This is the interview of Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Soloviev before the world championships.
They, Russian skaters and coaches, have to make important decisions about how to compete in the next season
-The Russian ice dance couple, Ekaterina Bobrova and Dmitry Soloviev, has certainly achieved success in resent competitions, most notably, taking gold at the last month's European championships in Croatia. But this continental trial is still some away from the global dominance enjoyed by soviet and Russian skaters over the past 50 years. And with the rise of Canadian pair Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir as well as U.S. stars Meryl Davis and Charlie White, the duo felt the need to reinvent themselves to challenge the North American stranglehold, and recruited a help for the former ice dance champion Alexander Zhulin who coached Tatiana Navka and Roman Kostomarov to the Russia's last Olympic gold in Turin in 2006.
Bobrova: It wasn't easy of changing coaches as we've been with the previous one for 12 years. But everyone kept saying we were becoming too repetitive and used old school techniques, and you have to do something to do about it. This is why I returned to Alexander Zhulin who has proven time is again that his approach and technique are exciting, new and different.
-The world's change is good. Ekaterina and Dmitry really do have the work to cut off for them as training with Alexander Zhulin's work ethic sounds extremely demanding, especially, seeing as he would like to see them in a top three of the Worlds very soon.
-And that's, of course, it's easier said than done. Virtue and Moire are currently Worlds and Olympic champions with former Worlds champions Davis and White running them across second over the past 3 years which is the dominant that coach Julian admits it's daunting tough to break.
Zhulin: Judging from the last season and the beginning of this one it was simply impossible to compete with them. But I can see the improvement has been made by the Russian, Dmitry and Ekaterina, as well as others. And competition is getting tighter. Of course, those two couples are too tough over the couple of few years. But time is loving the challenge. And I hope it continues.
-But while Julian admits there is still a way to go for this duo, a buoyant Soloviev believes they can already mount a challenge for the Worlds' top on.
Soloviev: It's completely possible. It's not some kind of fantasy. There is no such thing impossible. You just have to find a key to the door that opens up these possibilities.
SD - "The Sound of Music (2012-2013)"