Interview With Anuschka Gläser and Axel Rauschenbach

If you want to talk about German pairs skating, two names that you definitely want to be bringing up are Anuschka Gläser and Axel Rauschenbach. With his former partner Mandy Wötzel (who went on to win the 1997 World title with Ingo Steuer), Axel won the silver medal at the 1989 European Championships, two East German titles and a unified German title and represented Germany at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. In 1992, after a year away from skating Rauschenbach teamed up with Anuschka Gläser, who had won two West German titles herself. Together, the duo from East and West Germany won the 1994 German pairs title and went on to represent Germany at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and enjoy success as professional pairs skaters during the boom of professional competitive and show skating opportunities following those 1994 Games. Unifying the two again after so many years apart, I spoke to both Anuschka and Axel about their respective skating careers and past, present and future in this must read interview! Genießen Sie!:

Q: You teamed up in 1992 and only ended up competing together for one season as "amateur" skaters, but in that remarkably short amount of time won the 1994 German title (ahead of former German Champions and veteran skaters Peggy Schwarz and Alexander König) and went on to compete at the European Championships, Winter Olympics in Lillehammer and World Championships in Japan. What are you proudest moments from your competitive career as a pairs team? What memories are the most special?

A from Anuschka: We already teamed up in September of 1992 but we started only in the following season. This was hard to understand and very disappointing for me. I couldn't get along with the Eastern mentality where long preparation times are expected. I have quite an impatient character. I'd like to have competed in the season of 1992/1993. When I teamed up with Stefan Pfrengle, we had only six and a half weeks until Nationals. I was also a roller skater and just returned from Worlds in New Zealand in October 1987. In the Nationals, we came second. And after ten weeks, we got ninth at Europeans. This is what I'm proud of. Also for the fifth place at Europeans in 1990 in Leningrad (also with Stefan). When I teamed up with Axel, I'm not so proud of my performances. He was a great partner but somehow I couldn't give my best! This still hurts sometimes but I enjoyed to skate with Axel more. That was the way I wanted to skate! The proudest moment with Axel was at the Team Worlds 1994 in Amherst. We skated to "Schindler's List" and this program was created by ourselves without any help from a choreographer. It just flowed out of us. Ekaterina Gordeeva came to me after practice and said that she really, really liked that program. For me, that was the most valuable compliment I had ever received. Amherst and our short trip to New York afterwards where we also spent time with Katarina Witt and Scott Hamilton is one of my best memories.

A from Axel: When I finished my career as a figure skater in 1992 with Mandy Wötzel, Anuschka came up to me and asked me if I could imagine trying to start with her for the next Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer 1994. For me it was a great honor and also a great challenge. She was also a superb figure skater and German Champion with a good figure skating style. The chance to participate in two Olympic Games within two years was unmissable and I was proud to have this done with Anuschka. To participate in Olympic Games is something special. Only few athletes in the world manage to participate during their sporting careers. I am grateful that in 1992 Anuschka convinced me to train for the special moments we shared in Lillehammer 1994.

Q: Anuschka, I find it interesting that both you and Katarina Witt chose to skate to music from "Schindler's List" during your professional careers. You studied politics and sociology at the university of Stuttgart. What was the message behind this program and how do you feel that people perceive or react to German skaters tackling this music and story on the ice?

A from Anuschka: To be honest, we chose that music because it's wonderful music. We didn't want to make a statement but we wanted to tell a story. Our story was one of a Jewish couple who survived the Holocaust because they didn't lose their faith in love and humanity. The reaction of the program? I was only aware of the skating at the time. I was very surprised when I heard the commentary on a record many years later. The commentator spoke about a controversial choice of music for a German skater. But it wasn't at all controversial for me. Why emphasize that we are Germans? What would be the difference if a Canadian or American or Russian skater would have chosen this music? There was no reservation in choosing this theme and music. I don’t feel guilty for the Holocaust because I’m a German, not a Nazi! I would have fought against the Nazis. This is the way all German people feel except for a tiny number of idiots and there are idiots everywhere. I have courage to say things even if they are not popular and I'm a skeptical person. This is why I started to study politics and sociology in 2002. I don’t believe so much to the information of the media and I like to look behind the scenes. I think I'm kind of resistant to propaganda. But in 1994, I wasn't political. Axel and I we were artists.

Q: Very, very well said! As we have already touched on, you turned professional in 1994 and skated in competitions together like the World Team Championships as we've talked about as well as the Rowenta Masters On Ice in Germany and other shows. How difficult was the transition from "amateur" to professional skating and what did you enjoy the most about the freedom of not skating under ISU rules?

A from Anuschka: The difficulty for me was to accept that we wouldn't compete in the "real" competitions anymore but the transition wasn't difficult at all! You cannot compare ISU from 1994 rules with today's! The big difference was that I was only responsible for me and there was no federation with any expectations. This made me "psychologically free". What I enjoyed most was that we could concentrate much more on the performance than on the elements.

Q: Anuschka, you had a very similar experience, winning two West German titles with Stefan Pfrengle in 1989 in 1990, which were actually the last two pairs titles in West Germany before the unification and tearing down of Berlin Wall). You and Stefan competed against Axel and Mandy for a spot on the 1992 Olympic team. Did you all always get along or was there any rivalry there?

A from Anuschka: There was disappointment that we couldn't get the place in the Olympic team but not such a strong rivalry. There is a certain rivalry but it's marginal. I really think that pair skaters are different to other skaters. There is such a long way behind you until you become a successful pair skater and you also need a couple of attributes that makes you more hail-fellow-well-met. Maybe the reason was much easier. Maybe it's only because in the past pair skaters were always the first who finished competitions and started first with partying. Maybe we just did too much partying to be rivals.

Q: How are you both currently connected to Germany's figure skating community?

A from Anuschka: I'm a coach. Not full time because I'm also mother of three daughters but I'm still in direct connection to Germany’s figure skating community.

A from Axel: Today I have friendly relationships with many former skaters. Sometimes we meet, talk and laugh about the old days and the many wonderful experiences we had. From 1995 to 2012, every year I have participated in a skating exhibition in my hometown, Dresden. I also played various roles in German fairy tale performances on the ice as a solo performer there. I don’t have any other connections to figure skating, for example as a coach or judge. Professionally I work as a patent attorney at my parents' offices in Dresden.

Q: Pairs figure skating in Germany has again enjoyed success in recent years, with skaters like Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy having so much success internationally. Aliona has since teamed up with a new partner, Bruno Massot. Both having gone through partner changes, what do you think are the keys to making this new partnership a smooth transition and a fast success?

A from Anuschka: The key for their success will be the indispensable and absolute will of Aliona Savchenko and their coach Ingo Steuer... and there will be no smooth transition.

Q: Axel, you married 1980 Olympic Gold Medallist Anett Pötzsch. How did the two of you meet?

A from Axel: This is a difficult question to answer, because Anett and I have since parted and gone our separate ways.

Q: I'm sorry to hear that! The next question I wanted to ask either of you would be regarding your thoughts on the way pair figure skating is judged these days versus when you were competing. Do you think the right qualities are being rewarded and what are your thoughts on anonymous judging?

