“Lipnitskaya was a difficult girl, she could send a guest choreographer at the age of 11” – Tutberidze

Honored coach of Russia in figure skating Eteri Tutberidze told how her separation from the Olympic champion happened Yulia Lipnitskaya .

Lipnitskaya won gold in the team figure skating tournament at the 2014 Games in Sochi. In November 2015, she left Tutberidze for coach Alexei Urmanov and in August 2017 she ended her career at the age of 19.

— After the Olympics, her mother’s control lessened a bit. Maybe that’s true. Julia is a complex girl with a complex character…

– Are there any easy ones?

– Well, some are a little simpler, but others are very complex.

— So Lipnitskaya was really very difficult?

“She was difficult and could, at 11, just turn around and send a guest choreographer, because she didn’t want to work with him and that’s it. We had to find an approach to Yulia, but that’s not the point. I will not force you to work in the mode in which you need to work. Now if you want to achieve something, then you have to work like this. Conditions are offered to you…

She started to gradually move away, recently working with her I knew it was over and she was leaving for good. It was at the Grand Prix stage in France, where we only skated the short program, and then something happened, there was some kind of explosion, so they received medals in based on the results of the short program and were sent home. Despite the fact that she was somewhat distant towards me, I knew that I was going with her because it was honest. She wasn’t ready to skate in the free skate, that’s for sure, so this situation was to her advantage.

We went to receive medals together, so we’ll have to eat shit with spoons together too. We had to fly the next day, the tickets had already been bought and a hotel booked, then they called me from the federation and said that Dudakov would go to this Grand Prix with Yulia, she wanted it that way. Julia is skating in front of me right now, I’m working with her… But if that’s what you want, please come to me and say: “Eteri Georgievna, I will be calmer like that. Can I accompany Sergei Viktorovich? Why should the federation call me and talk to me about this? Sergei Viktorovich accompanied her, and then I read in the comments what a bastard I am for leaving Yulka.

— She immediately went to Alexei Urmanov?

— Yes, as soon as she arrived from the French Grand Prix, she already announced that she was going to Urmanov. When she came with a bouquet and said to me: “Thank you very much for everything you have done” and left the office, I opened the media, and there was already a huge interview with Vaitsekhovskaya, where Urmanov says he has already made a plan to have worked with Lipnitskaya for the coming year. Seriously? So fast? It was some kind of joke, a joke…

“I understand that at least I brought a bar of chocolate, like I did in the past…

— I once said about Zhenya Medvedeva that at one time we helped her sell an apartment somewhere on Rizhskaya and buy a closer one, we were doing renovations there for her… She lived here in a neighboring house and could somehow walk to the rink and thank her, not me, but the school, which did a lot for her and solved all the problems. Why is all this forgotten? — said Tutberidze on the air of the “Comment Trainer” project.