mother did? Evgeni: We did that together. I told her: “Figure skating”. Q: I suppose it’s interesting for everybody to find out the following: is there a school before the competitions in present time? (“school – in Soviet Union there was such an element of preparatory process”). Evgeni: No, there is not, thank goodness. Q: Didn’t you meet with it? Evgeni: I did. For a month only. I disliked it greatly. The school always started at 7 in the morning. Everybody came sleepy and drowsy. I’ll tell you the story. My coach Aleksey Nikolaevich Mishyn had a partner. So this partner came at 7 o’clock when everybody practised loops. He did a loop and than lay on the rink his ear on the ice and didn’t move for an hour. Everybody skated, practiced. Aleksey Nikolaevich watched this all and then noticed a man lying on the ice. He went to check. It turned out that the man was sleeping. Sleeping on the rink! Q: Do you remember meeting Alexei Nikolaevich Mishin for the first time? Which impression did he produce upon you? He’s a very strict person.
Q: Do you need to be praised in order to skate well? Or did he critisize you all the time? What is his strategy? Evgeni: You know, he used to keep me well in hand. Now we are more like partners and friends. Q: Zhenya, you little boy, go and skate a little bit... Evgeni: Yes, you’re right! It happens even in that way. We found the common language, we are friends now. It’s not that I’m a sportsman and he’s a coach. He is like a second father for me. We’ve got an ideal contact. Q: And what about school? Your schooling years? Evgeni: School? Q: Yes, did you graduated from the local school? Is there any school, which may boast of having had you as a pupil? Evgeni: Yes, there is. Q: Which one? Evgeni: School number 91. Q: Are you trying to say that you studied in a common school? (there are special “sport schools” for sportsmen in Russia. There are a lot of lessons of PT and so on. So she’s surprised at Plushenko’s not attending such a school). How did you manage to go in for figure skating and study at the same time? Evgeni: You know, it was quite difficult. Fancy coming alone to a new strange city St.Petersburg in the age of 11 and living without parents for the whole year. It was difficult to get to the Jubilee palace... Q: There was not a tube at that time, was there? Evgeni: No, there was not. I had to go to Vinogradarskaya (the nearest to the Jubilee Palace metro station), than I took a bus or a trolley or just walked. So I had my first training, then I went to school, then the second training, and then again training. Sometimes I had even 4 trainings a day. When I was 11 i began to go abroad, Mishyn began showing me to the different people... Q: When you were 11 you began to go abroad? Did you take part in the contests? Or just training? Evgeni: It was training, seminars. Q: You were shown to somebody or somebody was shown to you? Evgeni: I showed how one should skate. Q: How old were you then? Evgeni: 11... I showed different stunts, excercises. In the meantime i had enough of skating, in the meantime i mastered, i learned how to execute one or another element. So, naturally, when you arrive after a month or after two months of such seminars, go to school and children have already studied a lot of new things, I mean the curriculum.. Q: Did they respect you deeply, treated in some special way? Evgeni: No, not at all. They used to say: “We appreciate footballers, ice-hockey players. And what is this?! It’s a girlish sport!” But i said i would prove them, i told it in my heart: I’ll be famous. So here i am. Skates, they were different, when you were starting to skate. I mean we use the boots of a new type now.
Evgeni: When new ski-boots appeared it was like revolution.. Since 4 till 11 I skated in white boots..Girlish. They were called “boty” at that time, czech boots. And I recall when I started to appear in public I was told to change my boots to new, high-quality, professional skates, to professional Letter. And I did. I started skating.. it was awful! They were so uncomfortable, so rigid and stiff. I was 10 then. I had a very fastidious coach, my ex-coach I mean. So he used to say: you should jump all the triples and hard elements. I replied: these skates are terrible. After the training I went to his office, put the skates on the table and said: I won’t skate in this. Q: So what was the end of the story? I see what happened to you and what about the boots? Evgeni: I didn’t skate for a week. Then my coach called me, apologized, told he was wrong and told that I was to start skating again. “We’ll get used to them, bit by bit, little by little.” Francly speaking, getting used to new boots is a very difficult process, especially for me. Q: How often do you change your skates? Evgeni: Once a year. But I know skaters who don’t change their boots for 2 years or even for 5. You see, it’s a painful process, getting corns, bleeding, because of the stiffness of the boots. But on the other hand they fix your foot perfectly well. Q: Yeah, they do.Tell me, once I read in some magazine you are fond of driving at a speed of 200 per hour and more. Is it true? Evgeni: No! (He is kidding according to the tone of voice, that means he really enjoys driving at high speed). Q: It’s not for the police, calm down ..Have you ever tried to measure the speed you skate at? Evgeni: Well... I suppose icering machine drives 20 km per hour... but we can (skaters he means) outrun it. Can’t say exactly, nobody has ever measured. Q: Isn’t it interesting for you to find out? Evgeni: Yes, good idea by the way. We should measure it some time. My point is that your speed seems for the spectators to be very high If you mean the program of a skater, there the speed is not very high. But if you deliberately start moving from one skirting to another... there it can be high. Q: No, I mean your usual speed on the competitions. Evgeni: It’s not very high. Q: People are becoming more and more interested in figure skating, aren’t they? Evgeni: Yeah, I see that figure skating has already bacome very popular. I can even prove it. I skate if the Jubilee Palace of Sport, and it’s full of children. Q: Really? Evgeni: Exactly. Do you know how old are they? 2,5-3 years! They are brought with dummies, they can’t even walk yet! They throw away their dummies, point at skaters and mumble: Plushenko, Siharulidze. So they get used to the atmosphere, they even understand what they will have to do in future in order to become a skilled skater. I talked to a girl 3 or 4 years of age and she said: “I wanna skate like you, I wanna skate like you.”
Evgeni: Undoubtedly they should work hard, obey their parents and coaches Q: And you’ll get such results, my dear friends. Thank you, Zhenya, I wish you to conquer all the ice in the worlds and all the medals to become yours. Olympic Games are within sight, we hold our fists (that is Russian tradition: if they hold they fists, the person they support will win), wish you luck. Thanks. Evgeni: Thanks a lot.
Translation by Daniel
|
Q: So mum’s friend advised to take you to the rink? After getting over pneumonia??
Evgeni: I did the combination nobody in the whole world can execute. I did 4-3-3. I proved myself I can do it, I’m skater number one. (Applause)
(Evgeni takes off his jacket and goes to the background of the studio and does some warm ups and did a single jump and another double jump on the floor.)
Evgeni: Yes, he’s strict, but kindhearted also.
Q: Are they comfortable to skate?
Q: Ok, our show is watched by people of different ages, what could you advise little children to do in order to follow in your footsteps?