Anuschka today with her family

A from Anuschka: This is a very complex question and I try to make it short. My thoughts regarding the IJS versus 6.0: I prefer the 6.0, even if I’m not saying anything new. It was clear to the audience! You knew what a 4.5 meant or a 5.3 and it was an emotional moment for the audience (and also for the skater) to get a 6.0. You can easily grasp marks and numbers up to ten but it is hard to grasp two hundred points. You just know that if you reached two hundred you’d be on top of the world! You cannot even compare the highest score from one year to the next because each year they change rules, points for elements or the number of elements. To give a current example, next season there will not be the factor 1.1 for the second half of the program in pair skating. There is no message in the points for the audience! Regarding the quality of pair skating, we see more varieties in lifts, death spirals, spins and steps than we saw ten years before! But we see many of the same varieties done by each couple because of the need to collect points. We see a lot of very similar programs and year after year each pair only change their music but keep the order of elements and the transitions. But it's really amazing what pairs are able to do today! What they do need is an enormous level of concentration but too much concentration is also the death of emotion, so we lost emotions in two parts: in the scoring system and in the programs. Unfortunately, the IJS does not prevent bad or politically motivated judging. If judging is anonymous or not doesn't make any difference in the IJS. Understanding the judging doesn't improve if you know them personally. Also, it is hard for the judges themselves to get a feedback with regards to their own performance. If the judge gives the highest or lowest mark it will get out of the score and if you are always out of average you risk a disciplinary sanction. But what I think is critical is that they can make or unmake a champion and it is too heavily influenced by the components. On the other hand, there are the technical specialists - confusingly named in my opinion, because they are not specialists for technique but they define elements on basis of certain rules. They are not anonymous and make the decisions in one team. This team's position is also critical and the technical specialists have a hard job. To summarize, there is more quality but less emotion. Why can't we come up with a system that maintains emotion AND improves quality? The IJS is inscrutable and not transparent. It produces montony and conformity, penalizing uniqueness. The IJS doesn't solve the problem of illegal arrangements. How can we create a fair system? This will always be a problem. It is probably an illusion that biases can be removed from the system entirely.

Q: When is the last time the two of you skated together and would it ever happen again?

A from Anuschka: December 1996 at Rowenta Masters was the last time and I don't think that it will happen again because I moved back to Stuttgart and Axel lives in Dresden. I still really like skating and would love to skate again with Axel.

A from Axel: The time with Anuschka as a pair skater was totally different to the career with Mandy. We trained hard every day in addition to my job but we also had a lot of fun and took part in a lot of great competitions. Should it arise, I would love to skate again with Anuschka too.

Axel today

Q: Axel, prior to teaming up with Anuschka, your partner was Mandy Wötzel, with whom you won two East German national titles, a German title, the 1989 European silver medal and competed at the 1992 Winter Olympic Games. Why did you and Mandy decide to split up and what was the experience of having to compete against your former partner like?

A from Axel: After winning the silver medal at the European Championships in 1989 in Birmingham, we had a serious accident just before leaving for the World Championships in Paris 1989. Mandy had a serious head injury after a collision with my skate. This accident threw us back. We never again reached the form we had before the accident. Added to this, our opinions with regard to training began to diverge. After the Olympic Games in Albertville in 1992, I decided to take a job in banking rather that to pursue the sport further. I was definitely a little impatient and had set expectations and goals that were too high. Today, after many years, I might have decided otherwise. But the decision also had a good side. Anuschka and I had an additional incentive with our training partners Mandy and Ingo. Mandy was fortunate enough to win some great titles and we have all achieved our goal to participate in the Olympic Games in Lillehammer 1994.

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters of all time and why?

A from Axel: Brian Boitano is one. I love his kind of skating, his lightness and ability to present any jump. His performances remain a fond memory. Ekaterina Gordeeva/Sergei Grinkov also. They are my ideal pair skaters. Difficult elements together with a perfect sliding on the ice and the peerless grace of Ekaterina. I have watched in amazement and always with admiration during training and competition. Finally, Kurt Browning. For me he is a perfect skater, justifiably known for his excellent footwork. In 1988, he jumped the first error-free quadruple jump - a quadruple toe loop- in a competition. His choreography and extravagant programs have always inspired me. I always look forward to his show programs with joy.

A from Anuschka: Toller Cranston! When he was at the top, I was really young. I was touched by his way of skating and being different and I was impressed by the story that he threw his compulsory figure skates into a river after his last competition as an amateur even if I don’t know if the story is true. I didn't like the compulsory figures as well and I was thinking more than once to follow his example! Ekaterina Gordeeva is the embodiment for lightness, grace and beauty. She is a skating fairy. Katarina Witt was never an ice princess and she couldn't be one. She was always a queen. My favourite couple (even if that wasn't the question) is Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. They are outstanding! There are no more words than outstanding!

Q: What's one thing about you most people don't know?

A from Anuschka: I don’t kill spiders and I give names to the ones who come into our apartment. Since our spiders have names they are not scary anymore to my children and sometimes also bees get a name.

A from Axel: I love Canada and hate elevators.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Afternoons Of A Faun

Afternoon of a Faun by Édouard Manet. Photo courtesy Princeton University Library, Graphic Arts Collection.

In 1876, French author Stéphane Mallarmé penned the poem "L'après-midi d'un faune". It described the sensual awakening of a faun who had just awoken from an afternoon sleep and recounts the faun's encounters with several nymphs during a morning dreamlike sequence. It inspired Claude Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", a revolutionary composition that helped spark the modernist movement in music. Debussy's music and Mallarmé's poem came to life with movement in the ballet "Afternoon Of A Faun", choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky and first performed on stage at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in 1912, with the lead role of the faun danced by Nijinsky himself. The choreography - non-traditional, angular and sensual - sparked debate and mixed reviews among critics, who called it everything from "perfect" to "crude". Although sadly never recorded, Nijinsky's ballet was revived in the 1980's and Debussy's "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" also inspired ballets by Jerome Robbins and Timothy Rushton. In time, skaters began translating Mallarmé, Debussy and Nijinsky's combined legacy to the frozen stage in their own afternoons of a faun:

JANET LYNN

What better way to start with than with Janet Lynn, who (like Curry, who I'll talk about next) is one of a very few select skaters that I have a hard time finding words sufficient to properly do any justice. "Afternoon Of A Faun" became a signature piece for Janet throughout her "amateur" and professional careers and it's no wonder why. The freedom and controlled abandon in her movement is inspiring; her unbridled joy and attention to detail otherworldly. When you bring this music to life, a big part of it are those unexpected and wonderful movements to the crescendos in the orchestration. Janet brings the interesting to the table: the single axel into the double axel, the walleys in both direction into the back split and flying camel spin. Her carriage and the quality not only of each and every element but the edges and extensions is simply beautiful beyond words.

JOHN CURRY

John Curry's contribution to professional and artistic skating is truly unparalleled. He legitimized skating as dance and skating as art and left a legacy in his huge and heartfelt body of work that really can't be touched. He CHANGED skating. Like Lynn, "Afternoon Of A Faun" was a signature piece for Curry, and his performance of Norman Maen's choreography coupled with exquisite costuming by Nadine Baylis made for the most authentic interpretation of Nijinsky's vision as I understand it. He captured and told the story through angular movement with the most gorgeous body line and USE of his body, capturing every little nuance and detail of the music almost to a science. The contrast and tension in arm movements and his connection with Catherine Foulkes in this piece was ice dancing at his finest. High art in every sense of the word.

YUKA SATO

Yuka Sato's interpretation of Debussy's rich score was simply gorgeous. I think taking on a piece of music like this, especially as it was so well known in connection to legends like Curry and Lynn, was a brave artistic choice and she pulled it off in every sense of the expression. I loved the two foot turns following that huge triple loop and the ebb and flow balance of speed and softness. I also love how she gets INTO the ice with her knees. Like Lynn, Sato finds such joy in the act of skating and is a natural at expressing the character of the music she's skating to. A beautiful and rich interpretation.

