（接上帖）
Do you try to hide your nervousness from your students?
Well yes, I take my bunch of nervine pills. When Lyosha Yagudin skated, I guess, he felt how nervous I was for him. That's why before the skate he wouldn't look at me. We didn't even talk at practices.
At all?
You may not say anything, but there are the eyes, the hands, the guards, the tissue-papers, the water... You have to bring everything and to know when to give it to the athlete. To hold him near the boards if you feel it's necessary, or just the opposite, to send him to skate.
I have to say some words to Sasha Cohen before she skates. When her name is announced, she turns her face to me with her huge eyes looking right at me, and I say her a phrase that I prepare for several days. I always say it in Russian.
I often ask her: "Probably you don't understand me?" She says: "No, I understand you". I don't think she understands 100% everything, but that's for the better. What one can say in temper...
Cohen is the first elite level ladies skater in your career. What are the new things you learn while working with her?
I never met a person who'd so fanatically and yet so joyfully and reasonably tortured herself at the practices. Sasha does the amount of work meant for men. I train her like I trained Kulik and Yagudin. I never thought she was able to work like that.
For half an hour after each practice Sasha does streching exercises, so with the flexibilty she has her back wouldn't hurt. She realizes perfectly that the muscles need work in order to avoid injuries.
Of course I want this girl to win. The first time this autumn she won over Michelle Kwan - in New York, at "Madison Square Garden". I was waiting for the moment when she steps onto the ice next morning. Because after such victories athletes are capable of everything. They gain confidence that cannot be trained at practices. I'll never forget how Kulik completed his first quad Salchow - it was on the day after he won the pre-Olympic Russian Nationals.
Watching like Sasha was literally flying across the ice, I couldn't help but start smiling. Then I felt Lyosha Yadudin was looking at me, with both understanding and jealousy: "That's it, she's in love already..."
I listened to Tarasova having this question in my head: what would her father say? He couldn't imagine himself working for another country. Would he understand and support her?
As if she felt it, Tarasova stopped talking. Then she continued:
When I was 30 I was sent to Italy to work as we were saying back then, for food. For 30% day pay. The manager of the club was a millionaire, who owned jewellery shops around Europe. By the way, we are still friends with him. He built a rink for his daughter. He was coming to the practices, he saw how I worked for 10 hours a day, doing a choreography for the programs for everyone who wanted it. And suddenly he offered: "Stay here. The rink will be yours. As well as 12-bedroom house. I'm sure people from all over the world will be coming to you".
I was so scared that I was ready to pack my bags and leave. I couldn't even think about discrediting my family by living abroad. I started to explain him something about how much I love my country. He didn't understand: "But noone forbids you from loving it, right?" Then I confessed: "You see, my dad is there. If I stay, he will be dismissed from the army and put to jail. And he will be forced to condemn me. It's impossible".
My dad was invited to NHL, to "Rangers". He was offered a 3 million dollars contract. It's the same as 10 millions today. At that time he wasn't working, he wasn't invited anywhere, they didn't show him on TV. He get to know about the letter from NHL 1,5 years after it was received by Sports Committee. The Americans were told that Tarasov was very ill, that he couldn't even walk.
Once when he was really seriously ill, he asked me suddenly: "Why didn't you advise me to go there?" I was confused: "Did you ever ask?"
Do you think he could work there?
I think about other things. If he went |
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