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VASILIEV GUIDES TOP RUSSIAN PAIRS
GoldenSkate.com. Barry Mittan. February 2004.
Oleg
Vasiliev, the 1984 Olympic champion and 1988 Olympic silver medallist in
pairs with Elena Valova, now coaches skating himself. His primary focus
is the team of Tatiana Totmianina and
Maxim Marinin, two-time Russian pairs champions and two-time World
silver medallists. When he skated, Vasiliev trained with the dean of
pairs coaches, Tamara Moskvina.
"I never
wanted to be a coach," he remarked. "I saw how difficult a job it was
and how hard Tamara worked. It looked too difficult. Definitely what I
didn't want to do. But I graduated from the Institute for Physical
Culture in St. Petersburg, like most Russian skaters. I learned a lot
from Tamara, all of the basics. But I have changed some details. Maybe I
use a little more psychology to prepare my skaters. Right now I love
coaching. I plan to do it as long as I live. It makes a big difference
in how you feel about yourself if you're in the right place doing what
you're supposed to do."
"I
started skating when I was only five," he said. "My parents decided that
I should skate. I had pneumonia two times that year and the doctor
recommended to them that I do some sort of outdoor activity or sport. At
that time, figure skating was an outdoor sport, so my parents took me to
skate. Until I was 18, I was a singles skater, and then I started pairs.
I was with my first partner for only three months because there was no
connection between us. So Tamara split us up and matched me with Elena
Valova."
"I
enjoyed competing," he recalled. "I remember the Olympics like it was
yesterday. It was like a huge holiday. We worked for a few days and then
we had off. It was very exciting with all the different athletes from
the different sports. I watched skiing, hockey, luge, speed skating,
even curling. But I missed the opening ceremony because we had to skate
the next day and the closing ceremony because we had to leave early.
After we won, we got to meet all kinds of famous people, like the
president and famous artists and other interesting people. We got $500
for winning the gold medal. But I didn't skate for money. I skated for
the love of the sport and the pleasure it gave me. You can always tell
the people who skate for money or for their own pleasure."
"Traveling was the most exciting thing about competing," Vasiliev
stated, "because in the Soviet Union, it was very difficult, almost
impossible to leave the country. I saw many other people and other
cultures that not many people had an opportunity to see. I saw countries
from the Far East to America. I even did a show once in India. I like
France, Italy, Germany and most of Europe. They have a lot of history
and culture there and the people are different."
"Elena
and I competed together from 1979 to 1988," he continued, "then skated
as professionals and did shows until 1995. We did the Tom Collins shows
and the Michael Rosenberg shows and a tour of Australia. We did Russian
ice shows and even tried Holiday on Ice, but that didn't work out. The
most memorable was the Brian Boitano-Katarina Witt show that we did for
three years. There were a lot of good skaters and it was a good
atmosphere. Everyone worked to help one another. Then the owner died in
a helicopter crash and the show ended. In 1995, Elena had a baby so we
stopped."
"In
Russia, there are not many ice rinks but there are a lot of coaches,"
Vasiliev noted. "To work there, I would have to steal students from
other coaches and I didn't want to do that. So I decided to start
somewhere abroad and see how I could do in this field. Conditions for
work were better and there was not as much politics. I started coaching
a Latvian team, and then I worked with a French team for two seasons. I
moved in December 1997 to work in Chicago and it took me three years to
get my green card. Three years and $11,000. Now I work in two rinks, The
Edge in Bensenville and Oakton Ice Arena in Park Ridge. From April to
October, I have a lot of kids, mostly American singles skaters, but in
the winter I spend a lot of time out of Chicago with Tatiana and Maxim
and don't have time for too many other skaters."
He has
worked with Totmianina and Marinin for three years. "Tatiana and Maxim
asked Tamara Moskvina several times to coach them," he stated, "but she
said no. She already had two teams. Tamara recommended me the first
time, in 1998, but I had no connections and no ice so I told them no.
Then on New Years Eve in 2001, Tamara asked me again and I told her I'm
ready. So we met with Tatiana and Maxim, made the decision to work
together and the federation approved it. It was an unpredictable
situation and I had to decide how to manage them and find the right way
to do it."
"I try to
let the skaters have their own different styles," Vasiliev said. "At
first, I tried to work with other people, but it didn't work and I did
everything myself. It was my mistake and I paid for it. Now I invite
other people to do the choreography for my skaters and I let them work.
Giuseppe Arena helped a lot with last year's program and the new
program. I like more classical programs; probably 70-75 percent of my
programs were classical. But it's good to have skaters trying all kinds
of different styles. We have a couple of more years to try things before
the Olympics. I'm not looking for any other couples before the Olympic
Games. One couple is enough when you are fighting for first place."
Vasiliev
supports the proposed change to the new Code of Points judging system.
"The system will change," he said. "If you know it, it can work for you.
If you don't, it can be kind of tough. I have studied the system and
know it pretty good, not 100 percent, but pretty good. This season, we
did more difficult lifts in the long program and added more elements to
get some extra points. Sometimes some small changes in the choreography,
some small details, can get you extra points. When everyone is so close,
one point can be a big difference. For the new long program, I designed
it with the Code of Points in mind. I tried for more Level 3 elements,
which should help in any judging system."
The
source:
http://www.goldenskate.com/articles/2003/022204.shtml
Photo
credit: Barry Mittan |
