Thursday, October 02, 2008

Best Friends?

Another great piece from our friends in Russia at Skating Translations.

It chronicles how Maxim Shabalin (of course the other half of the Ice Dance team with Oksana Domnina) is adjusting to life in the U.S. Oksana and Maxim no live and train in the Newark area with Natalya Linichuk.

"My son lives in a college town close to New York in a simple two-room apartment", says Olga Vasilievna, Maxim's mother. "However, whereas the living conditions are quite comfortable, Maxim still hasn’t gotten used to American produce. My son especially misses fermented dairy products. You can’t even find basic kefir in America!"

Among other things noted in the article, it talks about the friendship that has developed between Domnina and Shabalin and Belbin and Agosto, despite the fact that they are direct competitors on the international scene. Tanith and Ben are also coached by Linichuk. "Maxim is not adversarial person", smiles Olga Vasilievna. "He is pleasant with everybody. Also, Natalya Linichuk pays equal attention to her Russian and American teams."

What's up next for these two teams? Belbin and Agosto debut at Skate America in Everett while Domnina and Shabalin begin their season at Cup of China in Beijing, against Belbin and Agosto. Should be interesting

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...I don't know about those "best friends" scenarios...can't forget how the G/P, K/O "friendship" turned out. D/S and B/A are in direct competition for placement, they can pretend to be friendly all they want but I don't believe it for a minute. It's all a show. Course I know you know that as your blog title suggests! Makes for a nice article, though.

Aaron said...

Right...I'm thinking Best Friends...no way. While I certainly believe they are very courteous and professional towards one another...heck, I can even see Ben taking them for a spin on the town...but certainly not best friends.