ILIA KLIMKIN

What I love about Ilia Klimkin's interpretation is that clever, avant garde yet elegant, almost Alexandr Fadeev like quality in his skating. His interpretation is INTERESTING. I think back to skaters like Klimkin, Olga Markova, Laetitia Hubert, Vanessa Gusmeroli and Laurent Tobel from that era that had such original and interesting choreography and it makes me really miss the 6.0 judging system even more. I digress as usual. Loved the spins in both directions and the triple salchow out of that spin exit was sheer insanity. How? There was so much more though. A walley into a triple axel, the running, the Cantilever... Despite some jump problems in this particular performance, Klimkin breathed fresh life into Debussy's music and offered a unexpected contrast.

CAROLINA KOSTNER

I should be saying 2014 Olympic Gold Medallist Carolina Kostner, but the world's mad. Like all of the skaters I'm talking about in this blog article, Kostner is another skater who has been fearless about tackling BIG music... from "Bolero" to "Ave Maria" to "Afternoon Of A Faun", Carolina doesn't shy away from a challenge. Kostner's interpretation of the music was hearty and layered as well. There's a certain risk and reward to placing big ticket jumps on musical crescendos but in this program, Kostner pulled it off at least twice... the triple loops were placed perfectly. The footwork sequence was delightfully musical and didn't have that IJS windmill in a windstorm up and down labored feel to it whatsoever and I thought the placing of the spin combinations was brilliant. A fine example of a skater making something out of the IJS system's restraints and delivering a really beautiful program in spite of that challenge.

ADAM RIPPON

I think "Afternoon Of A Faun" was just the right vehicle for Adam Rippon. Being the fluid skater he is, this was a perfect piece of music to capitalize on his very styled and mature presence on the ice. It was a well constructed program as well, with the spread eagle into triple loop well placed to the music. Like in Curry's interpretation, Rippon made great use of his arms as well. I also was a big fan of the footwork sequence's placement in the program and two Rippon lutzes really put an exclamation point on the latter part of the program, setting up the program's ending to succeed. A masterpiece, as most Tom Dickson programs are.

I think the wonderful commonality in all of these programs is that all 6.0 of these skaters was able to, in their own unique ways, breathe such life into a piece and a story that started in the nineteenth century. Their Afternoons Of A Faun were in turns joyous, moody, reverent, irreverent, interesting, expressive and choreographically well constructed and delivered. There's something to be said for just going out and skating lights out to a beautiful piece of music and this Debussy gem has really been very good to skating.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Interview With Maé-Bérénice Méité

With six consecutive medals at the French Figure Skating Championships (including the gold this past season) to her credit, Maé-Bérénice Méité has proven that she is most definitely a force to be reckoned with. A prodigal jumper, Maé-Bérénice has represented France on the world's biggest stages: the World Junior Championships, the Junior and Senior Grand Prix circuits as well as the European Championships and the World Championships. Her tenth place finish at the 2014 Sochi Games in the ladies event was the highest placement by a French ladies skater since 1998 when Vanessa Gusmeroli and Surya Bonaly both found themselves in the top ten. Certainly not just a jumper, Maé-Bérénice's unorthodox and creative program choices demand one's attention. It was my pleasure to speak to her at length about her career to date, coach Katia Crier, goals, life off the ice and much more in this fantastic interview you are bound to love:

Q: Last season, you won the French National Championships after winning medals the five previous years. What did it mean to you to stand atop the podium and become France's National Champion?

A: Last season, winning the national title was a real relief. I finally got it after five years of fighting and four silver medals. This title means a lot to me because first, it's one thing to be the French national silver medallist and and other to be the National Champion... and second, after all those years I've finally reached one of my several goals. For me, it was a good thing to have it especially during this Olympic year. I really wanted to go to Sochi and from the beginning of the season, I knew I had to do a perfect journey from the first competition to the Europeans to get my ticket to the Olympics, National Championships included.

Q: Your career has had so much success - trips to the Olympics, European and World Championships, Grand Prix events, Junior Worlds and international competition success, including a win at the Ondrej Nepela Memorial in 2011. Looking back on your career so far, what are your proudest moments... and what moments were the hardest?

A: Let's start with the hardest one! Back during the 2009/2010 season, I decided to have a new coach after ten years being with the same one. It wasn't the easiest decision I had to make but when you're starting to compete at a high level, you have to make some difficult choices. Then I'd say the National Championships that I've missed and my second European Championships in Sheffield. Very hard time! That competition was my ticket for World in Nice. I really wanted to do it because it was in my home country. Unfortunately I screwed up so I was in Nice but in the stands, not on the ice. My proudest moments are simply when I see that very beautiful smile on parents faces. Without them, I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be the person I am today. But you know, we can always be proud of ourselves as long as we tried to do our best. It's not always perfect but at least we tried with our heart and our soul. I think that's what we should be more proud of! But of course, being in Sochi was so far the best experience of my entire life and I'm very proud of it. But I have to keep working. It's only the beginning!

Q: You are coached by the very talented Katia Crier and work with Laurie May and Sandra Garde (a gifted choreographer and skater!) on choreography. What is your relationship like with your coaches and choreographers and why does it work so well?

A: I started training with Katia in 2009/2010 and you know, she knows where she goes and why she goes there so I just trust her and her knowledge and do whatever she has told me. She has said  "I don't care if you're ill, sick, if you got a cough or if you don't want to work today... just go on the ice and do your job and don't complain" and also "You're allowed to say that you are tired only on Saturday after 11 AM" so she has taught me what high level work is! We both love when things are well made so that's why it worked so good between us! It's the same with Laurie and Sandra... different people but complementary! That's how we keep the good work going!

Q: You've always dreamed of developing your own perfume! Tell me about your passion for wonderful scents and if you had to make a signature perfume called Maé Bérénice, what would it smell like?

A: Oh yes, I have always loved perfume since I was a child and that's why I wanted to study sciences at school. I really, really love men's perfume and I got one for me called "La nuit de l'homme by Yves Saint Laurent" and it has a very strong and powerful smell! Yes, some of the perfumes I wear are for men. I know it's strange but I really love strong and powerful scents! I also have a LOT of women's fragrance. I love scents! If I created my own perfume, it would smell something strong and sweet at the time, something a bit mysterious with that little something that would make the difference!

Q: You are a POWERHOUSE of a jumper! What is your favourite and least favourite jump?

A: My favourite jumps... Hmm... double Axel and triple Lutz! My least favourite one is the triple flip.

Q: France is rich in skating tradition and it has produced so many fantastic ladies skaters over the years - Surya Bonaly, Laetitia Hubert, Vanessa Gusmeroli and countless others... what French ladies skaters do you look up to most?

A: I look up to Surya the most because of all her medals and titles. She has very good mental focus and I admire this.

Q: Looking towards the coming season, what are your main goals for this season and what can you share about the programs you will be skating?

A: Well, my main goals are really getting better and better and to get better places on the Grand Prix and at Europeans and Worlds! About my music, this year I wanted strong and powerful music. I won't say more. You'll see during the season!

Q: Of the skaters you are competing against, who do you admire most?

A: I admire a lot of skaters I've competed against but also a lot of men, each one for different reasons! First, I love Mao Asada because not every lady can do a triple axel. Then Yuna Kim, she is the queen and it's not for nothing. She's very feminine and has beautiful jumps. I love her skating as much as I love Ashley Wagner's skating. They are both always feminine with so much power in every single step they are doing. About Ashley, I had the chance to do an entire season competing against her (Skate America, Bompard, Olympics and Worlds) and I always looked for her Pink Floyd short program because that one was just so amazing! I was just so in love with this one! Also, I'm in love with Carolina Kostner. Beautiful long arms and legs and she knows how to use them. About the men, I love Daisuke Takahashi and Florent Amodio. They both play with the audience and have that body movement that I love! Patrick Chan as well for his amazing transitions. They all have that little something and everyone can only remember each of them for that and that's why I love them: they're different!

