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Russia's Heir Apparent: Andrei Griazev
[...] Last season, upcoming 19-years-old Russian star Andrei Griazev won the World Junior championship title, and he his skating in one Grand Prix event, the Cup of Russia (he withdrew from Skate America due to injury) while eligible skating's best competitior, compatriot Evgeni Plushenko, has announced withdrawal from two of this season's Grand Prix events. Griazev has much in common with the reigning World Champion, which is interesting because Plushenko's former rival Alexei Yagudin is now part of Griazev's coaching team.
Griazev shares with Plushenko the rare ability, especially for senior men's competitors, to perform the precarious Biellman spin. Also like Plushenko, Griazev once moved across Russia as a youngster to train with coach Alexei Mishin. "I worked hard with him for six years, and then in 2002 at the Junior Worlds, I skated quite poorly, coming in at only 14th place.
"Mishin lost his confidence in me, and after that, made it clear he could no longer invest his time in me. He assigned his wife as my coach - she is a nice person and trainer, but it meant an obvious secondary status for me. It became the lowest point in my career, because I lost confidence in myself and almost gave up skating. After taking a break for a few months, I spoke with Alexei Yagudin... and he helped put my career back on track."
[...] "I live at Tatiana's house, and they have helped me adjust to America, which I'm really enjoying. And as coaches, they are the best. With Mishin there was a lot of junp-jump-jump, but with Tatiana's group it's different.
"We're always working on special steps and footwork, trying to come up with new spins, and everything is just a little bit harder - they make me work hard, which I need," Griazev said enthusiastically. "Of course, there's still the jumps, which I'm grateful to have Alexei Yagudin coach me on - who could be better than him?"
[...] The friendly relationship between Yagudin and Griazev is evident watching the two together on practise ice, where they look more than brothers than coach and student. While Yagudin's powerful drive for domination of the sport seemed to come from within, he said sometimes he has to be motivating force that pushes Griazev.
"The pressure is on for two reasons," said Yagudin. "One, we have only this season to prepare. Next year is the Olympics, and the competition then will be extremely intense. Second, because I push him hard, and that's what I do, I push people!" he said with a laugh.
[...] Griazev is still undecided if he will again compete at both the Junior and Senior level as he did last season or if he will concentrate on only the latter. In his arsenal of jumps is a solid triple Axel with wonderful height and tight rotation, in addition to the critical quad toe loop, which he said he's successfully landing 80 percent of the time.
"This season I will probably do triple-triple combination instead of a quad in my new short program [set to Spanish Toreador music], but I will definitely strive to have one quad in my free skate (choreographed to music Cirque du Soleil and Peter Gabriel)." he said. [...]
© International Figure Skating, December 2004
[...] Last season, upcoming 19-years-old Russian star Andrei Griazev won the World Junior championship title, and he his skating in one Grand Prix event, the Cup of Russia (he withdrew from Skate America due to injury) while eligible skating's best competitior, compatriot Evgeni Plushenko, has announced withdrawal from two of this season's Grand Prix events. Griazev has much in common with the reigning World Champion, which is interesting because Plushenko's former rival Alexei Yagudin is now part of Griazev's coaching team.
Griazev shares with Plushenko the rare ability, especially for senior men's competitors, to perform the precarious Biellman spin. Also like Plushenko, Griazev once moved across Russia as a youngster to train with coach Alexei Mishin. "I worked hard with him for six years, and then in 2002 at the Junior Worlds, I skated quite poorly, coming in at only 14th place.
"Mishin lost his confidence in me, and after that, made it clear he could no longer invest his time in me. He assigned his wife as my coach - she is a nice person and trainer, but it meant an obvious secondary status for me. It became the lowest point in my career, because I lost confidence in myself and almost gave up skating. After taking a break for a few months, I spoke with Alexei Yagudin... and he helped put my career back on track."
[...] "I live at Tatiana's house, and they have helped me adjust to America, which I'm really enjoying. And as coaches, they are the best. With Mishin there was a lot of junp-jump-jump, but with Tatiana's group it's different.
"We're always working on special steps and footwork, trying to come up with new spins, and everything is just a little bit harder - they make me work hard, which I need," Griazev said enthusiastically. "Of course, there's still the jumps, which I'm grateful to have Alexei Yagudin coach me on - who could be better than him?"
[...] The friendly relationship between Yagudin and Griazev is evident watching the two together on practise ice, where they look more than brothers than coach and student. While Yagudin's powerful drive for domination of the sport seemed to come from within, he said sometimes he has to be motivating force that pushes Griazev.
"The pressure is on for two reasons," said Yagudin. "One, we have only this season to prepare. Next year is the Olympics, and the competition then will be extremely intense. Second, because I push him hard, and that's what I do, I push people!" he said with a laugh.
[...] Griazev is still undecided if he will again compete at both the Junior and Senior level as he did last season or if he will concentrate on only the latter. In his arsenal of jumps is a solid triple Axel with wonderful height and tight rotation, in addition to the critical quad toe loop, which he said he's successfully landing 80 percent of the time.
"This season I will probably do triple-triple combination instead of a quad in my new short program [set to Spanish Toreador music], but I will definitely strive to have one quad in my free skate (choreographed to music Cirque du Soleil and Peter Gabriel)." he said. [...]
© International Figure Skating, December 2004
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© , 2005-2010 The website owner is not affiliated with Andrei Griazev in any way and doesn't have any connection with him.
The site is intended for private non-commercial use only. All the rights to the images and text used on this website belong to their respective owners.
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