Mikhail Shaidorov: "...what a loser I was"
Mikhail Shaidorov: "...what a loser I was" publised after his Olympic gold here https://www.tulup. ru /news/717/mikhail_shaidorov_4cc_interview/
Mikhail Shaidorov is a Kazakhstani figure skater and a rising star of international figure skating. This interview with him (with Aiza Mambekova and Dias Zhirenbayev) was recorded immediately after his free skate at the 2024 Four Continents Championships in Shanghai.
- Great! Let's start from the very beginning: I was born, I studied, I got married, I grew old... um... I was born! Where were I born, where did I live, how did I get on the ice?
- (Mikhail) I was born in Almaty and lived there until I was 14. When I was 14, my parents and I decided to move to Sochi. Because my parents agreed that I would continue training with Alexey Evgenievich (Urmanov – editor's note). We moved there, and since then, we've been spending half our time in Almaty and half in Sochi. And since 2018, Alexey Evgenievich and I have been working together. Five years already. In November, it will be six! We work closely and well together, moving forward together.
- And how did you start skating? With whom and how did you end up on the ice?
- (Mikhail) My dad put me on skates; he's a coach, a figure skater. This was when I was six, I think. But then I said, "I'm not doing this, leave me alone!" And so I went to gymnastics. I did gymnastics for a year and a half, even participated in some competitions. But then I kind of lost the fun. So, okay, let's go skating... And around the age of seven, I started skating. Back then, it was the Ramstore rink...
- (Aiza) It's a very interesting rink, the size of... just a circle...
- (Diaz) Like this [shows].
- (Mikhail) It was the very first rink in Almaty, right?
- (Aiza) At least it was accessible, where you could come at any time and skate.
- (Mikhail) Yes, it was mostly for the public. There were some exhibition performances. It was actually the first shopping mall in Kazakhstan. We lived right next to it. Denis Ten started skating there, as did Abzal Rakimgaliev, and my dad. All the famous Kazakh figure skaters started there, including me. Unfortunately, that rink no longer exists—it was destroyed during the Great Perestroika, and now there's some flowerbed there with offices all around. Those are the fond memories. We started out on that small rink, doing axel jumps and our first double jumps.
- Did Denis skate there at the same time or earlier?
- (Mikhail) No, not at the same time. Naturally, I came later than Denis. But he trained some double jumps there. Basically, everyone started doing more or less any kind of sport there.
- Did your father coach anyone else at the same time, or just you?
- (Mikhail) My dad coached Denis for a while; he had many students. He even trained masters of sport back then.
- So he was a professional coach, not just you?
- (Mikhail) Yes, Dad is a six-time Kazakhstan champion. But, unfortunately, because sports, especially figure skating, were underfunded after the collapse of the USSR, Dad couldn't compete in international competitions. So he's not particularly well-known outside the country, even though he was a six-time Kazakhstan champion and mastered elements mastered by the world's leading figure skaters.
- When did you start having any serious success? Before Sochi or after?
- (Mikhail) Before Sochi. Around 12 years old. In 2015, I think, Yuzuru Hanyu was breaking world record after world record with Chopin and his Seimei program. I watched that program over and over again; it was mind-blowing. It motivated me so much that at 12, I realized I wanted to do it seriously, and I started enjoying it. And after a while, I ended up at Alexey Evgenyevich's training camp, and we met there. If you ask him about it, he'll describe it in great detail. He loves to describe what a loser I was. I couldn't do anything on the floor back then. I couldn't coordinate my arm and leg. It was just absolutely terrifying.
- Maybe he'll tell you that, but I doubt he'll tell me that.
- (Mikhail) He'll say something even worse [everyone laughs]. And then, at his training camp, I landed a double axel. I was already, I think, 13 years old then. It's quite late. We simply didn't have any conditions in Kazakhstan back then. There was no ice, let alone gyms. For some reason, it's generally not customary to train in a gym. At least that's how it used to be; I don't know now. That's why I practically never trained in a gym either. So, in 2017, we started working together with Alexey Evgenievich. I came to his training camps, and apparently he liked me, so we continued working in Sochi.
