Polina Tsurskaya retires

[moriel]

Well, I hope she will be great and happy outside FS.

 

[skylark]

I think you are right about this.

I don't think Polina is quitting only because she got overwhelmed by competition.

Polina wanted to quit figure skating quite a few times by this point, .....

She's just the right age to go to university and it seems like studying is something she enjoys more at this point than skating.
I think she made the right choice for herself, the risk of working on quads given her health issues, isn't worth it at all.

:2thumbs: And she alluded to a lot of time lost, having been spent in recovery. She can really soar now .... I also liked how she said that sport has taught her how to identify what she wants and put her energies toward that. I hadn't realized that she'd wanted to quit skating several times already over the years. Even (as I re-skimmed the article, I noticed), when she was 11 years old. So every time she had to go up against her parents and others who encouraged her to keep skating, must have strengthened her, so she can make this decision at 17 years.

One thing I found to be tactless from the interviewer Vaitsekhovskaya (who isn't particularly to known to have class or tact), her asking Polina whether she thinks Polina is betraying her coaches and whether she thinks she's a traitor.

Interesting. I didn't find it to be a tactless question the way it was translated by Google, which was: "And you did not feel a traitor at this moment?"

Since I don't know Russian, I don't know if the shade of meaning is correctly expressed. But in my view, it would be just a normal human emotion to feel like a traitor at that moment. Not to think rationally that she is a traitor, or to ask herself if she is one. Just to have a lot of feelings of responsibility toward the coaches, etc who have invested themselves in her progress. Not to mention her parents, who transported their whole lives far away from their homes for her skating. If I were Polina, I'm sure those feelings would come up within me.

But all this puts an exclamation point on what a good thing it is she's made this decision now. Rather than having to experience all this yet another time down the line.

, sort of. I really enjoy exploring shades of meaning Especially when it's combined with language differences and how that expresses the culture.

 

[invisiblespiral]

I wish her well in the future.

 

[eaglehelang]

It wasn't her height that was the problem (Bradie Tennell is about the same height), but her congenital physical disorder that had no real remedy (and her parents are both doctors).

Bradie Tennel is 1.68 m, a good 3cm shorter. I'm surprised actually Polina is 1.71 m, she doesnt look so tall on tv.

Since she has health issues and her parents are doctors, I find it odd Polina said her parents/mother were against her retiring.

 

[drivingmissdaisy]

I'm usually not too disappointed when skaters retire, but this does make me sad. Mostly it's because I think she never found the right choreographer to give her programs that highlight her strengths. She is very much in the mold of Yuna Kim, but her team always gave her programs that were far too busy for her style.

 

[demarinis5]

Polina was a striking figure on the ice, lovely jumps and a softness to her movements that was very pleasant to watch.

I am glad she has found her passion in education. Wishing her Good Luck in the future.

 

[Elucidus]

Also admits (or implies mostly) that not having a quad makes it impossible to compete in the next season. Coaches/parents were surprised; parents tried to convince her not to give up on skating. Most likely won't do figure skating shows.

Pretty sad, but I can see where she's coming from and also appreciate her maturity to admit that no quad = no chance at any medal this season.

You are trying to deliberately shift accents, aren't you? Why are you doing that, I wonder? There was literally one line about quads in a very long interview. Main reasons for retiring are not quads at all. Mostly she was talking about health issues and changing of interests and life goals. Moreover, it was implied that she would retire anyway - quads or not.

 

[Orlov]

Interesting. I didn't find it to be a tactless question the way it was translated by Google, which was: "And you did not feel a traitor at this moment?"

Since I don't know Russian, I don't know if the shade of meaning is correctly expressed. But in my view, it would be just a normal human emotion to feel like a traitor at that moment. Not to think rationally that she is a traitor, or to ask herself if she is one. Just to have a lot of feelings of responsibility toward the coaches, etc who have invested themselves in her progress. Not to mention her parents, who transported their whole lives far away from their homes for her skating. If I were Polina, I'm sure those feelings would come up within me.