Q: If you could have a day completely away from the rink, where would you go, what would you eat and what music would you be listening to?

A: I would go to a beautiful place lost in the middle of nowhere... a haven of peace with waterfalls. I would bring my best friends there with no phone, no internet, nothing but nature. We would eat fruits from that place and we would be listening all day long to Beyoncé's songs.

Q: What's one thing about you most people don't know?

A: Maybe that I'm a very shy person!

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters of all time and why?

A: Kurt Browning: who cannot love that dancing man? He is just awesome and so creative! Brian Joubert: through up and downs he has always showed what a real champion is. He has so many titles but I admire this most... even when people didn't believe in him, he just kept doing what he really loves. Marina Anissina and Gwendal Peizerat: when they won the Olympics I was so young but so happy! I could never forget the "fire haired" woman and their beautiful exhibition program "Susanna". That one definitely made me love ice dance.

Q: If you could change one thing about the world, what would it be?

A: Tolerance! This world needs more tolerance... and optimism!

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Georg Heym: The Skating Prophet

Born in October 1887 in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia in what was then Prussia, Georg Heym is posthumously considered as one of the great figures of German Expressionism. Only in his early twenties, he penned several books of poetry, prose and drama including "Der ewige Tag (The Eternal Day)" in 1911 and "Umbra vitae" in 1912. What made his writing so interesting was that themes and metaphors that were considered prophetic by many, including the Nazis who later regarded his life's work as suspect. "The Eternal Day" used the metaphor a big city (in Heym's case Berlin) as a demon that destroyed humanity and his latter work "Umbra vitae", he wrote of an apocalyptic fantasy that later became the reality of World War I in "The War" and in "Death In Water" chillingly seemed to predict his own end almost like Jeff Buckley when he sang "I Know It's Over". Just as Buckley sang "Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head" predicting his death by drowning, Heym did the same in "Death In Water".

An unsatisfied student at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Gymnasium at Neuruppin in Brandenburg and the law school in Würzburg, Heym was by accounts a bit of a rebel, an individual in time when 'that sort of thing was frowned upon'. He wrote poetry as a means of expression while studying things that left him unsatisfied and even joined a Dead Poets Society style group called the Neue Club which was full of open minded thinkers who shared a sense of rebellion against the status quo, a disdain for contemporary culture and a desire for political and societal upheaval. The Neue Club held meetings much like the Dead Poets Society called Neopathetisches Cabaret where they presented new work and this is where Heym really started gaining attention and praise among his peers.

Natalie Merchant's song "It's A Coming" almost seems to echo Heym's ominous writing

UMBRA VITAE 

Heym's 1912 prophetic poem, translated from German by Christopher Middleton:

"The people on the streets draw up and stare,
While overhead huge portents cross the sky;
Round fanglike towers threatening comets flare,
Death-bearing, fiery-snouted where they fly.

On every roof astrologers abound,
enormous tubes thrust heavenward; there are
Magicians springing up from underground,
Aslant in darkness, conjuring to a star.

Through night great hordes of suicides are hurled,
Men seeking on their way the selves they've lost;
Crook-backed they haunt all corners of the world,
And with their arms for brooms they sweep the dust.

They are as dust, keep but a little while;
And as they move their hair drops out. They run,
To hasten their slow dying. Then they fall,
And in the open fields lie prone,

But twitch a little still. Beasts of the field
Stand blindly around them, prod with horns
Their sprawling bodies till at last they yield,
Lie buried by the sage-bush, by the thorns.

But all the seas are stopped. Among the waves
The shops hang rotting, scattered, beyond hope.
No current through the water moves,
And all the courts of heaven are locked up.

Trees do not change, the seasons do not change.
Enclosed in dead finality each stands,
And over broken roads lets frigid range
Its palmless thousand-fingered hands.

They dying man sits up, as if to stand,
Just once more word a moment since he cries,
All at once he's gone. Can life so end?
And crushed to fragments are his glassy eyes.

The secret shadows thicken, darkness breaks;
Behind the speechless doors dreams watch and creep.
Burdened by light of dawn the man that wakes
Must rub from grayish eyelids leaden sleep."

Just as he predicted in his poem "Death In Water", at age twenty four Heym (an avid skater) and his friend Ernst Balcke would meet their end in water two years before the start of World War I. The two friends traveled to the frozen Havel (a tributary of the Elbe river in northeastern Germany) on a skating trip and never returned. A few days later, the bodies of both men were found and it is generally believed that Balcke had fallen through the ice and Heym had attempted to save his friend but fell in and perished in the cold water himself. Heym remained alive in the water for half an hour, his cries heard by nearby forestry workers that were sadly unable to reach him before he succumbed to hypothermia or drowning.

Gone too soon, John Curry's story and skating was like Heym's writing - ahead by a century.

This rebel, this brilliant writer and skating prophet's story almost harkens in my mind to the story of John Curry... a precocious rebel of convention of his times who left an indelible impression on the world around him and tragically left us too soon. One can only hope that the tragic losses of talented virtuosos in their respective crafts like Heym and Curry will continue to live on and influence the work of the wonderful rebels of generations to come.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Interview With Lisa-Marie Allen

In the late seventies and early eighties, if you had any knowledge of figure skating you absolutely knew the name Lisa-Marie Allen. A four time senior ladies medallist at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Lisa-Marie actually defeated eventual Olympic Medallist Linda Fratianne in the combined short program and free skate scores at the 1980 U.S. Nationals to earn her spot on the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic team, where she finished fifth. Retiring from "amateur" competition following the 1981 U.S. Championships, she went on to a highly successful professional career that saw her star in the Ice Capades, win the 1990 World Professional Championships in Jaca, Spain and the 1997 American Open professional title and act as co-founder of the City Of Angels Ice Theater. Now a coach and technical specialist based out of beautiful Sun Valley, Idaho, Lisa-Marie took the time from her busy schedule to talk about both her "amateur" and professional careers, working with Will Ferrell and Jon Heder on Blades Of Glory, motherhood and much more in this fantastic interview you're bound to love!

Q: You represented the U.S. at the Winter Olympics in 1980 and at three World Championships. During your eligible career, you also won four medals at the U.S. National Championships and won international events like Skate America, Skate Canada and the Nebelhorn Trophy. Looking back, what were the most special and the most difficult moments of your eligible career? 

A: In a nutshell, the best of times...winning junior ladies in 1975 (I had only been skating since October of 1969) and making the Olympic team in 1980... the the not so best would be being denied the U.S. National title in 1978 in Portland and competing in 1981 with a sprained ankle. I had hoped to win the title without Linda Fratianne skating that year.

Q: When you turned professional, you toured with Ice Capades and also competed professionally, winning both the American Open and World Professional titles and participating in many other events. What do you think the sport is missing now that the lines have been blurred between eligible and pro skating?

A: The sport has certainly changed in both ways. We see amazing accomplishments happening every year but before 1984, we truly were amateurs and had to "find our way" without the hype from media and corporations that wanted a piece of the action upon our success.

Q: Do you think the new judging system and the elimination of compulsory figures as helped or hurt the sport? 

A: In my role as a technical panel specialist, I have tried to see the fair and positive change to the sport. At times, my hopes have not been fulfilled. Without a doubt, we need figures back in the structure but it will never happen. It takes too much time and we as modern day humans don't have the patience.

Q: What are your memories of the 1990 World Professional Championships in Jaca, Spain? 

A: I went to Jaca three times and the last trip (when I won), the Mayor of Jaca welcomed me "home". That was amazing! I think I skated to Roy Orbison's "Crazy" but can't quite recall. I also learned a few Spanish things to say to the audience.

Q: What do you devote most of your time to now that you aren't performing regularly?