- Did you skate in a group or just take extra classes?
- (Mikhail) Yes, I trained in a group; it was quite a large group. But after some time, I was banned from skating with Alexey Evgenievich's group. Allegedly because I was a foreigner. I don't know the story behind it, but they banned me from training because I competed for Kazakhstan. And then we started training separately. This happened before the World Junior Championships, where I placed second. We didn't know what to do, so we started training at the public skating center, where you can't even put on music. But somehow we prepared, even with that pace and that terrible process, we prepared, and I performed quite well. It was a huge victory for me. And then we started working separately thanks to my sponsors, who help me with this, and, of course, the sports development directorate, but I won't say much about them. And thanks to that, I can now comfortably train with Alexey Evgenievich.
- Whose side were the problems? The Russians or the Kazakhs?
- (Mikhail) The Russians.
- Interesting. So many people train without problems…
- (Mikhail) Yes, and quite a lot of foreigners train in Sochi. For example, there are a lot of pairs skaters from different countries, and even from outside the CIS. And they're fine, they're allowed in, everything's fine with them. But they banned me; there was some kind of biased attitude.
- Maybe they felt the competition?
- (Mikhail) Well… so be it.
- (Mikhail) Let's not offend them (laughs).
- (Diaz) [caricatured singsong] E-m-o-t-i-o-n-a-l d-a-m-a-g-e…
- Okay. Tell me about your programs. You have two strong routines. On the one hand, this isn't the first time they've used music, but the programs are still innovative.
- (Mikhail) Yes, for example, the music from "The Matrix" is great, and I really like the movie itself. I actually wanted to skate something classical in the short program, I wanted to skate to Spainish theme. But when I met with Vanya (Righini/Bariyev - ed.) and discussed it, he said, "You look like a young Keanu Reeves." I said, "Thank you!" He said, "Let's skate to "The Matrix." I thought it was cool. And Vanya found a really interesting, epic version of "The Matrix." It was such a powerful piece of music that I really liked it. And so, over the summer, we worked well together and created this story. At the end of last season, I decided to try every possible (and impossible) entry into a quadruple toe loop. And this lunge I'm doing seemed really fitting. The Matrix is its own world, its own aesthetic, and I thought the toe loop would look really appropriate from this lunge.
- Yes, that's a cool touch.
- (Mikhail) And I don't think anyone else has ever done anything like that.
- (Mikhail) Alexey Evgenyevich himself wanted to skate Carmina Burana at one point. But he couldn't skate it himself, because back then, you couldn't use music with vocals. So, in the 2022-2023 season, he suggested choreographing this free program. We choreographed it with our choreographer, Oleg Purtov, who trains me in the gym. He's absolutely mind-blowing! We've been skating this program for two years now, and we're still working on it. Oleg Anatolyevich comes in, and we continue to search for new things, change things, add things. And I come up with my own steps. Overall, the program is growing and developing. It even changes a little every competition. It may not always be obvious, but some things are better, some are different. Even though the program is in its second year, there's still some progress.
- We need to revisit it and see what's changing!
- (Mikhail) For example, last year's program was completely different. I think I'll finish this season with it and finish with this program, because I understand that I've grown in skating, and I want to keep moving forward, to reach a new level.
- Tell me more about the costumes. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, too. A lot of people have had the Matrix, but no one has ever had a costume like this.
