Alena Leonova, Russian national team leader in ladies single skating, wasn’t successful at three events in succession. First she finished 6th at the ISU Grand Prix Final, then took only silver at Nationals and finally placed 7th at Europeans. The skater and her coach Alla Piatova told infox.ru about their goals at the Olympic Games in Vancouver.
There is only one way to deal with judges
At the European Championships in Tallinn Alena Leonova met both with favour and excessive severity of judges. When she fell on her combination in the short program, they didn’t deny her a chance to contend for the podium. But after the mistakes made in her free program, the Russian could only dream of such benevolence.
In spite of the fact that no top ten skater managed to skate a clean free program, Leonova found herself only in the 7th place, and lost almost 20 points to the winner Carolina Kostner, though the latter fell on a jump as well, underrotated a jump in her combination and singled another jump. ‘Of course, judges are always right, and I’ve got only myself to blame for my not organizing myself. On the whole, the judges were very generous with their scores at these competitions, that’s why I lost 20 points to Kostner. But I think that at Olympics things may be different. I wouldn’t expect such generosity for European skaters there’, told Alena Leonova.
‘From event to event we see that there are some skaters who always place high, no matter how well they skate. Sure it’s vexing that we aren’t always among these favourites. But there is only one way to deal with judges, it is to skate clean’, says Alla Piatova. ‘Now we receive higher PCSs, and many judges and coaches call Alena an interesting skater, saying that she’s out of the beaten path. But strange scores keep on occurring from time to time. I think the tendency will continue anyway, but we can make up for it thanks to technical elements’.
Reasons for coaches’ insomnia
There isn’t much time left to work on the mistakes that resulted in the failure at Europeans. In the beginning of February Russian figure skating team will leave for the training camp in a small town near Vancouver.
‘I haven’t even been able to sleep at night after the European Championships. I keep on thinking over the best way to arrange Alena’s practices during the time left before the Games in order to avoid the regrettable mistakes she did. Now I can say that I’ve found the key. All we have to do is to carry out the plan’, says Piatova. ‘Alena is not a skater who takes advantage of a great desire to win. In such cases her legs get heavy, and then she isn’t always able to coordinate herself well enough to perform difficult jumps, though she could have done them during the warm-up a few minutes ago. I think it was the obsessive desire to place as high as possible that played the mischief with her at Europeans. She always comes to the ice with aspiration. But at important events, when she understands that a medal is near at hand, she can’t overcome her nervousness for the time being’, the coach supposes.
Olympics seem a festival for now
Skaters aren’t promised a life of ease in the camp near Vancouver. For about a week they will live and train under somewhat rigorous conditions.
‘I was told that the space there will be rather restricted, and every room will be occupied by four people or so. Don’t know what will be the upshot of this. Hope I’ll be staying with Ksenia Makarova. We’ve become close friends during these Europeans. We shared a room and were getting along very well. Now we’ve got to stick together right to the end’, says Alena.
On February, 11, skaters will go past another milestone on their way to the Olympic ice: they will settle in the Olympic village. Lady skaters are the most unlucky, as their competition is due to begin only on February, 23. Almost two weeks in the bustling ‘Olympic hostel’ is an ordeal in itself. ‘Our goal is not to get scared by the atmosphere of the Games, which is, on the one hand, festive, but on the other hand pompous and tiring. Alena must do her utmost, no matter what. The most important thing is her attitude, because when she’s in the right mood she approaches every element very resolutely’, says Alla Piatova.
‘Olympics seem a festival for now, like it’s some kind of fashion parade where everybody will show their costumes’, says Alena while trying on her Olympic outfit at the Bosco’s. ‘I so much wish I could be at the opening ceremony, but I’m not sure whether we can, because we will come to the Olympic village only on the 11th of February’.
‘And now I’ve got to skate my programs on and on, so that I could do everything with my brain on autopilot. I don’t want to think while skating, if I will do a jump or not. I must do each element clean’, summed up Alena.
