Interview with Andrea Dohany (Team Surprise and Kristoffer Berntsson’s coach)

V: You were born in Hungary. Tell me about your skating career, before you moved to Sweden
A: I was single skater from the beginning and then I started to skate ice dancing until I was 20 years old and then I stopped to skate, because I had very serious car accident. So I had to stop to skate. I competed internationally and we were always second pair in Hungary. Then I was studying for a coach in University. I went in 2 different schools. One was special for figure skating coaches, another was Sport University, after studying in it you can do many other things, not only figure skating. I can be teacher in the schools, I can organize something or whatever.

V: How did you move to Sweden?
A: Somebody asked me if I could come to Sweden for 6 months and teach ice dancing and I said yes. After 6 months they said if I could come back to Sweden again. Firstly I thought it would be only for 6 months, but then it happened for one more year and one more year. It was 1981. So I moved to Sweden.

V: Was it hard for you to live in new country in the beginning?
A: I don’t think it was very hard. But it was pretty difficult, because mentality in Sweden is totally different.

V: How Team Surprise was created?
A: It was 1985. Swedish federation asked if I could start to work with this kind of sport. I had no idea what it was. I’ve got a book from Canada about synchronized skating. I read it and I thought that we could try. There were many skaters, who could not jump. I thought it was a good sport for them. To be a good jumper you must have special ability and not everybody has it. But even if skater can’t be good jumper, he still can skate with good quality. I tried to put skaters together in a team. I had a lot of ice dancing couples, because I worked mostly with ice dancing at that time. So I put my skaters together and it was fun.

V: Do you remember your first meeting with Kristoffer? What kind of impression you’ve got from him?
A: He was 5 years old and he was very quick. He could run on the ice. You can see immediately if it’s talented skater. He skated in skating school and I started to work with him more and more. But at that time it was more like playing or having fun. We had a group of boys and it was fun for him. I can say that I’m happy to have such skater as Kristoffer. We understand each other good.

V: Do you have any activity except being coach?
A: Figure skating takes all my time and sometimes even more than all my time :) But I enjoy it.
It takes a lot of time with team and organizing everything for my club. I work with a lot of skaters. I work in LKK( Landvetter Konståknings Klub), then I keep a lot of seminars and make a lot of educational material.

V: What kind of sport do you like except figure skating?
A: I like gymnastics, ice hockey and athletics. I often watch competitions. I can say that I like almost every kind of sport, except boxing.

V: Are you pretty calm, when your skaters skate in competitions or you feel worry all the time?
A: I’m not calm. It’s much worse to stay outside than to skate. It’s more difficult to be a coach.

V: What kind of seminars do you make?
A: I make a lot of seminars for single and team skating nationally and internationally. I come to different countries every year.

V: What place in the world do you like more?
A: I like Madeira, it’s Portuguese island . If I have time I usually go there for holiday. I like Austria. We usually go there in December for training’s camp. There is open rink and it’s nice.

V: Last question is what is the most important thing for you in life?
A: There are actually so many important things. It’s important that you can work with something you like. It’s important to know that everything is good with your family, that there are people around you, whom you can trust.