But all this puts an exclamation point on what a good thing it is she's made this decision now. Rather than having to experience all this yet another time down the line.

, sort of. I really enjoy exploring shades of meaning Especially when it's combined with language differences and how that expresses the culture.

The word "traitor" sounds very sharply for the Russian ear. At least I personally would not like to hear that. A "traitor" is a person who works for the fascists in the occupied territory, or for foreign spies and so on. Yes these are my personal connotations (but quite common), and yes, this word can be used as Vaitsekhovskaya did, but still it is on the verge of rudeness. At least this is familiarity - a person can say this about himself ("I betrayed my mother! Oh, my fate! blah blah blah") but when a journalist does it, it goes beyond limits of decency. This Vaytsehovskay have reeeeally problem with her ego :disapp:

 

[SkateSkates]

Polina is very tall (can be seen in 2nd picture) https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgTMOSn2KQ/?igshid=phi5oc7jld7n

Obviously Alena is very short at under 5 ft but I believe Darya is about 5ft tall.

 

[labgoat]

Best wishes to a lovely, elegant lady with those big, springy jumps.

 

[elektra blue]

this news makes me very sad, i loved polina's beautiful lines and jumps, but i wish her all the best from the bottom of my heart

 

[skylark]

The word "traitor" sounds very sharply for the Russian ear. At least I personally would not like to hear that. A "traitor" is a person who works for the fascists in the occupied territory, or for foreign spies and so on. Yes these are my personal connotations (but quite common), and yes, this word can be used as Vaitsekhovskaya did, but still it is on the verge of rudeness. At least this is familiarity - a person can say this about himself ("I betrayed my mother! Oh, my fate! blah blah blah") but when a journalist does it, it goes beyond limits of decency. This Vaytsehovskay have reeeeally problem with her ego :disapp:

I appreciate the clarification.

 

[VenusHalley]

Sad to hear, but seems she was not into it for a long time. Hopefully she can still occasionally skate for fun while pursuit her other goals in life.

 

[brens78]

I was looking forward to seeing her again, oh well. I was hoping to see great things from her when I saw her win the Youth Olympics.

 

[moriel]

translated: me

"I made the decision to finish my career. I go on vacation on June 1, right after that I officially leave the team and... done. It is probably worth saying that I walked a long path to get to this decision..."

Q: Wait a minute. We met and talked less than a year ago after you joined Elena Buyanova’s group, and it didn’t seem to me at all that you were tired of figure skating.
A: It's not that I am tired. But as the Unified State Exam [translator: a series of exams every student must pass after graduation from school to enter a university or a professional college] approached, and I needed to prepare for the exams, I began to understand very clearly that it’s sort of a choice for me whether to continue to skate or not, but I need to decide: either to leave everything as it is, go to physical education institute and study to be a coach, or say goodbye to figure skating and get a good education in a completely different field. Trying to combine such an education with sports is pointless, to go to study in absentia for me is also not an option. So, after weighing everything up, I realized that I still have to make a choice.

Q: And it was not in favor of figure skating?
A: I said that I have weighed everything. In order to continue to skate and train in full force, my health does not always allow it. Moreover, our sport now really goes to another level, you need to master the quadruple jumps in order to fight those who already perform them. Everyone says this in their interviews. It’s not a fact, of course, that it will be possible for everyone to master the quads, but I’m sure that many will try. Well, I know my body too well and I understand that, probably, it is no longer worth the risk.

Q: Did you discuss all this with yourself, while making this decision, or did you have some expert group whose opinion ultimately became decisive?
A: Basically it was my own decision. After the championship of Russia, I began to mention at home that it was time to end my career, but my parents did not even want to hear about it. Friends also tried to talk me out of it.

