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November 1995

Russian TV:

INTERVIEW WITH EKATERINA AND ANNA GRINKOVA

transcripted by katweige and Olya Smolyanova

Reporter: Good Evening. Today, TV-6 Moscow presents a program devoted to an athlete, 2-time Olympic Gold Medalist, a person who has rightfully entered the history of world figure skating–Sergei Grinkov. Time is counting weeks since the moment he passed away, but the pain is not subsiding. I must say that this program would have been very difficult to put together without the help of Sergei’s relatives and close friends...most of all Katia Gordeeva and his mother, Anna Filipovna, for which I thank them.

Katia: Before then (being paired up) I knew there was such a singles skater, who skated in the same club as I did, but we really weren’t acquainted. Then Vladimir Victorovich Zaharov invited us both to skate at the same time on the ice. The ice was small, I still remember, and he told us to “take each others’ hands and try to skate together.”

Announcer: And since then they skated together, both as amateurs and as professionals. You can’t choose your times, but Sergei and Katia were lucky–they started skating during the renaissance of Soviet figure skating. How much and little time passed since then. We loved them, even adored them, not missing one TV broadcast. Gorshkov and Pakhamova with their tango that made us tremble–a translation of the body. Great master and actor Bobrin, who was a cowboy one day, and mimicked pair skating the other. And of course, Bestimianova and Bukin with their great gypsy dance, which everyone liked. It was art with a capital ‘A.” But pairs skating always stood apart. In the beginning there was Belousova and Protopopov. After them the legendary Irina Rodnina, who became Olympic champion with both Ulanov and Zaitsev. Their tradition carried on with Valova and Vassiliev, but the last pair that was truly loved by us was Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. Charmingly fragile Katia; strong, masculine, and handsome Sergei. This pair could easily be called ideal.

Katia: Unfortunately, I understood this only during the last Olympics in 1994 in Lillehammer. Before that, I always felt that we weren’t good enough, that we needed to train more to get better. This last Olympics in ‘94 was very important for us because it was a shock that we returned to amateur sport and we needed to get all of our strength together so that we could skate well enough to win. So we really wanted it and we proved that we were figure skaters of high class.

Reporter: Lillehammer 1994. The announcer introduces Olympic Champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov. Yes, the return to amateur skating was successful. Return, because after the success at the ‘86 European Championships and at the ‘88 Olympics in Calgary, Katia Gordeeva and Seryozha Grinkov left amateur competition. But left so that they could return.

Katia: We were tired of amateur competition because it was difficult...endless training sessions and everything, and I remember that we thought that maybe we should try something different, learn something new. But professional sport is also very different.

Reporter: They were first there too. 1993 World Professional Figure Skating Championships–victory. But it was different skating, skating to the music of Tchaikovsky, whereas we remember them skating to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

Katia: This music (Moonlight Sonata) was suggested to us by Marina Zueva, who had been working with us from the very beginning. I also want to say that...I don’t know...whether she was sent to us by God or what, but she was there during our last training session when all of this happened. Anyway...she gave us this music, and we liked it very very much. By the way, Seryozha told me that he liked this music even before, he just didn’t know it was Beethoven and didn’t think of it in terms of skating. But he liked it and we didn’t have any arguments about it or anything. We liked Moonlight Sonata very much.

(Slow part of Moonlight Sonata program)

When you look back at it, when it’s too late....I now realize that...now that I feel so lonely I realize that I was...I felt with him like I was “behind a brick wall” (translator’s note: this phrase “behind a brick wall” means that a person could feel sheltered or protected, not necessarily in a bad way, but nonetheless protected by someone or something). I notice this especially during skating. I look at skating with different eyes now and see that no other man can present his partner as well as Seryozha presented me so that everyone could admire me. But it’s simply...simply because of Seryozha. Yes, I felt like I was behind a brick wall.

Reporter: Our life is not a game, but a prelude to a mystery. What we call figure skating is life and fate–and love. Our life is not a game and that is why we don’t like clowns. His heart loved and wanted to skate too much, it didn’t spare itself, it fell and died on the ice. We can live peacefully, memories can take us back again and again, and only the clock goes the wrong way because unfortunately time only moves forward.

