Read here my small interviews with young but talented skaters from Poland, USA, Finland and Italy.

 Maciej CIEPLUCHA (Poland,taken in 2010):

V: Tell me how you started to skate.
M: I’m 22 years old now. But when I was a little boy, I was too fat and my mommy decided that it was time to do something. She sent me to figure skating school, later I started loosing my weight. After some time, coaches thought that I had talent, so I began skating professionally in the club since I was seven years old.

V: You train in Poland now?
M: I moved to Canada and I’ve been living there for 3 months now. There are not so good conditions for practicing figure skating in Poland. I have to say it’s not so popular kind of sport. So I took decision to move to Canada. Now I live in Calgary. It’s totally different from Europe.

V: Do you have activities except skating?
M: I study at University, but now I have a big vacation there, because I live in Canada at the moment. It’s really hard to explain what exactly I’m studying there, but after graduation I can be a sport coach. As for hobbies, I’m really addicted to Internet, I like computer games, and during the week-ends I prefer to party.

V: How much time do you train per day?
M: About 3,5 hours a day, so it’s around 20 hours a week.

V: Who are your favorite skaters?
M: Earlier my idol was Alexei Yagudin. Now I really admire Daisuke Takahashi.

Maciej’s favorite things:
Color: Blue
Food: Pizza
Drink: Multivitamin or orange juice and Mohito
Film: I’m big fan of movies. I watch everything I can download
Music: I listen to everything
City: Krakow, Wroclav, Gdansk, Poznan inside Poland. From outside- Rome, Berlin.

Douglas Razzano (USA)

V: First question is always traditional, please tell me how and when you started to skate.
D: I started to skate in 1998, I was nine years old. It happened right after Nagano Olympics. I took private lessons immediately, so I was not skating in group classes. It was my own choice to start skating.

V: What is the hardest element for you at the moment?
D: Quad toe. I have to work hard on it. In the beginning of season it's even harder, but I will definitely put it into my programs.

V: Who choose the music to your programs?
D: Generally, I choose the music. I have to be able to feel something from the music.

V: Who are your favorite skaters?
D: I have a few: Michelle Kwan, for her passion and consistency. Alexey Yagudin for possessing the entire package in skating. I like different things in different skaters. Among Scandinavian skaters: I would definitely mention Kiira Korpi as a female and Adrian Schultheiss as a male.

V: How many hours do you train per week?
D: Around 11-13 hours. It works very fine for me, I don't overdo things, which is very important. Overdoing something during training process can lead to extra injures.

V: What are you hobbies?
D: I like to cook and I like to travel a lot. I want to visit all the world.

V: Do you have a lot of free time? As I understand you are not studying at the moment?
D: That's true, I'm not studying at the moment. I actually do have pretty much free time, mostly it's between practices during the day. But I work a bit as a coach to earn some money.

Favorite things of Douglas:
Food: I love to eat hamburgers, probably because I'm American. And I also like all kinds of desserts.
Drink: I don't drink soda anymore. I love Margarita cocktail and White Russian :)
Book: The last book I read was Johnny Weir's book and I also recently read the book about Chinese mother, which impressed me a lot.
Music: I listen to all kinds, except very hard rock and metal.
Place: I liked Slovenia, Tallinn, Toronto. I would say Toronto is my favorite city.

V: What feature in your character helps to work and what in opposite bothers?
D: I'm very responsible, focused and strict for myself. I think I'm a very loyal person. What I don't like in myself: Sometimes, I'm very cold. I don't usually start conversations and so on. But it can be a good point too.

V: What can you advice for young skaters?
D: When you have bad day, don't quit, when something is going wrong, don't quit. Keep trying and never give up.  It isn’t always the most talented person that wins, but the most persistent and the hardest worker.

Paul Bonifacio Parkinson (Italy)

V: Tell me how you started to skate and about coaches who have been working with you so far.
P: When I was 10, my parents put me into a learn to skate program in Canada and I enjoyed it, so I continued to skate to learn the jumps because jumping was my favorite part.

V: Your best result of competitions?
P: 4th place at Italian Championships in 2010 and 2011, 3rd place Mont Blanc Trophy.

