Alena Leonova’s poor performance in the short program at Worlds was down to her bad physical shape after an illness, coach Alla Piatova said in her interview to the RIA Novosti news agency.
‘The Olympics came at a high cost’, Piatova complained. ‘Alena got ill, but had to keep practicing. Her immune system declined because of that. We could fully realize how grave the situation was, only after coming home from Vancouver. She had trouble breathing and couldn’t skate. She didn’t skate her programs at all, her recovery began only on the last day prior to our departure for Torino. First more or less full-scale post-Vancouver practices began only here’.
According to the coach, Leonova had been aware that she had no time to regain shape, but her mental condition was nevertheless very good, she was ready to fight. But the fall on the very first jump (triple flip) and, thus, failed combination unsettled her.
‘The mistake on her favorite jump got her down’, Piatova said. ‘But on the other hand, it made her do another jump. (Leonova tried to do a 3L-2T combination). She would have been better off not doing the jump, though, as she lost quite a few points on it. But we hadn’t even talked about what to do if she fails the combination, so she had to make a decision herself and on the spot’.
Alla Piatova also said that because of the mistake in the very beginning of the program her student couldn’t skate the rest of it relaxedly, thus losing points of the program component score.
‘On the whole, she showed fairly confident and mature skating, but there was some constraint, too. That’s why she got lower component scores than usual. Her spirits failed her, she lost her fervor and joy’.
Piatova said she hopes that the mishap won’t upset Alena to the point of ‘giving up fighting’.
‘I think we’ll be able to rehabilitate ourselves in the LP. Alena is a person who is always eager to fight, and I hope she will gather herself together once again’. | 