Q: At the championship of Russia you didn't make the top 10. It was this failure, I suppose, that made you think about leaving the sport?
A: I was upset then, but not because of the place, but because I didn't skate well. I was very well prepared, the preparatory period also went well, but for some reason I constantly had meltdowns. I will not even say that the Russian Championship has become a turning point in this regard. After that, I continued to train, work, we talked with coaches about the next season, new programs, but due to the fact that I was taking the Unified State Exam ahead of time, I needed to take a two-week break to prepare for the exams.

Q: Don't say that you plunged into study, and you unexpectedly liked it more than training.
A: In fact, that's exactly what happened. Every day I sat with the textbooks for many hours, worked with tutors, did some tests and very quickly began to realize that all this really interests me. While you train, you don’t have the opportunity to study very seriously: you come from a workout tired, with your head busy, you want to relax a little longer. And here even my mother periodically tried to distract me from textbooks: my zeal to catch up with studies really scared her.

Q: And you did not feel like a traitor then? Over the years, so many people have invested their efforts in you, and they did it solely for the sake of a sporting result, and not so that a girl would enroll some physics and mathematics course.
A: No, not the physics or mathematics. International economy. In this regard, I have already made my choice. Back then it was hard and even a little scary. Before exams, my mother began to persuade me to go on vacation with her for a week. I didn’t want to go anywhere, didn’t want to leave school - we even had a fight because of this. But then, when the last exam was passed, we ended up flying to Paris for a few days, and I didn’t even tell my coaches. In principle, at that moment they already, probably, understood what was going on: when we discussed further plans with Buyanova and Tarasova, I honestly told them that I really wanted to study. Elena Germanovna was very surprised then. This is not very typical for athletes to think about education, and not about the sports result. At that time it simply seemed to me that I would be able to successfully combine everything.

Q: Have you ever felt your own inferiority from not reading books that your peers read, not going to theaters, to exhibitions, not always, perhaps, being able to keep a conversation on some non-sports topics?
A: No. The reason, it seems to me, is that modern schoolchildren seem to deny education. Every day they get tired of going to school and reading textbooks, there are a lot of various temptations around, they want to try everything.

Q: How do you know all this, if you didn't really study?
A: Well, I went to school, and I went to the regular one - I took all the exams, I wrote tests, I did homework on par with all of them. I have never, in principle, made a big thing of the fact that I do sports professionally, but I remember once I came to school and noticed that everyone looked at me very strangely. It turned out that someone saw in the news a story with my performance at some tournament, and it instantly spread throughout the school. After that, people started asking some questions about my life. Many did not really understand: how is it possible to live when every day is scheduled by the minute? Well, yes, traveling to different countries, of course, is interesting. But as it turned out, not everybody is ready to sacrifice a normal life for that.
Then I moved from an ordinary school to Sambo-70, but even there, there was everything to receive a full-fledged education. In general, when I skated with Eteri Georgievna (Tutberidze), she always encouraged her athletes to go to the theater and to the ballet. She said that a skater needs to fill his inner world, you need to read books and generally be a person with wide interests to stay interesting on the ice. It is clear that all athletes are different, but, for example, Anya Scherbakova, although she does not study at Sambo-70, but her parents, who graduated from Moscow State University themselves, are very careful to ensure there are no problems with studies. I know this because we have been friends for a long time and even went on vacation together a couple of times.

Q: Now, women's single skating in Russia is on an all-time high point. How often did you feel that you can only be the first in it?
A: I definitely didn’t have such a feeling of being bad or worthless because of losing. Of course, subconsciously, you feel responsibility for the result all the time. You understand that coaches are behind you, they are also responsible for the result, they answer to the federation, to the country. There is also a responsibility to parents who invest everything they can in you, who worry about you. This, of course, no one speaks out loud.

Q: But do these thoughts stay in your head?
A: Of course. This is also a responsibility to yourself. You work hard, overcome yourself, deprive yourself of many things, but for what? In order to go out and lose? Why all this if there are no high results? It seems to me that life in general is arranged this way, in any profession, if we take it seriously.

