Ziggy
12-20-2010, 07:57 PM
In his own words:
Unfortunately, as the song goes: "you've got to know when to leave the stage - unbeatable," I've decided to put my competitive career on hold after Universiade (if I am chosen to compete). I will return if I manage to land a triple axel or a quad.
It wasn't an easy decision but I thought that if I'm not able to improve my international results, there is no point in blocking younger skaters, who still have a future ahead of them. They also need competitive opportunities, at the highest level, to gain valuable experience so that a Polish skater can take part in the Olympic Games again.
He's a real class act. :respec:
I am very sad but I totally understand his decision.
He had a great career, peaking at 17th at Euros and 23rd at Worlds and managed to compete at 2010 Olympics.
It might not seem like much at all but if you had seen his performances several years back, he had weird, tilted jumps, landed in bizarre positions.
Him and his coach worked extremely hard and managed to improve his technique significantly. His position in the air became much better, the jumps got higher and more secure and he started quite consistently landing triple-triple combinations, including 3lutz/3loop which is very rarely seen in skating.
And whilst he never had great basics, he always showed well choreographed programs.
From being a skater, nobody really thought much would come out of, he became the most successful Polish skater since Grzegorz Filipowski.
He realised that he wouldn't be able to achieve more than what he already did without a 3axel or a quad, so he decided to give others a chance. And to leave when he's on top of his ability.
And he left in great style. At 3 Nationals 2011, he skated an unbelievably entertaining, well sold FS (and a clean SP too) and achieved his new unofficial personal best. I've never seen him sell a program like this before. We were in hysterics.
He left an amazing final impression (the clip will appear on FSVids, watch it!).
I cried, his coach cried, it was the best farewell you could hope for. :)
He has a lot to move on to. He has his own internet skating shop, he coaches quite a lot and is now going to focus on shows for a while.
Skating in shows means he's going to continue practising and if he makes progress on 3a, he's going to return to competition.
I remember making a banner for Przemek with Monika on the landing of the building where our hostel was in, during 2004 Europeans. We've never seen him skate before, but we were really pissed off with him being chosen to the harder qualifying group and therefore not making it to the SP, when he would have done so easily in the other one, and we wanted to cheer him up.
And starting from there, we ended up getting to really like him both as a skater and as an awesome bloke. :hat1:
That banner ended up following him since then. He signed it during 3 Nationals and gave me one of the biggest "Awwwwwwwwwwwww!" moments ever when he told us he had really appreciated having seen it at all those different competitions through the years. :)
I'm getting really teary-eyed now so I'll stop. ;)
(Oh and what it means in practical terms for the rest of this season is that he has given up his 2011 Euros spot, that he was entitled to as a National Champion, and that is being handed over to Maciej Cieplucha who was 2nd. Provided he is selected by the federation, he's going to compete at 2011 Universiade as his last competition - at least for now.)
Unfortunately, as the song goes: "you've got to know when to leave the stage - unbeatable," I've decided to put my competitive career on hold after Universiade (if I am chosen to compete). I will return if I manage to land a triple axel or a quad.
It wasn't an easy decision but I thought that if I'm not able to improve my international results, there is no point in blocking younger skaters, who still have a future ahead of them. They also need competitive opportunities, at the highest level, to gain valuable experience so that a Polish skater can take part in the Olympic Games again.
He's a real class act. :respec:
I am very sad but I totally understand his decision.
He had a great career, peaking at 17th at Euros and 23rd at Worlds and managed to compete at 2010 Olympics.
It might not seem like much at all but if you had seen his performances several years back, he had weird, tilted jumps, landed in bizarre positions.
Him and his coach worked extremely hard and managed to improve his technique significantly. His position in the air became much better, the jumps got higher and more secure and he started quite consistently landing triple-triple combinations, including 3lutz/3loop which is very rarely seen in skating.
And whilst he never had great basics, he always showed well choreographed programs.
From being a skater, nobody really thought much would come out of, he became the most successful Polish skater since Grzegorz Filipowski.
He realised that he wouldn't be able to achieve more than what he already did without a 3axel or a quad, so he decided to give others a chance. And to leave when he's on top of his ability.
And he left in great style. At 3 Nationals 2011, he skated an unbelievably entertaining, well sold FS (and a clean SP too) and achieved his new unofficial personal best. I've never seen him sell a program like this before. We were in hysterics.
He left an amazing final impression (the clip will appear on FSVids, watch it!).
I cried, his coach cried, it was the best farewell you could hope for. :)
He has a lot to move on to. He has his own internet skating shop, he coaches quite a lot and is now going to focus on shows for a while.
Skating in shows means he's going to continue practising and if he makes progress on 3a, he's going to return to competition.
I remember making a banner for Przemek with Monika on the landing of the building where our hostel was in, during 2004 Europeans. We've never seen him skate before, but we were really pissed off with him being chosen to the harder qualifying group and therefore not making it to the SP, when he would have done so easily in the other one, and we wanted to cheer him up.
And starting from there, we ended up getting to really like him both as a skater and as an awesome bloke. :hat1:
That banner ended up following him since then. He signed it during 3 Nationals and gave me one of the biggest "Awwwwwwwwwwwww!" moments ever when he told us he had really appreciated having seen it at all those different competitions through the years. :)
I'm getting really teary-eyed now so I'll stop. ;)
(Oh and what it means in practical terms for the rest of this season is that he has given up his 2011 Euros spot, that he was entitled to as a National Champion, and that is being handed over to Maciej Cieplucha who was 2nd. Provided he is selected by the federation, he's going to compete at 2011 Universiade as his last competition - at least for now.)