Katia: The last time we checked was in the fall of 1993, no, even 1994–almost right before the Olympics. We went through a cardio test and a stress test, all the routine tests for the Russian National team. If anything had been wrong, even the slightest thing, they would have told us...told us to pay attention to this. And it was 1994–basically, last year.

Elena Gordeeva (background): It was in 1994, right before the Olympics.

Reporter: Did they check here? In Moscow?

Katia: Yes, we were checked here, like the rest of the national team. After that we didn’t check the heart–neither Seryozha’s nor mine, but we did a blood test last summer...a big blood test and they told us that he had high cholesterol.

Reporter: High what?

Katia: Cholesterol. That’s it. They didn’t say anything else.

Reporter: And he didn’t...?

Katia: We didn’t check his heart. Nobody could...about this...no attention..it was just unspeakable. You see...no one could even think about something like that.

Another reporter/journalist: One thing is obvious to me–had Seryozha and Katia gone through routine medical checkups as they would have as part of the Soviet national team, the tragedy could have been avoided, at least now. For some reason...well, we all don’t take care of our health like we should...they missed that. Seryozha complained about back pain, but it was really a problem with his heart. I have information that when he spoke to an American doctor and was asked to take a test, they had a conversation and the doctor told him that Seryozha should not work on his back but maybe talk to a cardiologist. This doctor, not being a specialist in cardiology, also told him that half of the American population lives with a similar heart problem. Had Sergei gone to a cardiologist then, maybe we wouldn’t be making this program now and everything would have been fine.

Katia: The thing is that help arrived in four minutes, just like it was written in the paper, maybe even less because I didn’t even have time to go get it–it was already there. And...well...I sat there. I was there in the hospital throughout the whole thing and saw what they did. We even told them to go ahead and operate on him without asking us first if it was necessary. So...I think that they did everything they could.

Reporter: (Clips of Out of Tears) Yes, professional skating is completely different from amateur–different rules, different audiences, different rivals, and even different rinks. In professional sport, rinks are rounded, which makes some elements typical for pairs skating hard to perform. For the most part, the most commonly used elements are lifts. After Sergei passes away, some journalists wrote that the highest degree of fairness took place. I would very much like to look into the eyes of those who wrote this. The highest degree of unfairness took place, that is what really happened.

Katia: My mom has a friend who suggested that I might be baptized so that...you know...just in case, so that everything would be fine and because I wasn’t baptized then. She recommended a good priest who could baptize me. That’s its...I went to church and got baptized and then when we decided to get married I suggested to Seryozha to have a church ceremony. He liked this idea and we were married. The same priest married us, the same priest baptized Dashka...the same priest conducted Seryozha’s funeral.

Reporter: The news that came to us on November 22 from Lake Placid left the feeling of “impossibleness” of what happened. America grieved for Seryozha–TV stations kept moments of silence and his close friends arranged church services. At the end of next February, figure skating stars are planning a special evening in Seryozha’s memory.

Reporter: What about daily things, did he help around the house? Of course, in America you don’t need to do much.

Elena: Just the opposite!

Katia: No, just the opposite! Right after we arrived, he bought a toolkit with all these instruments, painted, put up wallpaper for Dasha so that she could have her own room. I was amazed at that time because here...here he didn’t..

Anna Grinkova: He didn’t do anything around the house here.

Katia: ...didn’t do anything, ever. Although I heard that his father, his father Mikhail Kondratayevich, even built a house in the country. I wanted...well I thought that maybe when I became old he would build a house for me.

(Song about people who think they are in control of their lives and know what’s going to happen to them, but they never really know because it’s all an illusion)

Reporter: Our program is coming to an end. I want to thank everyone who helped us with it. Thank you for watching, watching a story of a person who charmed you with his art for so long. 28 years–is it a lot or no? It’s hard to say. Sergei achieved a lot in sports and the light of his star will shine upon us for a very long time.

Reporter: Do you want to continue to skate?

Katia: You see, I simply don’t know how to do anything else, so of course I will continue to skate. Somehow...on ice...Anna Filippovna has allowed me, I asked for her permission.

Anna: Of course, what else...ice is your fate.

Katia: The thing is, it’ll be easier for me to return to the ice because what else can I do?

Reporter: Will it be single skating?

Katia: I don’t know...I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I it’s going to be on skates...