figure skating podcast interview
figure skating podcast interview
MARCH 2009
An interview with Alexander Fadeev, 4-time European Champion, 1985 World Champion, God of figures, and now coach. 43 minutes, 14 seconds.
Thanks to Fiona Mcquarrie for transcribing these interview highlights:
On his most embarrassing skating moment: One was the Olympics 1988 in which I didn’t skate well. The second, and I think the most embarrassing one, was the following world championships in which I was injured. I showed up in the warmup, and I did the warmup pretty good, but on this particular warmup before the short program, I reinjured myself and there was no way I could skate, I couldn’t even walk. And what’s embarrassing about it was right after me was my buddy [Viktor] Petrenko skating, and it happened very fast and they kind of didn’t notify him, it was very fast, and everyone kind of pointed at me and said, we could not skate because we were not ready for that. It just put them in a little bit of a distress situation. I don’t think it was a big deal, just the embarrassment.
On how he started skating: I always want to skate. It doesn’t matter if it’s skates or just the slides, or even just sliding on my boots in the wintertime. I think my parents noticed that and they just bought me a pair of blades, and I started walking on that and then I started skating, and that’s how it happened.
On training in the Soviet system: Training is training, it’s just hard work. Soviet system was just a little different approach, for the result, and the pressure was tremendous, bigger than in the States. I think in the States, it’s like the will. If you want it, you go, and if you don’t, you don’t have to. But in Soviet Union, at certain points, if you don’t even want to go, they make you. They had certain leverage that they could pull. If you’ve never been there in that system, it’s hard to explain that, but it’s more like your lifestyle and the way you live, they can cut you from a lot of stuff. They can throw you out of your apartment. It’s about the education too. If you don’t agree, you’re not going to go to a college or anything.
Back in time, they had a system that was working for the good. In the local clubs, the coaches and skating directors, they directly report to the federation, to the high level. And if somebody like me is talented, they see it’s coming, and they have a pretty good vision as to whether it’s going to be or not. And they just kind of look closely, and usually — when it comes to the person finishing the high school, that’s when they transfer, because of the higher education. It was usually about 16 years old. And plus 16 years old — it’s differently now, but back in time it’s usually when people are 17, 16 years old it’s when people finish the high school, and 18 years old when the boys go to the army. That’s the two factors that they can leverage on.
On his Army service: Not like real Army [laughs]. It’s like you are still skating, but you serve in the Army. It’s kind of on and off. We had short camps just for . . . checkmark [laugh] to say that you did it and that’s what matters. To say that you did it, mostly.
On how he got so good at figures: I wasn’t from the first. When I was a junior, I wasn’t that good at the figures, but then when I started practising in Moscow, that was 1980, and until 1985, that was very hard, a lot of time spent on figures. Then after that figures became my favorite. Not before [laughs]. I discovered I can improve, like little improvements, and when you clearly see that improvement, things that’s working, that’s when things become more interesting, so you get more involved. And if you see the improvement, it’s not boring at all. The closer to the perfect, the more interesting it becomes.
On sharpening his own skates, and other skaters’ skates: The Professional Team World Championships, it was me, Paul Wylie, and Robin Cousins. And Robin came in, and I was sharpening my own skates, just with little [...]