- (Mikhail) Initially, when we were talking about the costume, I immediately had a picture in my mind: it'll be a cape, I want a cape! I want it to flutter! Alexey Evgenievich said, "Well... okay, we'll cut it off if we have to" [laughs]. So, we sent an order to Svetlana Gachinskaya, Artur Gachinsky's mother, in St. Petersburg. She's been making all the costumes lately. And she created this very beautiful costume. And when I stepped onto the ice, it seemed to me the cape was really long. Alexey Evgenyevich looked at me and said, "It's really bad!" [laughs]. I said, "No, I'll just get my groove on, and it'll be fine." So we went to the competition. True, I had to withdraw due to an injury in practice, but we still didn't cut the cape. I think it fit really well. It looks completely different. Brian Joubert, for example, had something different. And I had something of my own. And then at that competition, I caught the cape during a spin, and I thought I'd ripped it! I was spinning, wondering what would happen to it! I held on until the end, but it was a dangerous moment [laughs].
- I wanted to ask if there were any incidents.
- (Mikhail) That was the only incident! I was very surprised because there had been no problems in practice. But here, I even got scared during the spin. It's good I didn't screw it up; the Lutz was enough, no need for more!
- You have all sorts of interesting elements, like cartwheels with one arm. For example, I can only do cartwheels with one arm on a trampoline, I can't do them on the floor. Is that something left over from gymnastics, or did you learn it specifically for the program?
- (Mikhail) When Vanya and I were choreographing the program, he'd come up with something, and I'd be moving around, too, thinking of something: back and forth, one way, another... And at one point... it's not really the cartwheel that could be done... I want it to be better, and I was actually planning a trick like this: I'm doing a cartwheel, and I'm holding a gun in my hands, and I'm sort of shooting it Macedonian style! But apparently I overdid it, and for now it's just not there. But I hope to work on it some more and add something. We come up with a lot of different tricks, we find them. Sometimes we forget something, discard it, but lately we've been doing a lot of interesting things.
- Did you already know how to do the cartwheel, or did you have to learn it for the program?
- (Mikhail) No, I couldn't. I fell a couple of times, and my hand kept flying off, but after about four or five tries I got the hang of it.
- Do you have some kind of rubber on your glove?
- (Mikhail) Nothing [chuckles].
- (Mikhail) Yes! When I started the free skate, the gloves were incredibly slippery! I was skating (I think this was in Canada), and I realized I was about to do a cartwheel, the gloves were slippery, what should I do? But thank God, everything went well. But yes, there's nothing on the gloves, neither in the practice ones nor for the run-through. And that's probably good; it helps me control my movements better. If there were something on the gloves, it could have turned out like Zhenya Medvedeva did at Cirque du Soleil.
- You live in two cities. What's the difference between them, in terms of feel? Which one do you feel more comfortable in, which one do you prefer? Overall, how do you feel?
- (Mikhail) Of course, Almaty, it's my home. I always count down the days until I return. It's very comfortable to train in Sochi. My schedule is this: I wake up, eat, go to practice, come back during the break, sleep, eat again, go to practice, come back, do a little something, and then it's time for bed. I hardly have any free time. There are weekends, but I try to fill the day as much as possible. There's not much to do there. And although I do socialize with some people there, I don't have many friends, only figure skaters. As soon as I arrive in Almaty, I'm completely booked up, so much stuff, it feels like I live in Moscow. I have a zillion things to do every day, and I still don't understand how I manage it all. But it's still interesting! I get so tired in Almaty; on the one hand, I want to rest, on the other, I want to go somewhere and do something. But overall, I feel more comfortable and at home in Almaty. Everything feels like home.
- You just told me what a day in Sochi is like. Tell me what a day in Almaty is like? A day in the life of an athlete in Almaty, please!
- (Mikhail) In Almaty? Wow!..
- (Aiza) We're running endlessly!
- (Mikhail) Well, first of all, in Almaty, you usually fall asleep at 3 a.m. Simply because...
- (Aiza) That's the rhythm of the city.
- (Mikhail) It's nocturnal. The city of finance, the city of dreams. That's Almaty! There was a song like that. (Ghetto Dogs - Almaty - ed.)
