“The situation did not arise yesterday.” Coach Gorshkov spoke about the crisis in Russian ice dancing

Russia’s honored coach Alexei Gorshkov said the reason for the crisis in Russian ice dancing was the lack of healthy competition.

– Last year, the press wrote a lot about the crisis of Russian ice dancing. Do you agree with this conclusion and, if so, what was the reason?

– It’s true. The reason is the lack of healthy competition. The situation did not arise yesterday, just last season, with the absence of international tenures, “opened the abscess” and everything spilled out. The suite makes the king. And we can name a winner, a champion, a king in our dances. But won’t it turn out that the king will be naked? What will we be left with when, sooner or later, the situation changes and we have to enter the international arena? When everyone loses their motivation, their desire to work and the most unpleasant thing, they will look for other options for implementation.

Healthy competition is ensured by objective professional arbitration, the responsibility of judges in the decisions they make, their awareness that the company must develop. After each start, it is important that coaches and athletes get clear answers to the questions: what is right, what is wrong, like in a poem about a little boy, so that everyone can move on. Our sport is going through a difficult period where there are no international competitions, so all the more so as we have to think about how to preserve it, develop it and avoid devastating consequences.

What do you think of the current state of our ice dancing?

– There are a lot of new couples that I haven’t seen, so it’s premature to say anything now. The season will show it. I think everyone understands the issues that have matured, but how it will be … Every couple will live their life – long, short, straight or curved. Much, of course, depends on the coaches and athletes themselves. But I want the evaluation of their work to be professional. Many of us are not first year in the national team. We all know each other. And I’ll be the first to applaud whoever does their job the best, and I’ll say that’s great. That’s the point. Otherwise, we will not survive,” said the press service of the Russian Figure Skating Federation, citing Gorshkov.

The International Skating Union (ISU) confirmed in early June the suspension of Russian athletes from participating in competitions under the organization’s auspices. This decision was taken in 2022 in the context of the situation in Ukraine.