From Daniel Weiss: Evgeny came just back from Japan were he won the Gran Prix Final. Now the preperations for the most important competition in this season beginns, the World Championships. Evgeny and his coach want to win there. At the practice is Evgeny's mother present: Q: Are you comming to evry practice? Tatjana Vasilievna: Almost to evry practice. It is interesting to watch and to chat. there are different feelings (to see him on ice and on tv) it is hard to explain. I come here to recover but when I see him live on tv I am of course excited. Q: Your son change a lot in the last months. Especially he did great improvements in his artisic department. How can you explain that? Tatjana Vasilievna: I don't know, maybe he just become an adult. Then he worked very friendly with his coach and choreographer, I belive that this friendship helps him. They understand each other. In general, the boy just matured. Because of that he skates better and has a better contact to the audience. Q: Is that true that you brought Zhenya to St. Petersburg? Tatjana Vasilievna: No. In our city Volgograd was simlpy the icerink closed and his coach in that time brought him to St. Petersburg because we don't had any ice here. But Zhenya really wanted to skate. And it happend that he arrived at Alexej Nikolaevitch group but I didn't brought him there, it was just because we didn't had ice here. Q: Did you discovered his talent? Tatjana Vasilievna: I didn't discover anything. He was as a child often sick and completely by chance acquaintances gave him the first skates. So he started. Evrything was comletely accidental, there was never a thought that he would go to St. Petersburg. Evrything was accidental. Q: We know him as a great figure skater but how is he at home? Tatjana Vasilievna: He is a very good boy. He loves his parents, he is very understanding and he know what his parents did for him. We were not rich, like now, were Zhenya can help us now. We lived rather averagely. As he came to St. Petersburg we needed t o rent a room not an appartment. For that room we needed to pay money what we actually didn't had. The father worked in Volgograd and I was half a year with him and half a year he neded to live with his coach. It was hard but he understood it and hebehaved responsibly. Although he was still a child. He is a good boy. David Avdysh: Q: What is your job in Mishins team? David Avdysh: My job is it to inspire to make it perfect and to think about nuances and to bring in color. Q: How do you see the development of Zhenya? David Avdysh: We are working almost for two years close together. When you see him evry day you don't notice the change the constant growing up and the physical and intellectual change of a sportsman. But when you look at older photos or watch older videotapes from the previous two years, then you see the difference. Zhenya became to a real sportsman and a real fighter who not only represents the honor of our country but also to the whole world with dignity. Q: Where comes his great artistry improvements? I would really like to take the credit for it. But actually, I belive that it this is "in" Zhenya, that he has a great artistic nature. When you watch him in the ballet room how he is working with me, he not only grasps the nuances, wich I show him, he is also completes it with his individuallity. If he would not have it (the artistic nature) it would not be like that no matter who works with him. But when he has that natural abililties, then he can improve it what come from others, from me, Mishin and from upcoming chorographers and coaches. Q: What are his qualitys? David Avdysh: He is a fighter. When he can not succeed an element, he put evry effort in it what is necssary to master this element. When he masterd it he goes on. If he can not master it, he will not give up. He is a real fighter. Evgeni: Q: Your are at the competitions now under more pressure because you need to eran the money for your family. Do you feel that pressure? Evgeni: It is not a pressure for me, I really like it to help my parents because they helped me and helping me now, at home, not with money but with evrything else and I really like that. Q: What does figure skating mean to you? Evgeni: First of all is it art for me but also my job, I can't do anything else in my life and till now I do it very good. Q: I already asked evryone about your impovement in your artistic abilities. Most important is your answer, do you have an explanation? Evgeni: I don't know. Probably it is because of work, wich I had with Mishin and Avdysh. A big part of it contributed my mother to it. And I also did change, I am perhaps more matured, I did work harder and I put more effort into it, And probably helped me to do this improvment. Q: You say your mother has contributed a big part, explain this. Evgeni: My mother inspires me, she told me, you must work harder, if you are not woking hard you won't earn nothing. Most important you must work. She did hint on this or that what I could do better. She helped me in evrything, she did nothing to my technique but she inspired me. Q: When I watched you at the European Championship, I always think, how can he stand the enormous pressure and how can he skate so fabulous with that pressure? It is very hard, very difficult. But because that I skate for quite a while, I manage it. Probably God gave me the power. At competitions, it is stressful, you must concentrate so hard that you get an headache or something else hurts. Q: I know your coach Mishin for a very long time, I have already got to know some of his great skaters and I know he is a special person, what does he mean to you? Evgeni: If you want to express that in per cent than it is 100% I need him evryday at evry practice, without him I would be maybe no one. He is a very good coach and a very, very good, nice person. He helps me with evrything not only at practice but also in life. He is advising me what is better and what is not good, simply at evrything he helps me, without him, I don't know, I would be nothing. Q: And also Alexei Yagudin learned the main things with Mishin. It is said that you hate each other, is that true? Evgeni:I want to say that we are of course competitiors on the ice, we want to defeat each other with our jumps and our skating. But when we are taking off the skates, then we talk to each other. That means there is no hostility. And it is like that with all other skaters, with Abt and so on, very normally. On the ice, yes, there we are are soldiers, fighter and have war with each other but when we take off the skates we can get along. Q: Is there a great goal for you? Evgeni: Generally it is my goal in figure skating to win all competitions on this world. Q: What will you change till the World Championship in your free skate? Evgeni: We continually add always something, change something. Any element will be added after evry competition, it depents on how it works what we can do better. I think, we will add another jump (axel) and we will improve the quality of the steps. Alexei Mishin: Q: Wich plans do you have for the World Championships? Alexei Mishin: For the World Championships we do some tactical changes. About serious changes, we want to include another triple axel. Q: What do you mean with tactical changes? Alexei Mishin: This is our little secret but we want that our program is not only the best but also the technical most difficult at the World Championships. For us is not only the victory over Yagudin important but also the victory at the Worlds. Q: What do you want to do with Zhenya? Alexei Mishin: Evgeni has such great possibilities that he can not only compete at this Olympic Games but also on the next and in 2010. He can skate another 8 or 9 years. My students won all competitions so far in figure skating. About my work with Evgeny, there are World Champions and outstanding figure skaters. I would like that he is not only a World Champion but also an outstanding figure skater. Not all World Champions are going into the figure skating history but he should be one who goes in the figure skating history. Q: You coached the best men, Urmanov, Yagudin, Plushenko...compare... Alexei Mishin: When you talk about Urmanov, Yagudin and Plushenko there is an other comparsion: Evry great diamond is unique. Q: But what is your secret of success? Alexei Mishin: My secret is that I don't have a secret. But it is said that my secret of success is that I learned much. I belive that the success from Tamara Moskvina and also from me that we learned much and study a lot. We are both sciencetists. We did not only skate and begann to work as coaches but we studied a lot. We have analysed and study. I belive that the scientific approach to the process of coaching is the reason of the success. Q: What is for you the most difficult to get your student exactly on the point fit? Alexei Mishin: First of all I should not be nervous and rush. Q: What wish do you have for the World Championships? Alexei Mishin: I wish that I depart from Vancouver in a good mood.