A: Hiking with my dogs!

Q: When was the last time you were on the ice?

A: Yesterday! I still skate a few days a week. The last time I performed was in the 2012 Battle of the Blades here in Sun Valley. I was the front end of Herman Maricich's bull in a tribute to him.

Q: You skated to "Song Instead Of A Kiss" by Alannah Myles during your professional career. I love that song! What are your favourite pieces of music you have skated to? 

A: I love too many to pick just one. In my skating, I just tried to choose songs that were interesting and challenging to choreograph. They may not have been totally crowd pleasing, but I enjoyed the work.

Q: What's one thing about you most people don't know? 

A: Most people don't know that I am one of five children - the only girl and the youngest.

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters and why? 

A: I started skating because of Peggy Fleming, Charlie Tickner is one of my best friends and Michelle Kwan is truly a rock star!

Q: You choreographed for both the movie Blades Of Glory and the Olympic Games Opening and Closing Ceremonies! What do you enjoy most about choreography and are you still involved in coaching and choreography today? 

A: I am truly grateful to have had the experiences that skating has brought to me. Working on the Opening Ceremonies was a great learning lesson of life. The stress and pressure to produce something of that magnitude for live TV was unbelievable. I had daily bouts of tears just to release the stress and carry on with focus. On the Blades Of Glory film, the chance to bring skating to a completely different demographic was a blast. The time spent with Will Farrell, Amy Poehler, Jon Heder and Will Arnett was fantastic. They were all troupers as far as what they were willing to attempt. I still teach a bit and choreograph for my students.

Q: What is the biggest life lesson you have learned through motherhood? 

A: To embrace the chance to love and nurture another human being.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Interview With Viktoria Helgesson

After talking about Ulrich Salchow's less than sportsmanlike behavior in the last blog "Oh No She Didn't: A 1908 Figure Skating Skirmish", I didn't want to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth for Swedish figure skating. If there was a great time for an interview with a fantastic Swedish skater, now would be certainly be it. Strikingly beautiful and exceptionally talented, Sweden's Viktoria Helgesson has long been a contender in elite ladies skating. She has won seven Swedish national titles, represented her country at the Winter Olympic Games and World Championships and at the 2011 Skate America competition she won her country's first ever senior Grand Prix medal. Viktoria took the time from her busy training schedule to talk about her relationship with her sister and competitor Joshi, goals for the 2014/2015 season, new and not so new programs, life off the ice and much more in this interview that will most definitely leave you ready to be her biggest cheerleader in the coming year:

Q: You've had so much success in your career so far - representing your country at the Winter Olympics, winning seven Swedish national titles, five Nordic titles, wins internationally at the NRW Trophy, Challenge Cup and Merano Cup and strong results on the Grand Prix circuit and at the European and World Championships. What are your proudest moments or most special memories looking back on your skating career so far?

A: I have so many great moments looking back but the best competition must be the World Championships in Torino in 2010. It was my first time skating clean in a championship and I skated better than I had ever dreamed of. It was the first time we got two places for Worlds and I could bring my sister which for me was another dream come true: skating in a world championship with my sister! Another dream come true was when I won the bronze medal at Skate America. I became the first one from Sweden to ever medal at a Grand Prix, which of course was a proud moment for me.

Q: Your sister Joshi is also an elite skater and in fact one of your biggest competitors at home in Sweden. Has skating ever caused a sense of sibling rivalry between the two of you or has it brought you closer together? Or both?

A: We always support each other and it is so great to have your sister and best friend traveling around the world with me. I think we have helped each other a lot. We can compete against each other at home every day and I don’t think we would have come this far without each other.

Q: You and Joshi's coaching team includes your mother Christina (Svensson) who is a former Swedish Champion in her own right. I can't imagine how special it is for the three of you to share this experience together. How do you and your family separate life at the rink from your relationships outside of skating?

A: We try not to talk so much skating at home and try to do everything in the rink. If we have something to discuss, we instead stay in the rink a little bit before we go home. It was harder when I was younger - in the teens. Now I don’t live with my parents anymore so when I go and see them we have a lot of other things to discuss!

Q: Your choreographer is four time Swedish Champion and fellow Olympian Catarina Lindgren - who I think is just fabulous by the way. What makes her the ideal choreographer for you and what can you share about the programs you'll be skating this coming season?

A: I love working with her. She knows what I am trying to accomplish and she brings out the best of my skating in my programs. This year I'm taking back the free program from the 2012/2013 season (Sunset Boulevard). Well, I have a completely different program and I have changed the music a bit. I am bringing in some music with lyrics in the middle but it's the same idea, same story. In the short, I will skate to Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work". I loved this music from the moment I heard it and I really love this program. I had a hard season last year. I didn't feel like myself skating so this year I wanted to get the feeling of 'me' back in my programs.

 

Q: What are your goals for the 2014/2015 season and what have been your main areas of focus in training?

A: My goal is to skate clean programs with the flip, lutz and triple/triple combo landed. We have Europeans in Sweden next year which of course is one of the biggest goals for me this season. We only have one spot to Worlds so I know I have to skate good this season to get there.

Q: What are one thing you can't go anywhere without?

A: This is hard! My phone... but then again I don't know. I usually travel with my sister so if I forget anything I can borrow things from Joshi.

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters of all time and why? 

A: There are so many good skaters. It's so hard to choose! I watched a lot of skating growing up. When I was younger my favourite was Michelle Kwan. I loved her skating! I also have to say Yuna Kim.

Q: What's one thing most people don't know about you?

A: I can't think of something right now! I don't have so many other interests. When I'm not skating, I just love spending time with my fiance, my friends and family.

Q: What do you love more than anything about being on the ice?

A: I love the feeling when you succeed with something you have worked for like a new jump, a clean program or a awesome competition. Those moments are the best! I love to perform but also just to skate at home - play some really great music and just skate to it.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Panin and Salchow: A 1908 Figure Skating Skirmish

In 1908, Bette Davis was born and her future rival Joan Crawford was only four years old. Famed rivals Sophia Loren and Jayne Mansfield both wouldn't be born until the thirties and the media firestorm pitting Tonya Harding against Nancy Kerrigan wouldn't be front page news and CNN particularization for almost ninety years. One thing was for certain though... that year, the Olympics would get their very first taste of figure skating controversy.

A 2008 article on the wonderful history blog De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis offers a very detailed glimpse into the 1908 Summer Olympics in London and in particular, the heated (to say the least) rivalry between eventual champion of the men's competition Ulrich Salchow of Sweden and eventual champion of the special figures event Nikolay Panin-Kolomenkin of Russia. To give you a bit of background for those of you who may be scratching your heads going "Whatchu talkin' bout Ryan?", the 1908 Summer Games were for figure skating the very beginning in the sport's Olympic history as the Winter Games did not exist yet. The 1908 Olympics were also much longer than they are today as they were held from April 27 to October 31, 1908. Figure skating events were held in late October near the end of those Games at Prince's Skating Club in Knightsbridge, London.

In the Special Figures event, skaters had to present judges drawings of original figures that they developed themselves that they planned on etching into the ice. The figures that five-time Russian Champion Nikolay Panin-Kolomenkin submitted were so difficult that referees deemed them impossible. Salchow opted not to compete against Panin-Kolomenkin in this phase of the competition and the Russian skater and coach became the only Olympic Gold Medallist in figure skating history to win the later discontinued Special Figures event with two hundred and nineteen out of two hundred and forty possible points.

