If you believe the ratings of the show "Dancing on the Ice with the Stars", then Russian figure skating is experiencing the greatest period of growth in its history - television programs with the participation of athletes have never been such a resounding success. On the other hand, if we evaluate the results of our skaters at the last World Championships, then Russia in this discipline returned to about the same positions that it occupied 40 years ago, when we were newcomers and, unashamedly, learned everything from the West. The outcome of the trip to the next World Cup is unlikely to be better. Most likely, thanks to the complicated intrigues of the head of the Russian figure skating V. Piseev, Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin will get a place on the podium in the dances. That's all. Chances of our lone skaters to win medals in Tokyo are zero. It is very likely that for the first time in 45 years we will be left without medals in pair skating.
At the same time, many ice rinks in Russia switched to round-the-clock operation. Because in ordinary hours, everyone who wants to ride on ice does not fit. A friend of mine in St. Petersburg works in a company selling skates. Expensive, very high quality. Long before the First Channel crowned Tatyana Navka and Marat Basharov, everything that was there was dared from the shelves of the store. I had to urgently order an extraordinary batch of goods. But then she was immediately snapped up.
5 years ago, America was the main nurse of Russian champions. She gave them free ice (so that the face of the famous skater appeared in the commercial avenue of the rink) and engagement in the show. StarsonIce's main US ice review is now in deep crisis. Cost cutting is underway in all respects - from the number of participants to fees. The American outback has cooled down to this genre. But Russia, after the weekly Saturday broadcasts, where the skaters learned how to perform, and the people who studied how to stand on ice, very fond of light skating.
Now posters with the faces of our champions do not hang in some Spokane or Tampa, but in Novokuznetsk and Khabarovsk. We are our own StarsonIce. And the ice show of Ilya Averbukh feeds not only Russian stars: Sasha Cohen, Brian Joubert, Johnny Weir - almost all the best acting skaters in the world are very willing to respond to the proposal to perform in Russia.
It would seem that in the situation that Russian figure skating is experiencing, there is no dramatic contradiction. The leaders left the sports arenas at once and went on stage. The holy place is empty, but not for long. He will certainly be taken by the children of those mothers who watched "Dancing on the Ice with the Stars," and then led their boys and girls to the trainers in delight and emotion. However, it seems, not really understanding that what Plushenko, Yagudin and Slutskaya are doing today, has a very conditional relation to the subject of figure skating.
Show business will demand only one skill of our champions - it’s easy to glide on ice to light music. But this is categorically not enough to become what Plushenko, Yagudin and Slutskaya were before they were invited to the stage. Champions made them jumps and spins of the highest complexity.
Show business ignores all this complexity, it does not need it at all. Moreover, it is contraindicated. In fact, "Dancing with the Stars" insists that anyone can become a skater ... Let's just say, any talented person.
A triumphant television project where the skaters before our eyes become actors and the actors become skaters is a dangerous dope. It sharply stimulates interest in figure skating and does not warn about the consequences. Following the charm of how cleverly it turns out for overweight Butman - “my boy will get better”, there will inevitably be disappointment when a child comes home lame after an unsuccessful jump.
This is a difficult, traumatic sport. The more dangerous, the further you go and the higher you jump. The higher you jump, the harder it is to fall. God knows how much Plushenko, Slutskaya, Yagudin, Totmyanina and others had to endure in sports before learning this unbearable lightness of show business. From a medical point of view, all of them, in essence, are sick people. Fortunately, they now have the opportunity, without threatening their health, to exploit some of their professional skills, receiving a decent reward for this.
The television project "Dancing on Ice" is, in fact, a celebration of the greatest generation in the history of Russian figure skating. We were always strong in doubles and dancing, but were never so great in all four types of figure skating at once, as in the late XX and early XXI centuries. The appearance in one country (even if as large as Russia) of at the same time three such great skaters as Yagudin, Plushenko and Slutskaya is God's mercy, and not “the highest achievement of the national school”.
This became clear after the generation descended and it became clear that behind the “highest achievements” there were no at least average achievements. "Dancing on Ice" - were a fun wake of the myth of "the greatness of the national school."
Igor POROSHIN