Q: Why did you make your choice, in terms of future profession, in favor of the international economy, and not choreography, like Masha Sotskova, who joined GITIS a year ago?
A: Masha and I are generally very different both in relation to life and in our temperament. Perhaps that is why we are so good friends, even though it is strange for elite sport - the fact that our characters are opposite brings us closer together. Masha is a very creative person, I have always been a "mathematician". At school, I forced with difficulty myself to read the required books. Now I read quite a lot, but the numbers and formulas have always attracted me more. So I thought that the international economy is exactly what I need. I think it will be very interesting for me to study.

Q: I heard that you would like to study not in Moscow, but in Europe. It turns out that you changed your mind?
A: No. Already the next year, I plan to try to continue my studies abroad. This year I just did not have time for this: in order to study in an European university, it is necessary to submit documents in advance, complete all sorts of formalities. I decided about serious studies not so long ago. Therefore, now I decided to start studying in Moscow. A year is enough time to understand how interesting the chosen subject is to me, how deeply I will be able to immerse myself in the process. But I would like to get an international diploma, not Russian. Plus this is an opportunity to learn perfecly a foreign language.

Q: In your future life, do you plan to completely abandon figure skating?
A: By finishing my career, I do not deprive myself of the opportunity to perform in some shows. I just don't know if I want this. This is a difficult topic for me, because I see that my parents, although they accepted my decision, did not give up just yett. They really do not understand how you can just go and voluntarily give up everything that has been your life for many years. This is normal. Many skaters, when they begin to think about finishing their careers, like to repeat that they don’t even imagine their life without ice, without figure skating. It seems to me that it is important to think that figure skating is not the whole life, that sooner or later there may come a moment when you find yourself naked on the street with the thought that you know absolutely nothing but to skate. I do not want it. Although there was a period when it seemed to me that sport is all that I have, the meaning of my whole life.

Q: Did you move to Moscow at once with your whole family?
A: No, my parents first sent me with a nanny who lived with us for many years, raised me from childhood and became a very close person. Then dad came, and only then, about a year later, - mom. It took her time to finish all business related matters in Omsk.

Q: Yulia Lipnitskaya's mother told me that she chose a mentor for her daughter and went to Moscow purposefully to Tutberidze. And you?
A: I was 11 years old, and I was going to quit training because of a conflict with the coach. Then, actually, for the first time I said that I didn’t want to skate, but I wanted to study. But then, a chain of random coincidences followed. Figure skating in Siberia and the Far East was then supervised by Alexander Ilyich Kogan (general director of the Russian Figure Skating Federation of Arts and Crafts), and he suggested my mother to send me to Moscow. And he suggested the team Tutberidze, where Lipnitskaya already was. I was not a fan of figure skating at all, but did not want to upset my parents. And we went to Moscow. At that moment I didn’t know that besides the European Championships, the World Cup and the Olympic Games there are more competitions, and certainly I didn’t associate myself with all this.

Q: Where do people, who have never professionally played sports, get such an ardent desire to see their child a great figure skater?
A: I still do not understand this, to be honest. Mom is still very upset. Be that as it may, figure skating has changed the whole life of our family. Sometimes it seems to me that my mother initially reacted so calmly to my desire to finish my career and study, because in her heart she was sure that I would not take much time to run to the rink myself. But the experiment failed - I got fascinated by my studies and do not regret it.

Q: You consider performing in shows?
A: Not sure. When I decided that I would end my career, there was an option with a long-term show in Europe, but when I decided to consult with Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova about this, she explained that this is not the easiest life. The shows are constant long-distance travels, buses, sometimes two or three performances per day, and so on for several months. And I have my back [translator: her injury]. And no matter how great the enthusiasm, you need to think a hundred times before giving consent. When I weighed it all together, I realized that the show did not attract me too much. If I really start to get bored without skates, I will begin to coach, just how I coach children a little bit now. There is a lot of free time.

Q: Do you coach because you like it or is it just a way to earn money?
A: At first I began to engage in coaching, because now it is the only available way for me to earn some money. But very quickly I began to like it, despite the fact that I always understood that I would never be a coach, I could not devote my whole life to this. Yes, it is interesting, but not more than that.

Q: Will you watch competitions?
A: All last year I watched only the performances of those athletes whom I really support. There are many. Masha Sotskova, Zhenya Medvedeva, Anechka Shcherbakova, Alena Kostornaya - mostly those with whom I once communicated and was friends. I am very happy for Alina Zagitova, that she managed to pick herself up and win the World Championship, butI did not watch her skate. In the same way, I was not too fond of reviewing my own skating. Maybe just immediately after the performances, to see the errors.
In fact, I can’t say that I consider figure skating to be some kind of lost time in my life. I am very grateful to all those who were with me during this short part of my life. This is a tremendous experience, the ability to organize yourself, your life. If there wasn't a sport in my life, I probably wouldn’t have become such a responsible and organized person. I would not learn to concentrate on the main thing, because sport teaches, first of all, to understand what you want and how to achieve it. Now, I am sure, this will help me with plans and goals for the future and with a clear understanding of how to achieve all that I want. Every person who was in my life, starting from the very first coaches, gave me something, taught me something. The base, thanks to which I took my place as a figure skater, was laid in Omsk, then it was further developed by Eteri Georgievna and her whole team - they brought me to a really high level as a figure skater. Elena Germanovna was not afraid to take me and supported me in the not so easy period of my career, although she could safely refuse to take such a problematic athlete. Thanks to her, I learned and learned many new things, I acquired a completely different attitude to life. Tatyana Anatolyevna is not just an outstanding coach, but, above all, a person with a huge soul, whom I can still call at any time, ask for advice or ask for help. If you look at my career from these positions, I was definitely lucky. All these people made me the person I am.

Q: Probably, now there should be a great relief from the fact that you don’t need to go to the training camp, break in new boots...
A: With boots, I almost never had any problems. Only once, for some reason, me and Moris Kvitelashvili decided to switch from one brand to another. It was terrible. Hard, heavy, impossible to jump at all. For two weeks, hurt our foot to such an extent that we could not walk. We skated as disabled people. And a month after the beginning of the experiment, we switched to Edea again.

Q: And what do you do with your costumes?
A: They hang at home. I have no plans for them yet and such plans are unlikely to appear. I'll keep those clothes, as the memory of the stormy youth.

 

[gsk8]

Thanks so much for the translation! :agree:

 

[Crossover]

I know this would come eventually but feel still sad. I believed she could be an Olympic champion in Pyeongchang even before debuting in juniors because of her great talent. However her height and injuries may not lead her to what she would like to achieve as an athlete. None of my favorites in Russian ladies didn't go to the Olympics though. I don't emotionally engage in juniors or novices any more after her. I hope she finds happiness and success in studies as she is very smart and young.

 

[hippomoomin]

I will really miss her big beautiful jumps, even when they were called under, I still think they were magnificent. To retire so young, I think she must have thought out this for a while. I remember the controversy that when Eteri said she has bone related genetic illness in public, her parents came out to say Polina was fine. Now it's confirmed Eteri was not making things up, right? Polina is very tall, but Maria Sotskova is now even taller, who has also been struggling last year. If both were shorter, things may be quite different.

 

[WeakAnkles]

Thank you for the terrific translation moriel.

Well she sounds like she has her priorities in order and she's not only at peace with her decision but excited for a future that does not include skating. And who can argue with that? More power to her.

 

[Fluture]

Ah, that makes me sad. She was such a big talent and I loved her skating.

But it seems like she found something else she wants to pursue in life and if that makes her happy, all the power to her. I wish her good luck! Reading her interview, she seems like a very mature, thoughtful and intelligent girl. Good luck, Polina!!