Nikolay Panin at the 1908 Summer Olympic Games 

What made the fact Salchow chose not to compete against Panin-Kolomenkin in the Special Figures event at the Prince's Skating Club rink all the more interesting is that just the day before, both men had competed in the compulsory figures portion of the men's competition. Coupled with free skating, the compulsory figures event would help determine the overall men's champion in 1908. Salchow and Panin would be joined by Heinrich Burger of Austria (who won the pairs title at those Games with partner Anna Hübler), Per Thorén of Sweden, British skaters Geoffrey Hall-Say and Arthur Cumming and Argentina's Horatio Tertuliano Torromé. Although Panin performed very well in the compulsory figures, his results were disappointing. Along with first place ordinals from the German and Russian judges, Panin received a second place ordinal from Great Britain and fourth place ordinals from Switzerland... and Sweden. He's really quite lucky he received the marks that he did and skated exceptionally well considering what went down that day.

While Panin was skating his school figures (which obviously required absolute and total concentration) Salchow was within earshot, loudly commenting on Panin's every movement. John D. Windhausen's essay "Russia's First Olympic Victor" offers some perspective on Salchow's behavior: "Panin, who defeated Salchow in this event earlier in that year, began his performance with a correct figure eight with one foot back. Salchow exhibited behavior unfitting for a champion and demonstratively shouted criticisms of Panin's form. Hoping to undermine the self control of the rival from Russia, Salchow continued his bombastic verbal assaults so that Panin's side was constrained to protest. But Salchow relentlessly maintained his psychological attack while the chief judge did not summon him to order. Even so, Panin seemed to perform perfectly. The results, however, were not in his favor." A newspaper quoted in a history article called "History Of Figure Skating: Nikolay Kolomenkin" on the website for the 2001 Cup Of Russia article offers an in-depth look into just how unsportsmanlike Salchow's behavior really was - and Panin's reaction:

"Hardly could the Russian athlete, who recently defeated Salchow, perform the second compulsory figure -'the eight' - as the Swedish athlete shouted: 'It's not the eight! It's curved!' It was a lie. 'The eight' was excellent. 'So, here is the psychological attack', Panin thought. 'Well, Mister Salchow, let's see if I swallow your bait.' When Panin was performing his next figure Salchow shouted out: 'He is not in a good shape! He can't do anything!' And this time the judge still kept silence. Nikolay Panin protested. The Swedish athlete was reprieved. One should see what followed then! The Swedish figure skater insulted and threatened Panin in reply. Finally Salchow was put into his proper place. This made him angry and he lost his control. As a result the Swedish athlete was not in his best form when performing some first figures. German judges Veldt and Sanders put Panin on the first place, Swedish judge Grenander put him on the second and Herle and Hugel, Salchow's close friend, put the Russian athlete on the fourth place. The protest of the Russian team was left without attention. Panin declared then that he was not going to perform his free program: he didn't expect fair marks from Hugel and Herle. Then Georg Sanders, the Russian judge and a friend of Panin interfered. He managed to persuade Panin that the case with judges wouldn't repeat because Ulrich Salchow and Henri Brokaw left the competition, as they understood how worthless it would be to continue. When Nicolai Panin was performing the last and the most difficult figure, 'impracticable' according to the newspapers one could hear the stormy applause from the judges' box. His result was the best. Having gained 218 points Panin became the Olympic Games winner champion. That was his first Olympic gold."


Olympic Gold Medallist and ten time World Champion Ulrich Salchow of Sweden

To correct and clarify, ultimately Salchow had opted not to continue on to the Special Figures competition that was held the following day where Panin won gold, but it was Panin who ultimately decided to opt out of the overall men's competition and not compete against Salchow in free skating. He would instead vindicate himself and earned an Olympic gold medal in Special Figures. He would ultimately return to Russia an Olympic Champion. Windhausen explains more about what happened after Panin withdrew from the overall men's event: "As a result Panin declined second place. The partiality of the judges, to continue the Russian version, was so blatant that the spokesman for the Russian team issued a protest, but it was not satisfied, and so in the form of a personal protest, Panin refused to enter the free skating part of this event. At the conclusion of the match a group of Swedes - participants and judges - at first orally and then in official written form, carried an apology to Panin for the unworthy conduct of Salchow." That last part made me smile a little.

Fascinatingly and sadly, Nikolay Kolomenkin (who used the pseudonym Panin when competing in figure skating) would face even more scrutiny and stress when returning home from the 1908 Summer Games. The 2008 De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis blog about Panin (Kolomenkin) explained that "an unpleasant surprise awaited Panin 'the triumph of Russian sport' (as journalists called him) in St. Petersburg. Up to that moment Nikolay Panin was safely protected from undesired talks about his pseudonym at his work place. But the secret was disclosed. The director of the department where Panin worked received a page from a newspaper. There was a big photo of a figure-skater performing some difficult pattern on the ice. The photo was encircled in red. The text below said that it was Nikolay Panin, many-time champion of Russia who had just became the gold medallist at the IV Olympics Games in London. The director was stricken by the resemblance of the champion with Nikolay Kolomenkin - an assistant of tax inspector. 'You must stop skating right away', demanded irritated director from Panin. 'It is incredible - a department worker appearing in tights before public!'... 'It is useful for health… body development… And of course the honor of the Russian State on international arena. Is it bad?' But the director didn't want to hear anything at all. Either the department or sport."

Ultimately, although Salchow might have become a ten time World Champion and earn a reputation for shooting his mouth off after his unsportsmanlike behavior in London, Panin found success in another form of shooting - he was quite accomplished in handgun shooting and actually won the 1928 Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR competition in this second sport at the age of fifty seven. He taught guerilla warfare to the Soviets during World War II, which makes you wonder how much of an angel he was himself? Guerilla warfare doesn't exactly scream docile to me. Speaking of being 'no angel', we also have to remember that although Salchow behaved poorly at those London Games, he did have a more endearing, human side. "Encyclopedia Brittanica" reminds us of one of Salchow's kinder moments: "Salchow was a generous competitor, and he acknowledged the talents of others. At the 1902 World Championships, Madge Syers finished second to Salchow, and he offered her his gold medal because he felt she should have won." Interestingly, this legend which has been perpetuated through skating history which paints Salchow in a better light has never been substantiated.

I guess the moral of the story is that as long as there have been sports there has been unsportsmanlike behavior. The assault on Nancy Kerrigan, Surya Bonaly removing her silver medal at the 1994 World Championships and even a lot of the cyberbullying that goes on in skating to this day on social media and online message boards... they may be more modern day phenomenons that have brought negative attention to the sport but Salchow's behavior in 1908 towards Panin was by accounts completely uncalled for itself. It was definitely a display of a less subtle, more in your face form of bullying. The moral of the story? Don't be a bully. It's simply very unbecoming.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of the figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Interview With Alban Préaubert

For close to a decade, if you were talking men's skating in France, Alban Préaubert was a name that would keep coming up time and time again... and with good reason. A powerhouse of a skater technically and quite the showman to boot, Préaubert found success internationally in winning six medals on the ISU Senior Grand Prix circuit, a medal at the World Junior Championships and six consecutive top ten finishes at the European Championships from 2005-2011. He did this while balancing school and skating... which as we know is no easy feat. Personally, I couldn't imagine doing both. Though he's not skating regularly anymore and has started a new life in the world of business, he remains active in the sport both as a commentator and a huge fan. We talked at length about his competitive career, decision to retire from skating, his relationships with coach Annick Dumont and former competitor Brian Joubert in this in depth interview I think you'll really quite enjoy:

Q: Your career was full of such wonderful accomplishments - a medal at the World Junior Championships during the 2002/2003 season, six medals on the ISU Senior Grand Prix circuit, five medals at the French National Championships, top ten finishes at the European Championships and two trips to the World Championships. Reflecting on your competitive career, what are your proudest moments and most special memories?

