“I really liked the way Zhulin sees figure skating, puts on, feels” – Bukin

Russian figure skater Ivan Bukin ice dancing with Alexandra Stepanova told Sport24 that the reasons for the switch to the group Alexandra Zhulina associated with the desire to try something new.

Coach Alexander Zhulin told on Wednesday that he will work with Stepanova and Bukin from next season. Athletes moved to Zhulin from the group of Alexander Svinin and Irina Zhuk.

– First of all, I would like to thank our coaches once again. We have come a very long way. Sasha and I are extremely grateful. Everything in our sports career is thanks to them. We always treat our coaches with lots of love. It was a very difficult move. We decided to try something new, we want to learn something new. There is not much left of our sporting career, I want to try my hand elsewhere.

– And turned to Alexander Zhulin?

— Yes, we will start working with him now. We had a very good discussion with him, in April we will start training. We are going to prepare for the next season, I hope that in May we will perform in Ilya Averbukh’s show with Sasha. We’ll see, but I hope it works.

Why did you choose Alexander?

We were interested. I worked with him on Ice Age. I really liked the way he sees figure skating, puts on, smells, points out mistakes. For me, these are important criteria. We decided it would be good to work with him for most of our sports career.

The skaters missed the 2022/23 season due to health issues with their partner.

Stepanova and Bukin are two-time Russian champions, two-time silver medalists and three-time bronze medalists of the European Championships.

Sport24