- (Mikhail) It's always different. There's always a billion things to do, but everything is always different. But on top of everything else that needs to be done, you also need to train. You come to the rink, train, run around with your phone, talk to someone, and move on.
- What else? Besides training.
- (Mikhail) Well, I meet up with Diaz when he's there. I try to see friends. I go somewhere with my brother. To visit relatives, here and there, to buy something, to give out some gifts. I go and sign some papers. A whole box of papers. Wherever I fly, they need something. Or rather, everyone needs something from me.
- (Mikhail) Yes, often with visas. For example, to Chongqing. On November 10th, Kazakhstan and China are introducing visa-free travel. And I have to fly on the 9th. So you go and get yourself a one-day visa. Even though you're arriving on the 10th and departing on the 9th.
- But you need to board the plane with a visa.
- (Mikhail) Yes, board with a visa, and when you get off the plane, it's visa-free. That's my "luck", I love that.
- Question for everyone: Almaty or Alma-Ata?
- (Aiza) Almaty! No hyphen.
- Almaty? Does everyone agree with that?
- (Aiza) That's the official name.
- (Diaz) Official? Really?
- Does anyone have an opinion on this?
- (Mikhail) You're not from Almaty!
- (Diaz) I'm not from Almaty! I'm from Astana!
- Astana residents are allowed to have an opinion too!
- (Diaz) I'm from Astana, but I can only say it's not Nur-Sultan, but Astana! That's the most important opinion!
- (Mikhail) Our akim (that's the city mayor)... was he in Astana then?
- (Mikhail) When he says, "You're not from Almaty!"
- (Diaz) In Almaty. The famous reporter who pesters all the mayors and ministers in our country decided to talk to the mayor of Almaty. The mayor says, "Sorry, I won't meet with you because you're not from Almaty!"
- (Mikhail) "You're not from Almaty!"
- (Diaz) "Please, give me an interview! Everyone wants to know." "Who wants to know? You don't live in Almaty!"
- (Mikhail) "Move to Almaty, then I'll give you an interview!"
- You have your own jokes!
- (Mikhail) Yeah, we have fun!
- (Aiza) It's on YouTube [picks up phone].
- (Diaz) That's already a meme.
- Okay, while you're looking for a meme... tell me about your hobby.
- (Mikhail) Hobbyhorsing!
- (Mikhail) I would, if I had the time. I love driving. When I come to Almaty, I ride in my brother's car.
- (Mikhail) Yes. Hmm... oh.
- (Mikhail) Yeah, strike it out! But I drive pretty well!
- (Mikhail) I play video games. I came back from the 2023 World Cup, went out, bought a PlayStation, and played. I didn't care what anyone thought of me. I don't have a TV, but my brother's wife does. I came in, plugged it in, and played. I didn't care what she said. It was the ultimate impulsive purchase—I walked into the store, said, "I need this, bring it to the checkout." I went in and bought it. There was just some kind of state of emptiness, and I wanted to satisfy it.
- (Mikhail) Lastly, I almost finished Dota 2. It's very interesting. I finished Uncharted on PlayStation 5. I want to finish Cyberpunk. My PlayStation stays in Almaty most of the time. Because I have absolutely no time for it in Sochi, and my brother plays in Almaty, so I figured I'd keep it there. And traveling with a PlayStation is a total nightmare; I had that experience. One time, they made me take it out and practically disassemble it. I said, "Are you crazy? How am I supposed to disassemble it?" They say, "Turn it on." I say, "Why?" Oh well. So I left it behind; when I have free time, I play. And in Sochi, I have a laptop, and there are all sorts of games there, too. I beat Mafia. Definitive Edition is also an amazing game, I just love it. Mafia was the very first game I was given as a gift, Mafia 2. It's such a stylish and cool game, I've probably beaten it five hundred times.
- I don't remember which Mafia game I played, probably the first one.
- (Mikhail) Probably the first one. Where's Tommy Angelo?