A: Of course, all those events that you are mentioning are wonderful memories for me but I definitely have three favourite moments among those various accomplishments. The first one was my medal at Junior Worlds. Actually, when I was competing in Ostrava I was not sure I could continue to compete the next season as I was supposed to start demanding studies and wasn't sure if I would be able to combine studies and sports in the future. I was just thinking about enjoying every single moment of this competition. I was not even an outsider for this competition so I didn't feel any pressure on my shoulders. It was my first season at the international level and I was not able to enter the top five in my Junior Grand Prix at the beginning of the season so being able to skate my best and to medal here was a wonderful surprise. The second one was my silver medal at the 2006 Trophée Eric Bompard. Before that event, a Frenchman had never won the Trophée Eric Bompard. It was an historical moment as Brian Joubert won the competition and I was second. It was awesome to share this podium with my friend Brian. Moreover, this second place qualified me for the Grand Prix Final so it was the icing on the cake for me. The third one was the 2009 Winter Universiade. I was the flag bearer of the French delegation and was very proud of that. I always considered it essential to pursue my studies during my skating career so being able to medal at this event rewarding the sportsmen who are able to pursue a double path was also very important to me.

Q: In 2010, you missed a trip to the Vancouver Olympics so narrowly. Was there ever resentment there and looking back on it now, is it something you've come to terms with? 

A: You are right. I never went to the Olympics. I was the first substitute in 2006 and again in 2010. I was very close to qualify but I didn't make it. Actually, Yannick Ponsero and I both missed the opportunity with to qualify for Olympics during the French Nationals. Brian won the competition and Florent Amodio, who was the newcomer won the silver medal so the French federation decided to send them both at Olympics but to preserve Florent during Europeans. That's why Yannick and I both competed in Tallin, already knowing that we had no chance to qualify at Olympics. Of course, it would have been a great honor to represent my country at this prestigious event. However, it was not such a big disappointment for me. I have to admit that I never idolized the Olympics too much. For some athletes, Olympics is the only goal of their career. For me, it was only one goal among others. Of course, this event has a strong symbolic value but I consider that a World title is as much prestigious as an Olympic title, because the competitors are exactly the same ones. I know I did my best, I trained myself seriously the whole season and didn't do many mistakes at French Nationals, so definitively no regrets about this.

Q: Was continuing through to the 2014 Olympics something that you considered and what were your thoughts on the men's competition at the Sochi Olympics? 

A: Actually, after 2010 I was willing to continue four more years because skating was still my passion and I didn't feel any lassitude at the time about training and competitions but in 2011, the doctors diagnosed a strong arthritis in my right knee. I was suffering more and more during each training session. Also, as with many French skaters, my relations with the French federation were quite complicated and it was not pleasant to skate without feeling respect and support from the French Federation. Above all, in 2011 I graduated from my business school and I received a great professional opportunity. It would have been irrational to decline it so that’s why I decided not to continue until 2014. Of course, I am still following very closely my former colleagues and competitors and analyzing what they are doing during competitions. Sochi Olympics were a powerful event. The level of skating of all those guys is amazing. Even if some of them made a little more mistakes than usual, they all have wonderful capabilities. It made me think that it was more reasonable for me to quit in 2011!

Q: You were coached throughout your career by Annick Dumont, who has coached many French champions including Laetitia Hubert, Stanick Jeannette, Marie-Pierre Leray, Florent Amodio and Gabriel Monnier. What makes Annick such a successful coach and what made your student/teacher relationship work so well? 

A: Annick knows better than anyone how to motivate the athletes who are composing her team. She is smart and can adapt herself to the behavior and personality of each different skater. She is demanding during practices but at the same time she manages to maintain an entertaining environment on the ice, which helps us to stay enthusiastic and motivated. She also has the intelligence to allow and even to encourage her skaters to use other expertise than her own knowledge. The collaboration that she helped me to establish with Muriel Boucher Zazoui and Romain Haguenauer, Pasquale Camerlengo and Nikolai Morozov for example strengthened our relationship as it is also important to discover new visions sometimes during a career. She also has a fantastic team with her, with Pierre Trente, Alain Fusco and all the other members of the staff in Champigny sur Marne. Actually, I was very lucky during my career to collaborate with great people. Elena Issatchenko, my first coach (who was from Belarus) was also a wonderful woman and I never want to miss an opportunity to pay tribute to her. It was difficult to lose her too early in 2006. Before joining Annick's team, I also learned many things (as a skater and as a person) by training under Philippe Pelissier, who is the best technician in France and maybe even in the world.

 

Q: You competed against Brian Joubert for years. What are your thoughts on his career and how hes managed to maintain such a high level of skating for so long, perhaps delivering some of his best performances in the last couple of seasons? 

A: I have so much respect for Brian. It was an honor for me to compete with him during this last decade and to train with him during summer camps. He is the greatest champion ever in figure skating in France and it will be a great loss for the French federation not to have him anymore in the French team. He is a hard worker with an exemplary work ethic. He was a strong leader and an example to follow and that is probably thanks to him that we had such strong male skaters in France in the recent past with Florent Amodio, Yannick Ponsero and now Chafik Besseghier and Romain Ponsart.

Q: You are now involved in the business world. Do you still have ties to skating and do you think you'd ever get out there and perform again? 

A: I am now working mainly as a portfolio manager and an equity analyst so of course, my main job is not in direct links with the figure skating world. Of course, I am still very passionate about skating and it would have been completely impossible for me to definitely leave this world. I knew when I quit in 2011 that I would stay involved in some manner... it's my passion. I was very lucky that Eurosport asked me to commentate the figure skating events. Since 2011 Skate Canada, I am the consultant for the channel and I love doing that. I stay very updated about what is going on in the figure skating world and this mission also helps me to keep some links with people that I used to frequently talk to when I was a competitor. I also skated some shows after 2011 but actually not so much. The last one was in Switzerland for Christmas but it is getting more and more difficult for me to find time for some training sessions with my busy schedule so performing on the ice will probably be over very soon for me!

Q: Skating isn't your only sport. You have a red belt in judo, play tennis and play basketball as well. If you didn't taken up figure skating, which other sport do you think you could have really made a mark in? 

A: Actually, I was quite talented in golf when I was a young kid but had to choose between golf and figure skating as the training sessions were scheduled at the same time. I started to play golf again last year. It is a lot of fun for me but I am not so talented anymore! To be honest... when I quit in 2011, I was becoming dangerously static. When I was leaving my office, I was only thinking about going back home to read, watch TV and eat. I was considering that I did too much fitness before that and that my body was deserving some rest. After a few months, I realized that my clothes were becoming too short so I started to do some exercises again and actually I feel that I am a sportsman again now. It is difficult for me to go to the rink because it is far from my apartment and from my office but I am running, playing football, squash, swimming... I love being active!

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters of all time and why? 

A: Ilia Kulik was a wonderful champion. In Nagano, I was very happy that he won this Olympic title. Unfortunately, we didn't see him long enough on the amateur circuit. I had the opportunity to have a few jump sessions with him as a coach in the United States and it was very useful, so I understand why he was so consistent! I am a big fan of Daisuke Takahashi. He was the more complete skater to me. I was there when Nikolai Morozov choreographed him his "Black Swan" hip-hop program and it was amazing to see. Finally, I would say that I admire my senior French skaters such as Philippe Candeloro, Stannick Jeannette and Laurent Tobel, who tried to modernize our sport and who were really charismatic on the ice. To list such a few skaters in my top list is difficult. I have admiration for so many of them!

Q: What's one thing about you most people don't know? 

