On Monday, Valentin Nikolaevich Piseev, the long-time head of the Figure Skating Federation, first of the USSR and then of Russia, passed away. Correspondent Sport remembers the man under whom this sport rose to a height unprecedented in our history.
When talking about people who made Russian figure skating great, the first to come to mind are outstanding athletes and coaches. Belousova and Protopopov, Rodnina and Zaitsev, Pakhomova and Gorshkov, Linichuk and Karponosov, Bestemianova and Bukin, Gordeeva and Grinkov, Urmanov, Yagudin, Plushenko, Butyrskaya, Slutskaya. Zhuk, Tchaikovskaya, Tarasova, Dubova, Moskvina, Mishin. This is far from a complete list of names from the golden era of our figure skating, which everyone who is interested in this sport knows.
But it is noteworthy that all these people will call — and do call — Valentin Piseev no less significant figure in the matter of achieving successes of Russian figure skating on the world stage. Although, it would seem, the president of the federation does not go out on the ice and does not stand at the side during the skater's performance.
The whole point is that in a sport like figure skating, this snake pit where people first kiss each other on the gums and five minutes later say nasty things about each other, a firm guiding hand is absolutely necessary. A person is needed who can take responsibility for key decisions – often uncompromising, inconvenient, unpleasant for some. A person is needed who will direct all the great but obstinate ones into the constructive channel of the river that brings medals to the country.
Piseev was exactly like that. To say that everyone loved him would be untrue. Certainly, certain strategic actions of the helmsman of Russian figure skating were tough. But they were certainly fair. «One good thing is not enough for everyone,» said the hero of a famous film, but Valentin Nikolaevich, as the head of the federation, knew absolutely all athletes from adults to children, and provided this very «good thing» for those who were the most promising. Piseev always included the most favored nation regime for those who worked tirelessly. And this brought results.
Piseev knew figure skating inside out because he had spent more than half a century in it. He started as a coach — one of his students, for example, was the future two-time world champion Vladimir Kovalev. Then he switched to administrative activities. At the same time, he worked as an international referee — he judged the European and World Championships. Already in this position, he fought for the interests of our athletes — at one of the world championships in the 70s, he was disqualified for allegedly overestimating Rodnina and Zaitseva. However, at that time, we knew how to defend our position: the situation was sorted out, and in the same year Piseev was appointed a member of the technical committee of the International Skating Union (ISU).
Valentin Nikolaevich became the head of Russian figure skating in difficult times. 1988, the end of the Soviet Union, the transition to completely different management tracks. In the early 90s, when there was no money in Russian sports, the country's leading coaches were drawn to work abroad. During this period, Piseev did not allow our figure skating to fall apart. Moreover, he created conditions for specialists to begin returning home. And already in the late 90s — namely in 1999 — an «eternal» record was set: Russian figure skaters took all four gold medals at the World Championships.
In the 2000s, thanks to Piseev, «hothouse» conditions were created in Russian figure skating — thanks to a sponsor that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped find. In February 2007, after a meeting of the Sports Council, he took the opportunity to inform the head of state that the Russian Figure Skating Federation (FFKKR) did not have a general partner. He asked how much money was needed, and when he found out, he was surprised: «It's not that much money, sometimes a football player gets more.» A few months later, the federation had a general partner, with whom it has been cooperating to this day.
But Russian figure skaters would not have had success in the international arena if it were not for the constructive, respectful relations with the ISU, which were achieved thanks to Piseev. And with the president of the international federation, Ottavio Cinquanta, these relations even grew into friendly ones. It is clear that the performance on the ice is decisive in any case — but, as the long history of scandals in figure skating shows, it can be assessed in different ways. Valentin Nikolaevich knew how to defend the interests of our athletes — and it was not for nothing that there was a joke that at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, one of the «toughest» for Russians, not two gold medals should have been awarded, but three.
However, the root of the warm relations with the ISU leadership still lay in the responsibility with which Russia fulfilled all its obligations. This was the case both when hosting the 2005 World Championships and during the emergency postponement of the World Championships six years later, when Moscow extended a helping hand to Japan, which had suffered from a devastating earthquake, and organized the tournament in just three weeks. Our last conversation with Valentin Nikolaevich was devoted precisely to this topic: Piseev told for the first time an almost detective story about how Putin was in a hurry to return to Moscow from a business trip to Stockholm in order to be in time for the opening of that World Championships, changed his plane for a helicopter – and was only eight seconds late.
The responsible image also helped during the difficult preparations for the Olympic Games in Sochi – at that time Piseev already held the post of the general director of the FFKKR. I remember the press conference after the test tournament, which was the 2012 Grand Prix Final. Around the Iceberg Ice Palace – the future Olympic arena – there was a construction site in full swing, and not everyone believed that it would be finished on time. But Cinquanta said: if the Russians take on something, they will do it. I have no doubt that such confidence was based on the experience of previous tournaments: Piseev has never let the ISU down.
The current times in figure skating are such that it has become difficult for journalists to obtain information, and it is much more difficult to agree on an interesting interview than before. It was different under Piseev. The head of the FFKKR helped organize the Triple Tulup club, at whose regular meetings interesting people met with the press. And Valentin Nikolaevich himself often called journalists himself to report important news. I remember his happy voice on the phone: «The World Championships will be held in Moscow!» It is impossible to imagine such a thing now.
Already in the status of honorary president of the FFKKR, Piseev was responsible for the development of figure skating in the regions – and he was engaged in this work until recently, despite his illness. I will forever remember meeting him in February of this year in Volokolamsk, his hometown, where he came for the opening of a new ice arena. «I miraculously survived as an infant,» Valentin Nikolaevich told me with tears in his eyes. «For all 53 days of the occupation of Volokolamsk, my mother and I were here, living in one of the sheds, of which there were about ten nearby. And one day, as my mother told me, a German walked by and set fire to one shed after another. He came into our shed, pointed his machine gun at us, my mother stood up with me in her arms, and I began to cry. The German looked at us sternly… and lowered his machine gun. He walked on, burning the rest of the sheds.»
A colossus of Russian figure skating, or, if you take into account its specifics, an iceberg — that's who Piseev was in it. On Monday morning, Valentin Nikolaevich left us after a serious illness — but he will forever remain in the history of Russian sports.