Russian ice dancing champions Elizaveta Khudaiberdieva and Egor Bazin moved to the group of Alexander Zhulin. The Sport correspondent discusses the nature of this decision, and why skaters can lose from its simplicity.
Skaters are still largely masochists. It is impossible to explain their desire to hurt themselves by any available means from the height of couch examination. So the reigning champions of Russia, Elizaveta Khudaiberdiyeva and Yegor Bazin, seem to be not enough with physical problems alone.
From the group of Denis Samokhin, where they were the main stars, Lisa and Yegor went to Alexander Zhulin, where now there is no crowding. A couple of weeks earlier, Alexandra Stepanova and Ivan Bukin followed in the same direction. Meanwhile, the main star in the group was and remains Zhulin himself. Him and his inspiration. The spirit of Nikita Katsalapov and Victoria Sinitsina also hovers there — the most titled couple in Russia at the moment has not officially retired.
The motivation of the above duets separately from each other is simple and understandable: they go to Zhulin for authority, reputation and judicial respect. Simply put, for the title of the first number of the national team. Stepanova and Bukin have never had this title in their entire careers. Khudaiberdiyeva and Bazin received it only this year, but, rather, in spite of — no one has demonstrated such instability as they have this season.
Separately from each other, they could well get what they are looking for. But with a simultaneous transition, someone will lose anyway. And there is a possibility that Lisa and Yegor will be in a weak position.
The fact is that Stepanova/Bukin all the years that they ride together, catch up with someone, lose to someone and compete with someone fiercely. For them, this environment is familiar, so at some point it completely ceased to influence their moral state and inner self-awareness. And in the ninth place of the World Cup, and on the podium of the European Championship, Alexandra and Ivan felt equally self-sufficient. Interestingly, it was precisely the millstones of internal competition that they always overcame with the least losses for themselves.
Khudaiberdiyeva/Bazin has a different situation. Lisa has repeatedly admitted that the most difficult start for her is the Russian Championship. There is a heavy air, an atmosphere that is difficult to endure. It is exhausting, like 40 flights of spiral staircase with a one and a half meter ceiling. Now every training day of Lisa and Egor will look like several steps of the same ladder. And there is no guarantee that the end result will be exactly the way they imagine it to be.
Among all the partners with whom Zhulin successfully worked, in principle, there were no those whom he would have to nurture and protect. Tatyana Navka by nature had the self-awareness of a star. Marina Zueva instilled this quality in Victoria Sinitsina, so Zhulin's contribution to her female capital was minimal.
The benefits and harms of sparring within the same group can be discussed depending on the personalities that participate in it. Lisa, with her subtle emotional makeup and vulnerability, doesn't seem like the kind of person who can fire herself up and fly high on the fuel of skate-to-skate rivalry. She needs her own place in the exotarium, proper watering and enough light. And so far it seems that Alexander Zhulin's group is not the place where they can and want to organize such conditions.
It cannot be denied that the decision to change the coach in itself is anti-crisis. Almost no one is able to accept it, being at the peak of their form, career, with the feeling that they are moving in the right direction. This means that both Stepanova/Bukin earlier and Khudaiberdiyeva/Bazin had questions and complaints about the current coaches. Trying to answer these questions and make claims is a position that requires courage and deserves respect.
But there is even some kind of weakness in the desire to solve the problem through a perpendicular line. It is sad that it is easier for two strong duets to go to the master Zhulin and push each other with his elbows in order to get the support of the judges and the federation, than to try to find their own specialist and their own style that they will want to copy others. figure skaters demonstrate, once again emphasizes the importance of the administrative resource in the system where they exist. This means that it increasingly removes what is happening from sports, and even more so from art.
The opinion of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors