‘Discipline is necessary to reach the top, but you also have to keep your athletes physically and mentally healthy’

As the music by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi swells and shaved ice flies through the screen, the camera struggles to keep up with Aljona Savchenko. In the twilight, she seemingly effortlessly skates backwards and makes a few perfect turns at high speed, after which she jumps into the air with a smile, spins 360 degrees around her axis, and glides at full speed after landing.

The caption for the video that the 38-year-old former figure skater from Ukraine posted on Instagram earlier this month: ‘Home‘, with a heart. It was Savchenko’s first experience with Dutch natural ice, on the Nannewijd in Friesland. One of the advantages of her new home in Heerenveen, where she has lived since she was appointed national coach of the new National Training Center for Figure Skating (NTK) in Thialf in August.

A few weeks earlier, Savchenko – 1.53 meters tall, multiple world champion and Olympic champion in 2018 – is sitting in the canteen of the ice stadium in Heerenveen. Her skaters do stability exercises in the gym. “They follow a strict program,” says Savchenko, “but I think that is normal.”

How does a Ukrainian figure skater who became Olympic champion on behalf of Germany end up in the Netherlands?

“It may have been a surprise to everyone, but when the Dutch skating association approached me, I thought it was an interesting proposal. Figure skating is not popular here, but the Dutch are good at skating and active on the ice. There are good facilities in Thialf, so there is a lot of potential.

“The skating association also called me at a good time: I wanted to move from Oberstdorf to a city to offer my daughter more opportunities.”

So it became Heerenveen. How do you like it here?

“The most important thing is that my daughter, my parents and I feel good here. The first time I came here for an interview about a possible appointment, I had my daughter with me. I felt like she became a different person here. As if she was more open and relaxed, more confident, as if she had come home. She’s only two, but she showed a new side of herself. That played an important role in my decision to come here.”

Savchenko herself gets the feeling of coming home somewhere when she skates in a competition in Germany for the first time at the age of fourteen. “It was clean and tidy, everything was well organized and ran on time. I liked that because I am very precise myself.” Very different from her youth, when Savchenko learned to skate on frozen lakes near Kiev and then had to travel two hours back and forth every day for her training.

When she was nineteen, she decided to go skating in Germany. In her own country, her coaches do not believe in her qualities, and when she hears that a German boy is looking for a partner and the former world champion Ingo Steuer – Savchenko’s childhood idol – wants to train them, she moves there. In the seventeen years that followed, she became world champion six times, European champion four times and Olympic pair riding champion in 2018, all under the German flag.

If you play for another country for so long, what is your connection with your country of birth?

“I am proud to represent Germany and grateful for all the opportunities I have had there, but my heart is still Ukrainian. I am proud that I was born there and that my family is from there. That feeling has only become stronger since the invasion.”

What impact has the war in Ukraine had on your life?

“It is very painful. My parents have been living with me ever since, they fled the violence. But my brothers stayed behind in Kiev. We try to call every day. Every time they say they love me, I don’t know if that’s the last time I’m hearing it.”

How do you handle that?

“It is difficult. I’ve told my brothers so many times that I want to come over there to help, but they don’t want me to. And they don’t want to come this way either, because they’re afraid the country will disappear in their absence. So I try to help in other ways. I send them food, medicine, clothing, money, so they can continue to fight for our future.”

In Heerenveen, Savchenko is currently working with a selection of twelve skaters: four girls and two boys between the ages of 16 and 19, plus three adult pairs. Lindsay van Zundert, earlier this year in Beijing, the first Dutch figure skater at the Games since 1976, is missing (see inset).

You can probably do things that your skaters can’t.

Savchenko laughs. “Yes that’s right.”

Is that difficult for you? You are known as a perfectionist.

“Of course that is difficult. But it’s my job to teach them. It’s true that I’m a perfectionist, but I also have a lot of patience. Otherwise I would never have lasted so long in this sport. I have resigned myself to the fact that it will take a lot of time. My goal is to make my skaters the best versions of themselves.”

In the Netherlands, more and more attention is being paid to a safe top sports climate and transgressive behavior by coaches. A good case?

“The problem is that there is little attention to ethics in the training of coaches, which sometimes causes things to get out of hand. They have a system they work with, and that’s it, they don’t know anything else. As a child you don’t know any better, I’ve experienced it myself, it just happens to you.”

What happened to you?

“In Ukraine I had a coach who hit me on the head with my skate guards if I did something wrong. I hid it from my parents because I was afraid they would take me away from the sport. In another group there was a coach who sprayed girls if they made a mistake, it made you feel very cold.

“It was also verbal behavior. ‘You can’t do anything’, ‘you’ll never achieve anything’, that’s the kind of thing they told me. Ingo Steuer, my coach in Germany, said it sometimes too. He probably did that to push me to the limit, but you never forget something like that. It is so damaging to your self-confidence.”

Traumatizing too?

“I was fortunate that my parents always protected me and taught me the difference between right and wrong. Thanks to them I have come this far. Ultimately, all my experiences have made me stronger, but now I think: ‘That wasn’t okay’.

“I don’t want the skaters in my care to experience the same thing. Of course you need discipline to reach the top, but you have to protect your athletes so that they stay physically and mentally healthy.”

You work with young people, sometimes children. After the Olympic riot surrounding fifteen-year-old Kamila Valieva from Russia, the minimum age to participate in competitions has been increased from 15 to 17 years. What do you think of that?

Also read
When the drama is complete for figure skater Valieva (15), the applause continues

“I cried when I saw what happened to Kamila. I would have protected her, not sent her onto the ice. I think the age limit could be higher, to 18 or 19 years. Then you are further developed.

“It’s really not the case that you’re too old to become good. I didn’t move to Germany until I was 19, my career didn’t really take off until I was 21, and I won Olympic gold at 34.”

When you were appointed, you said that you wanted to combine the best of Eastern and Western Europe. What did you mean by that?

“That I want to pass on my discipline to my skaters, without all the negative experiences I have had. They have to enjoy what they do, because without passion for the sport you won’t get anywhere.”

To share





Email the editor