- Yes, I think so. "If you want to be a real mafioso..."
- (Mikhail) Yes, yes, yes! And I finished the recently released Definitive Edition, a new game, everything is very beautiful, and the plot is still the same. It's a simply brilliant game, I really liked it, I enjoy playing it. I don't recommend Mafia 3, it's terrible.
- Okay. Let's get back to figure skating. What are your plans for the rest of the season and the future?
- (Mikhail) To get back to training, to prepare for the competition in Holland. Prepare calmly; this competition is a test of all systems before the World Championships. And to show my best at the World Championships. Prepare thoroughly so that I can skate clean programs and get good scores. As for the results, it's always unpredictable with us—who'll be first, who'll be tenth. So the most important thing is to do your job, and the results will happen. In the preseason, I'll be working closely with Vanya on skating, on choreography, coming up with new programs. And I'll keep working on my technique. Maybe I'll add more quads, some interesting ones, maybe combinations.
- Are you learning new quads?
- (Mikhail) Well, maybe I'll learn a loop just for show. But it's not particularly interesting; it's better to do just what I have than a bunch of different quads. And besides, I have a Lutz, a flip, a toe loop, and a Salchow. The loop, I don't know, seems a bit overkill to me.
- (Mikhail) That's a bit of a story. But in practice, I do a triple Axel-quadruple toe loop. It would be interesting to include it in my program somewhere. It'll be more expensive than a quad axel.
- But I have to skate it all.
- (Mikhail) I have to skate it all, and then there's the 3A+4T at the end!
- Anything else you'd like to add? Anything else you'd like to say to the fans? Or maybe I missed something?
- (Mikhail) I've gained a lot of fans in recent years, which I really, really appreciate, of course. I want to say a big thank you to them! So many people support me, they have Instagram accounts. I was shocked; I don't even manage my Instagram like that. I can't imagine how much energy it takes to manage it like they do! A girl from Korea manages it. It's a shock to me! I never thought I'd have so many fans. Of course, I'm very pleased to have support. At every competition, I see more and more Kazakhstan flags. It really motivates me to keep going, that people are starting to recognize us, our team.
- By the way, this is an open question. There have been athletes from Kazakhstan competing before, of course, like at the World Junior Championships in Taiwan, for example [nodding at Aiza]. But I don't recall ever having a whole team. And it seemed to have come together very quickly. How did that happen?
- (Aiza) Yes, definitely. We help each other, both by earning quotas. And because figure skating is growing in popularity. I even think the healthy competition between our boys is making a difference. Everyone is trying to keep up with each other, while maintaining a healthy competitive streak. The girls are a different story; being a figure skater is very difficult, so they're doing great, too. For them, this is a very important start, where they open their eyes, realize the significance of what's happening, and thus gain experience. Judging from our conversations, they really want to keep growing. And we will support this in every way possible and help as much as we can.
- Let's do it! It will be interesting to see how it all develops.
- (Aiza) Thank you for your support, for remembering to interview us so thoroughly; we really appreciate it!
- With pleasure! If I had a little more time, I would have asked you and Diaz separately! But I have to run now, let's do it next time! Were you paying attention? Did Mikhail lie?
- (Aiza) No, as always, he told the whole truth!
- (Mikhail) Sometimes I can even overdo it.
- (Aiza) People don't take offense at the truth.
- When you hang out in Almaty, what do you do together?
- (Mikhail) Last time, yes, we went to the movies. A couple of other people were there.
- (Aiza) We're spending time actively, walking.
- (Mikhail) We want to go on a three-day hike. And throw away the phone so we don't see it or hear it!
- (Aiza) I'll be filming, as always.
- That was a healthy wish [for Mikhail], but this is unhealthy [for Aiza].
- (Aiza): Or maybe I won't.
- Well, go ahead, go on a hike, good luck at the competitions, and I hope we'll see each other again and record some more interviews!
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