“The speech was negative. We worked a lot with a psychologist” — trainer Zueva on cooperation with Sinitsina and Katsalapov

figure skating coach Marina Zueva admitted that the hardest part is working with Olympic champions Victoria Sinitsina And Nikita Katsalapov it had to do so because of the negative attitude of technical specialists and the public.

Sinitsina and Katsalapov, performing in ice dancing, began training with Zueva in the summer of 2014. Their best achievements during their joint work were Russian Championship silver and two-step silver of the Grand Prix for the 2015/16 season. Then the skaters returned to Russia and began to train under the guidance of Oleg Volkov.

– How do you remember the skaters of this period? Still, Nikita already had status, and Victoria was just gaining experience at a high level.

– Two completely different people – from different figure skating schools. Vika was technically very well prepared, as she is part of Sveta Alekseeva’s group. Yes, by then she had won the junior world championship and participated in the Olympics. But this experience is still not enough for an adult level, moreover she is younger than Nikita. She lacked substance. Even during the support, Vika was suspicious of herself. This is precisely internal self-underestimation.

Also, the conversations in a negative way were walking around. We worked a lot with the psychologist Margarita Budanova: she traveled specially from Moscow to America to help us. Then the guys came to the home competitions and the audience blew their whistles … I remember this for sure from their very first tournament in Russia. Victoria was psychologically difficult.

But in the end, it turned out to be the most beautiful dance duo of the new era. Vika has become a worthy and equal partner to Nikita. All this is teamwork, in which a psychologist, coaches Oleg Epshtein, Massimo Sculli and choreographer Elena Sokolova played a big role. We are all like-minded people who helped overcome mainly psychological pressure. It affected relations and everything in general, Zueva told .

At the 2022 Olympics, Sinitsina and Katsalapov won a silver medal in the individual competition and a gold medal in the team.