V: How often you come to your home country and who is the most serious rivals for you at the moment?
P: Right now I only return for competitions. My current rivals are the two skaters ahead of me in ranking right now, Paolo Bacchini and Samuel Contesti.
V: Who generally choose the music and style for your programs?
P: A combination of my coaches, my choreographer, and me. We all input our ideas and select the best from those.

V: How many hours per week do you train? Would you like to increase the amount of hours on ice?
P: Right now I skate 3-45minute sessions a day on the ice off, and 3 hours a week off the ice. I think that amount of on ice training is good, but I might want to add a bit more off ice training.

V: Who are the idols for you in figure skating?
P: Evgeni Plushenko because he tries to push the boundaries of our sport and he always fights for every jump in competition.

V: What are your activities except sport? Do you study somewhere? What are your hobbies?
P: When I'm not training I enjoy playing video games (The Legend of Zelda) and hanging out with my friends. I also enjoy listening to music. I am currently studying at a local college in Colorado taking basic classes to see what I want to do in the future.

V: Do your parents have any connection to sport?
P: My mother did gymnastics and my father played hockey, but both did it recreationally for fun.

V: Please mention three features of character which you like in yourself and three ones which you don't like.
P: Three features I like are hard worker, my attention to detail, and how I can make daily training fun. Three features I don't like are I procrastinate a lot, sometimes I'm too hard on myself, and I am shy when it comes to meeting new people.

V: What advice you can give for young readers, who just begin their career in figure skating?
P: The best advice I can give is to never give up! Sometimes you might have setbacks in your career that can be very frustrating, but how you overcome those setbacks help make you a stronger skater.

V: Which competitions you attend during the season 2011-2012?
P: I will be competing at the Crystal Skate in Brasov, Romania in November then the Italian Championships in December. We have not planned competitions for after nationals yet.

V: What is your main goal in life? ( not only in sport)
P: My main goal in life is to become the best that I can be, reach my full potential in anything that I do.
 
Favorite things of Paul:
Food: Pizza, Gnocchi, Peanut Butter and Jam Sandwich
Drink: Chocolate Milk, Apple Juice
Music: Electronic (Skrillex and Deadmau5) Hip-Hop (Chris Webby, Mac Miller)
Movie: The Hangover, Howl's Moving Castle, The Harry Potter Series
Place in the world: Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and Vienna, Austria
Sport, except figure skating: American Football, Hockey, Snowboarding

Julian Lagus (Finland):
V: Tell me how figure skating came into your life.
J: I started skating, when I was 4 years old. I also played hockey but after some period of time, I decided I liked figure skating more than hockey. I like having all the responsibility. Like If I do some mistakes during my program, there is only one guy to blame - me. With team sport like hockey it's not like that.

V: How many hours per week do you train?
J: Approximately 15 hours, but I would like to train more. Unfortunately, it does not depend only on me. I have school and other activities. And it's also depends on time schedules in our club.

V: Who are your idols?
J: I don’t have one absolute favorite, but I like Lambiel, Honda, Verner and Joubert. Among Scandinavian skaters I like Swedish guys, they are good. But I want to say that we have some potential young good skaters in Finland as well.

V: Is skating number one for you at the moment?
J: At the moment, I would say yes. I want to be successful.

V: What is your best result so far?
J: Actually Finlandia Trophy 2011 is my best result. I'm really satisfied with my skating here.

V: What is hardest element for you now?
J: It's definitely axel at the moment. I'm planning to train quad as well a bit later.

V: Is it any figure skating specialist  you would like to work with?
J: Yeah, I travelled to Canada, I trained there during the summer and I liked everything there.

V: Are you nervous every time before competitions?
J: I'm pretty nervous, yes. But I like the thing that I can cope with my feelings. My nerves don't bother me to compete.
 
Favorite things of Julian:

Food: Everything that my mum makes
Drink: Apple juice
Movie: Hangover (Part I and II)
Music: All kind of music, mostly rock and rap
Place:  Canada

V: What is your main goal in life?
J: To live a good life and to have no regrets about what I have done.