Cheers for Deniss Vasiljevs!

I like the fact that Alexei Urmanov is allowing Deniss to incrementally develop at his own pace as he makes his transition from Junior to Senior.

There's sometimes the temptation to be over-ambitious and try and technically match a Samohin, Chen, Yamamoto, Aliev to achieve higher Junior accolades, when the priority should be developing a long-term career (hopefully with minimal injury).
 
patinart said:
Deniss has quickly become one of my favorites! Too bad about the mistakes at JW. His competition schedule has been crazy this year! I can`t believe he is doing senior worlds as well! Although, I am extremely happy about it as I will get to see him skate live! :)
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I was sad to see Deniss struggle at JW, though I think the quick turnaround between YOG and JW must have been a little taxing on a lot of these competitors. I mean, Sota and Polina both got seriously injured in the time between the two events and some of the other skaters competing at both events (Nikitina, Shiraiwa, Tursynbaeva, Aliev, etc.) also has some struggles in one or both programs at JW. Deniss actually put up back-to-back personal bests in the FS at YOG (144+ in the men's event and then 149+ in the team event) so I'm not too concerned about the poor FS at JW. Usually he does not get URs on his 3a, for whatever reason he just seemed kind of labored on all his jumps at JW. Some of it might be because he's grown a lot! I was watching his nutcracker program the other day and I guess I hadn't realized just how tiny he was a couple years ago, he's definitely much taller and more muscular now.

I'm hoping Deniss has some gas left in the tank for Worlds! Placement wise there shouldn't really be much expectation on him so I really hope he can just go out there and skate well for himself. I'd love to see his fabulous SP skated clean to close out the season.

I'll be rooting for the Latvians at Worlds! Go Deniss and Angelina :cheer2:
 
Thanks for posting this link in the OES News thread in GSD, @reut! His charming Worlds debut/10th place SP video (British Eurosport) is embedded in the article):
reut said:
Beverley Smith's article about Deniss Vasiljevs:
https://bevsmithwrites.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/vasiljevsfully-charged/
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Excerpt #1:

Skating is about more than jumps, Vasiljevs said. “It’s my life, figure skating,” he said, with no small amount of passion.

Step sequences, spins, how they make Vasiljevs’ mind burst. He has an entire list of favourite skaters/role models. First on his list is Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland.

“He was the first skater that I really loved his skating,” he said. As a boy (he’s still a boy), Vasiljevs watched Lambiel all the time, every time he could. “It was like the first moment of work that I would try to skate as him,” Vasiljevs said. “I was always trying to reach his level.”

Besides, his mother, a former dancer, was a Lambiel fan.

Lambiel invited him to perform in his "Ice a Legends" show in Geneva on April 22 :): http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/ind...ends-2016-geneva-april-22.98049/#post-4742997

Smith article excerpt #2:

Urmanov says he’s training quads, but they are not ready yet.

Vasiljevs started with Urmanov before last year’s world junior championships and the young Latvian trains almost full time in Sochi now.

“It’s always a lot of work with some of my athletes,” said Urmanov. “He didn’t do triple Axel, so we fix it in August-September. And we put it in program.”

Later, Urmanov stepped up the kids’ challenge, putting two triple Axels in the long.

Vasiljevs is an eager learner, Urmanov said. “He grow a lot and he becomes a man.”

And he has extremely novel spin positions. “Yeah, he has seriously unusual positions,” Urmanov said. “This is good because in figure skating, we want to see something new. This is good that he have such a nice position, different from others.”

The positions come from Valsiljevs’ heart, from his personality, Urmanov said.

“Some people are born to be skaters,” Urmanov said. “And somebody not.”

He admits that Vasiljevs sometimes scares him because he moves so fast across the ice. “I just sometimes ask him: ‘Please, don’t do short track for me. We’re doing figure skating.’”
 
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He is adorable. In the SP the audience was so with him! The LP wasn't as strong but it will be a great battle between him and Shoma in 2022.
 
Re-posting from the crowdfunding thread in GSD:
reut said:
Message from Deniss on AS:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1150863858297684&id=113697665347647
Link to the campaign:
https://www.pursu.it/pursuit/campaign/169
21 days to go...
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From the 2016 Ice Legends show thread in GSD: http://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/ind...016-geneva-april-22.98049/page-3#post-4783123
seabm7 said:
Deniss Vasiljevs [Puttin' on the Ritz] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeFCknO7xLY
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Deniss announced coaching change:

During this spring, I had the pleasure of working on my programs with Stéphane Lambiel at his school in Champéry. It was a great experience, and I found the training conditions there were ideal. Today, I am happy and excited to let you know that Stéphane has accepted to take me on as his student for the upcoming season! We have been working together since my return from Canada and I feel more confident every day.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the coaches who have brought me to where I am today, especially Ingrida and Alexei. I will always be grateful to them.
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https://www.facebook.com/1195496182...9549618231301/446783962174530/?type=3&theater
 