A: Difficult question! Actually, I always try to be quite honest and not to keep secrets so I don’t know. Maybe that I was very close to being born Canadian? My parents were supposed to move to Canada but finally cancelled their relocation just before my birth. I don't know what to think about that. I love France. I love living in Paris but at the same time, Canada is (along with Russia) my favourite country. I am sure I would also have been proud to be Canadian. But for sure, my competitors at Nationals would have been very strong as well if I was Canadian.

Q: What do you love more than anything about figure skating?

A: It is the only discipline that can combine art and sport in such an accurate mix. When I started skating, I was only thinking about the technical and athletic performance, considering that is foremost a sport. Step by step, I realized how much the artistic side of this sport is also important, and that it is the added value of figure skating compared to any other sport. It is a wonderful discipline, that is for sure. However, the world is moving fast and figure skating will have to adapt if it want to capture a new audience. It is a long debate!

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Gjon Mili And The Picasso Inspired By A Figure Skater

Following in the footsteps of Man Ray (the first person to explore the technique of light painting), Albanian born Gjon Mili set a ball in motion through his exploratory art that would influence the work of the great Pablo Picassi... and he did it by working with figure skaters.

A trained engineer and self-taught photographer, Mili pioneered photoflash technology through his work with Harold Eugene Edgerton from the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology in the 1930's using stroboscopic light to capture the movement of dancers such as Martha Graham, Leon James and Willa Mae Ricker, jugglers, musicians in a single exposure. In the 1940's, Mili attached small lights to the boots of figure skaters, then opening the shutter of his camera and taking photographs that would inspire some of the most famous light painting images in history. Most famously, the skater in Mili's light drawings depicted here is Carol Lynne Genho, a professional skater who toured alongside her sister Margie Lee Genho, Olympic Gold Medallist Barbara Ann Scott, Michael Kirby, Jimmy Grogan, Freddie Trenkler, Skippy Baxter and others in Hollywood Ice Revue, going simply by the name Carol Lynne.

In 1949, Mili was on assignment for Life Magazine in France. He was sent to photograph the legendary Pablo Picasso at his home. While there, Mili showed Picasso some of his light painting photographs of figure skaters including his work with Carol Lynne. Immediately inspired by what he saw, Picasso took his penlight and started 'drawing in the air'. This fleeting meeting and Mili's light painting photographs of figure skaters inspired Picasso's famous light drawing 'Picasso Draws A Centaur'. Like Picasso, Henri Matisse was also introduced to the art medium of light drawing by Gjon Mili and created his own light painting as well.

Picasso Draws A Centaur (Pablo Picasso)

I couldn't get over the fact that Genho, a show skater from Nebraska who agreed to take a moment away from Arthur M. Wirtz' popular ice show to play subject to the work of an experimental artist and photographer would go on to inspire Pablo Picasso, one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century. I bet she didn't see that one coming! Well, hello... could you imagine agreeing to go do a still life drawing at an art school and ending up the subject of someone like Paul Cézanne? As the French say, "il est absolument incroyable".

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.

Interview With Tom Paulson

After winning four silver medals at the British Figure Skating Championships, the devilishly handsome Tom Paulson decided to trade in his IJS footwork sequences for the show business world of skating on the high seas as a professional figure skater on Royal Caribbean cruise ships. Tom was kind enough to take a break from the cabana to talk about his competitive career, transition to professional skating, the current state of figure skating in Great Britain and much more in this fabulous interview you're guaranteed to just love.

Q: Your competitive career was full of some wonderful successes, including four silver medals on the senior level at the British Figure Skating Championships. You represented the UK internationally on the Junior Grand Prix circuit, the World Junior Championships and international competitions such as the Finlandia Trophy and Winter Universiade. What are your proudest moments or most special memories from your competitive career?

A: I'm most proud of representing Great Britain for almost eight years internationally. It is the highest honor and reward to be recognized by your own federation and have the chance to perform for international judges and skating fans. I'm very proud to have performed in the Turin Olympic venue and stayed in the Olympic Village there, as well as having traveled to many countries and meeting many people I might never have had the chance to. When the IJS system was still new, I was informed by one of the British judges that a video of my long program had been shown at an ISU seminar as an example of a well choreographed and interpreted program, which I was very pleased with as I always work hard to find character and emotion in music and bring that to my performance. 

Q: You're skating with Royal Caribbean on the high seas now! How did you reach the decision to turn professional and what were the biggest adjustments in terms of going from training and performing on competition size ice to a cruise ship?

A: Unfortunately ice skating is an expensive sport and financial reasons were a large part of my decision to turn professional. I was also frustrated by the politics which still dominate the sport despite the IJS. It was a hard decision and took the best part of a year to make but I now know it was the right thing for me to do and skating with Holiday on Ice and Royal Caribbean and Willy Bietak has allowed me to rediscover my love for skating and further explore my performance skills. Adapting to smaller ice has been a challenge, especially on the ships as we perform triples on an ice pad which is less than a quarter of Olympic size! It takes time but just like a competitive program, you work out how many crossovers or pushes you need for each element and set the jumps in as comfortable a place as possible.

Q: What is the funniest experience you've ever had in your years of skating with Royal Caribbean?

A: Funny things regularly happen in shows, whether it's an in-joke between cast members that keeps us laughing throughout a number or something that goes wrong like crashing into the boards because the ship is rocking!

Q: The 'current state of figure skating' is currently a hotly debated topic. Thinking specifically about things in Great Britain, what do you think it will take to make the sport regain the popularity in the public eyes that it did during the John Curry/Robin Cousins/Torvill and Dean era? Is it just another huge star, or is it something bigger than that?

A: Dancing On Ice has had a very clear influence on the public's perception of ice skating and has proven that skating stars like Robin Cousins and Torvill and Dean are still remembered and admired for their achievements and abilities. Unfortunately, while that has led to a noticeable interest in learning to skate, interest in competitive level ice skating hasn't seemed to follow this trend as strongly. I feel top-level competitive ice skating can be inaccessible to the public, as the names of elements and the scoring system mean little to anyone who isn't very well informed about the sport. Sports such as football and athletics are easily accessible because anyone can try them and performances/results are straight forward and easy to understand with no prior knowledge. Ice skating is very complex and raising its profile in Britain will be a challenge as we are not a winter sports country or a country that invests well in ice skating.

Q: Who are your three favourite skaters of all time and why?

A: I grew up in an era of superstar ice skaters. I always think of it as the golden age of skating! Yagudin was a strong favourite of mine, as was Timothy Goebel because he was a left footed skater, just like me. I loved to watch Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo. They always skated with passion and presence and incredibly clean technical elements. Although they were pair skaters, their performances and success in competition were very inspiring to me. One of my biggest skating inspirations isn't a figure skater. My personal trainer for the later part of my career was Sarah Lindsay, a British speed skater who competed in three Olympic Games and won medals at World and European Championships, as well as ten gold medals at the British Championships. As well as top level fitness and endurance, working with such an experienced athlete had many other benefits and working with Sarah enabled me to train not just harder but smarter.

Q: What's one thing most people don't know about you?  

A: I don't think there is much that people don't know about me but fans of figure skating might not know that I also enjoy singing and since turning professional I have taught myself to juggle! 

Q: If you had a genie in a bottle kind of like that Christina Aguilera one and could ask it to grant you three wishes, what would they be? And no, three more wishes isn't something you can ask for...

A: If I had three wishes I would give away one each to three people I felt had a worthy and unselfish wish.

Q: What do you love most about figure skating?

A: Figure skating is very much who I am, whether I like it or not! I have always loved performing and skating has allowed me to do that and share my love with thousands of people. My favourite thing by far is the amazing places I have visited and the wonderful people I have met in my competition days and now in my professional career. Everything about my life is influenced by skating in some way and I'm both very proud of myself and grateful to everyone who has helped along the way.

Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.