Absolute Skating interview with Franca Bianconi

[reut]

During Rostelecom Cup I had a rather long and in depth interview with Franca Bianconi. We discussed her students - Matteo Rizzo, Roberta Rodeghiero and, of course, Valentina and Ondřej; Olympic qualifying rules in Italy; situation with figure skating in Italy and more:
http://absoluteskating.com/interviews/2017bianconi.html

Actually I've been coaching Matteo since he started skating, since he was only six years old. And now he is eighteen. It's really nice when you raise a skater and you get to the point where he can really express himself and have good results. It's really rewarding for a coach...

Roberta is having health problems. It's a pity because she was really good, and she was also getting better and better. And all of a sudden she started feeling not well, and they just can't find a solution to this problem. We have been working a lot with doctors to try to solve this and so far it hasn't worked. They say that probably in ten to twelve months it will be better; the problem is we don't have this time. She has to try to compete at the end of November, maybe in Graz. And we will see.

Yes, we're planning to put the side by side triple Lutz back. We will see if it will be at Europeans or at Olympics, but our goal is to get this back. We took it out because we wanted to pay more attention to the other pair elements. And I felt there was too much stress on this element, so there was not enough for the rest. But now the rest is getting much, much better, it's faster, more solid, so we can go back to the triple Lutz as this brings a lot of points, of course. Also, it's something different that not many pairs can do. But their main characteristic I think is the expression on the ice...

(I tried to find an "Italian skating thread" but didn't find one, probably archived?)

 

[kwanfan1818]

What a wonderful interview, @reut!

 

[reut]

After I had an interview with Franca, Valentina and Ondřej posted a funny Instagram story teasing that their coach is more popular than them and gets more interview requests. Of course, after that I felt obliged to have an interview with them too.

Valentina Marchei and Ondřej Hotárek: "We still have so much to give to skating"
http://absoluteskating.com/interviews/2018marcheihotarek.html

 

[nimi]

Thank you @reut for these interviews!

(I tried to find an "Italian skating thread" but didn't find one, probably archived?)

Well... As the OP, you could change the name of this thread, right? Call it, say, "Italian skating thread" or something.

Valentina Marchei and Ondřej Hotárek: "We still have so much to give to skating"
http://absoluteskating.com/interviews/2018marcheihotarek.html

On the topic of Franca... This bit jumped out to me:

Ondřej: And she is the reason why Italy has two teams at the Olympics for the second consecutive cycle now. Back in 2005 it was her idea to contact the Czech federation and bring this guy (points at himself) over to try pairs. She thought that when the team event is going to be there in the future, that we (Italy) needed all four categories. And look how that worked out!

Now that's what I call foresight!

 

[reut]

Yes, I can change this one, but "that" Italian thread had many good links and interviews too. What I love about "resurrecting" older threads that people notice things they missed the first time.
Update: I can't change this one, it was posted too long ago. I could create a new one but... don't know, whatever. These two are very related.

 

[nimi]

(...) "that" Italian thread had many good links and interviews too. What I love about "resurrecting" older threads that people notice things they missed the first time.

Good point. (I wonder if it's possible to get some admin use their Jesus-like powers and get them to rise the archived thread from the dead or...?)