Last week Novogorsk hosted the first test skates of the season and skaters presented their new programs with which they’ll compete this year. “Vremya Novostej” correspondent Olga Ermolina talked to ice dancers Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin.

Russian team consultant Tatiana Tarasova highly praised your programs for their versatility. Unfortunately the audience will see them only in the beginning of November at Cup of China. Could you please say something about them?

Maxim Shabalin: - Our Original Dance is to Astor Piazzolla’s tango. By the way, argentine tango is our choreographer Sergej Petukhov’s favourite dance. Thus he was very scrupulous in choreographing the program. He brought us many videos with performances of professional dancers and taught us specific elements, gancho, for instance. It’s hard to do them on the floor, not to mention on ice. The theme of the program – relations between man and woman, like always in tango. It’s passion, it’s argument, it’s quarrel, it’s love – just like in life.

Oksana Domnina: - We have chosen Borodin’s “Polovetzian Dances” for our Free Dance. The most difficult was to match this great music, and we hope we did it.

M.Sh. – I can say I really found myself in this dance. When we were working on this program Sergej Petukhov told me to forget about classic choreography that I hate, ballet arms and such. “Do whatever your wild temper tells you. – he said. – Spread your fingers, grimace. You’re a savage, you know no laws”.

O.D. – And I’m a tender slave. And this contrast – inner clash of characters and external difference – gives such an explosion of emotion. Programs turned out to be so good, beautiful, comfortable and mature.

- And what do you mean by “mature” programs?

O.D. This year our skating has become “solid”, we’re number one team in Russia. We have grown up, we have another views and all this reflects on our skating.

- Have you already got used to the new ISU rules?

M.Sh. – You can’t get used to them they’re changing all the time. For instance, last season after such test skates they suggested us to change all step sequences, and it’s about 50% of a program. In a week we had to skate at a competition in Israel and you can imagine our performance there. It was a real nightmare, we were stumbling, falling … It was the worst skate in our career. So this season when we heard only some minor comments – to change slightly one lift – it was like a bay-talk.

- What Grand-Prix events will you compete at?

O.D. – In China and in Russia. In China we’ll compete with Americans Belbin-Agosto and Chait-Sakhnovsky and in Russia our rivals will be the Israeli team and Delobel-Schoenfelder from France. On the other hand, it may be good we’ll miss Grand-Prix events in Canada and the US. Their rinks are of different size and it takes some time to get used to it. And then official competitions – European and Worlds Championships. We were preparing for this season at home and spent a month in the mountains in Poland. But as it was the first ISU camp there it had some drawbacks so we have rather dubious impressions of it. 

M.Sh.: -  We realized we liked it better to train at home, in Odintsovo. However when we returned we had some problems with ice. The training schedule was always changing – 8 a.m., then 10 p.m. They were saying ice was occupied by someone. But thanks god city authorities showed some understanding to our problems and promised to fix it. And in general, Odintsovo city administration likes our sport.

- Has it become easier or more complicated to train after the Bulgarians Albena Denkova – Maxim Staviski who were also in Alexei Gorshkov’s group, left?

M.Sh. – In my opinion it’s more a disadvantage. It’s good to have strong sparring partners, and there aren’t such in Russia so far. We thought about it with our coaches and decided to go more to camps to stay in good shape.

- This season almost all former team leaders are participating in TV skating shows. Were you tempted to join them?

O.D.- We discussed it with our coaches and altogether decided to stay away. We looked at it and realized how much time it all takes. It’s impossible for eligible skaters who want to skate at top level at international competitions. Maybe we’ll skate there but only with an exhibition.

- Last year there were rumours you were going to split or switch coaches, could you comment on it please?

O.D. – We weren’t going to change anything, we weren’t even thinking about it. We’re quite happy with our collaboration with our coach Aleksi Gorshkov and Sergej Petukhov. I believe the results of our work will become obvious this season.