Would Deniss also gain Grutter and Brunner with that move? If so, that would be amazing. I love Stephane with all my heart, but if he is busy with creative projects, I suspect Deniss also will need a day-in/day-out coach. But there's no doubt Stephane can be a tremendous source of inspiration and support.
I hope parting with Urmanov was amicable; they were a lovely tandem (at least, looking from the outside)
 
From what he wrote it looks like Deniss is planning to stay in Champéry, which is situated a bit far for Grütter and Brunner to be there on a daily basis. Peter was also rather busy coaching at Vernets rink in Geneva, but with the recent events (long story short Vanessa Gusmeroli was appointed a head coach there and others decided to leave) I don't know if he continues there. Still I doubt he'll do this trip back and forth every day (it's around 2 hours of driving one way from Geneva, for Salome it's almost 4 hours). Stéphane was coming to his school ~3 times a week (1-2 times during a week and on weekends) and with all his other engagements I wonder if he can do this much more often. But he has two coaches in his team, Anna and Robert, who live there and always available. The rink in Champéry is mostly used by the Skating School and I understand they can have as many "ice patches" as they want. So I imagine the arrangement will be like this: Stéphane will be responsible for all the development and training plans (or how you call them), part of the time Deniss will train on his own or with Anna/Robb, part of the time Stéphane will be there. And also Deniss will enjoy from all the other facilities in this sports center and all the dance/athletics specialists they invite to the school once a week(?).
 
Deniss didn't mention who he was working with on his recovery in Toronto, but I'm almost sure he worked with Marla Pichler (who helped Stéphane to recover from his adductor injury to come back in 2009). Marla was in Geneva during the "Ice Legends" when Deniss already had problems with his leg. So, like with Stéphane, I guess Marla prepared for Deniss a specific set of exercises to work on. Maybe even their injuries were "similar" enough that now Stéphane can help with that too (just my guesses here).

When we talked with Deniss in Geneva (a long interview we planned to publish soon, now I will need to seriously rework it :D ) he was visually disturbed when asked about Yulia Lipnitskaya and training with her. Maybe Urmanov giving now lots of attention to his star student was also one of the reasons for this coaching change.
 
Here's their Q&A: https://www.facebook.com/StephaneLa...658576100205/1303421736357211/?type=3&theater
Excerpts:
Stéphane Lambiel S: One thing lead to another...! I first discovered Deniss while watching videos of the JGP, maybe two or three years ago, and I was immediately impressed with his presence on the ice. I got to meet him at the YOG in Lillehammer, we talked about his career, his goals, and I invited him to my show, Ice Legends. In May, we started working on his new programs, and we had a really great time. I could see that he really wants to achieve something big in the sport, and when he asked me to be his coach, I didn't need to think too long.
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S: ... During our summer camp early August, Deniss has benefitted from the experiences of Peter Grütter and Salome Brunner among others. ... They will continue to be involved!
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Deniss: The music for my short was recorded in 1968. Try to guess!
[Charlie Di Oliver:] I just googled for songs from 1968!!! #1 Hey Jude, that would be a lovely song for you :) Or maybe Born to be wild, that may suit well to your personality!
D: Keep googling! You're not so far.
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Another question for Deniss - how are you doing after your injury; are you able to jump again? You had spoken before about trying a quad lutz. Is that still a plan you have for this season or will you train another type of quad?
D: I'm doing a lot better. We started jumping doubles this week. In three weeks, I will start working on triples. Afterwards, depending on my condition, I will start practicing quads. I hope that by Worlds, I can show at least one of them—the quad Salchow.
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D: I will start the season at the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow, and my first competition in Latvia will be Nationals.
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Here's a link to an interview with Deniss in Artistika Magazine.

http://artistika-2.instantmagazine.com/artistika-magazine/no-2#!/qa-deniss-vassiljevs

Thanks so much to @clairecloutier for posting about this online publication in GSD, and sharing the fact that it contains several interesting figure-skating related features (an interview with Claire, plus a repost of her interview with Castelli/Tran from June); an interview with British skater, Philip Harris; picture montage of Penny Coomes/ Nicholas Buckland; and the aforementioned feature on Deniss! :)
 
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aftershocks said:
Here's a link to an interview with Deniss in Artistika Magazine.

http://artistika-2.instantmagazine.com/artistika-magazine/no-2#!/qa-deniss-vassiljevs

Thanks so much to @clairecloutier for posting about this online publication in GSD, and sharing the fact that it contains several interesting figure-skating related features (an interview with Claire, plus a repost of her interview with Castelli/Tran from June); an interview with British skater, Philip Harris; picture montage of Penny Coomes/ Nicholas Buckland; and the aforementioned feature on Deniss! :)
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That was fantastic!
 
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I just read the IN article. I didn't realize that Deniss had changed coaches. It's nice for Deniss that he feels comfortable training in Switzerland with Lambiel who is the skater he first enjoyed watching. It will be interesting to see the fruit of their labors together. :)
 
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