One of the things that has really shocked me is the theme of IAM coaches mocking & trashing other teams and encouraging their skaters to do the same.
It is saddening indeed but I don't think that's one bit surprising.
Over the years, I've heard of those "kill the opposition" / cooptation-based aristocratic mentalities in ice dance which comes from the origins of ice dance (russian mentality and european aristocratic mentality), widely spread among coaches and judges. Gabriella talks about it in her book.
For example in France, I listened to interviews of Haguenauer and he has always shown the utmost contempt about all things Arribert (about Zoé and Pierre-Loup occasionally beating Elodie and B E N O I T around 2006 ; on Candeloro's podcast a couple of years ago, about her saying in a minor local journal that she had a little center with little means trying to maintain high level ice dance in France, compared to the expensive and extensive factory that is Montréal; he didn't even name her, he said "on a dit", like in "someone has said" and he was speaking to rectify the "misinformation" that Montréal was expensive). Arribert gave an interview in 2011 where she was fuming against that killer mentality and negativity that Zazoui had about other centers, refusing simple competition to even exist.
Zazoui was pretty much handed a monopoly by Gailhaguet around 1998, probably in exchange for political support. He killed her professionally in 2014 when Haguenauer left for Montréal, followed by Gabriella and Guillaume. She had the same discourse than IAM. She had "the one and only" school.
I may be wrong but I think Zazoui was pretty much standard european ice dance mentality of the 70s-80s and that she doesn't hold a candel to the ferocity of the russians. And I think there are enough european and russian ice-dance coaches who settled in Northern America to have spread that culture.
(I'm curious about the Brits actually, since they are the inventors of the discipline and that the french ice-dance program was born from
Roger Kennerson's teaching)
But by the most interesting return of karma, for the last 12 (when Gailhaguet killed Lyon) to 6 years (when Gailhaguet left the stage), it's the dancers whose schools/teachers (
Danièle Marotel,
Catherine Glaise, others ...) were evicted from high level by the Zazoui school and Gailhaguet that have been building the golden generation I'm talking about. For nearly 30 years, one could believe that french ice dance was Lyon, Zazoui, Haguenauer. The coming years will show it was always a very partial POV. There is no better karma than the longtime despised ones finally biting the butt of the snobs.
She wrote she found her then boyfriend asleep down the street by her door covered in cocaine, not her.
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