OCTOBER 2019 IFSMAGAZINE.COM 7PH
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August before they began the hard work toward a new campaign,
and both skaters agree now it was the right choice for them. The
results, if anything, bore that out.
“It was a good idea,” said Papadakis. “It was a bit stressful when
the Grand Prixs started approaching because we were very, very late
in our preparation. But we managed to do well, and this year we’re
much in advance compared to last year, so it will be fine. I’m not
worried too much. We always find a way.”
Perhaps most crucially, as Haguenauer pointed out, “they were
very fresh, even at the end of the season. It was very important to
start the Olympic cycle in this condition.
“It was a very easy season (in terms of stress) and it went really well.
They performed at a super good level every time, at Europeans and
at Worlds and even at the World Team Trophy. So I’m very pleased
with that. They were more relaxed, but at the same time, very serious
with the way they worked and performed.”
Maintaining that ability to stay “chill,” to use the skaters’ words, is
something Papadakis believes might have been the most vital lesson
to come out of that season. “It was important for us to re-think the
way we prepare for competitions. We were way more relaxed, and
now we see more of a big picture,” she explained. “It used to be ‘the
next competition is the most important competition of my life!’ It
was pressure all the time.
“But we kind of dropped that, and now if we’re not ready, we’re
not ready, that’s it ... it’s not the Olympics and it’s fine. We still have
more than two years ahead of us. It was very important to think that
way — it showed a more mature approach.”
One might suggest that, given their current elevated status in the ice
dance world, there will always be pressure for Papadakis and Cizeron
to produce something that is uniquely theirs each season. But it is a
chase that excites them as they toil away during the summer months
at the Gadbois Centre in Montréal — their training base since 2014
— and prepare to create new magic with Haguenauer and fellow
coaches Marie-France Dubreuil and Patrice Lauzon.
“Honestly, I love this part of the year,” Papadakis told IFS in early
July, when the couple and their coaching team were still in the process
of building their new programs. “We’re going to the rink and we’re
exploring ideas and searching for inspiration and it’s just so exciting.
It’s like, ‘Oh yeah, wow, we could do that! It would be awesome. I’ve
never seen anything like that before.’
“The creative energy is the best. I love it and it’s my main motivation.
And then we get to perform it in front of thousands of people — I feel
very, very lucky to be able to do that. It’s not a dream for everybody
but for me, it’s the way I want to live my life.”
But long before they are bathed in applause for the magic they
produce on the ice there is the matter of finding that special vehicle.
It is no small challenge, especially when you are four-time World
champions, and the expectation level that goes along with that is
about as immense as it can get.
Papadakis and Cizeron, however, hardly shrink or cower in the
face of it all. Rather, it is their fuel and their driving force, and they
crave the opportunity to take themselves and the audience somewhere
new each time and each place they perform. It is, quite frankly, the
only way they know how to be.erhaps it is the most vital
question left to ask, and it is this: how much
better can the reigning king and queen of the
ice dance world possibly get?
That question was posed to the man who
knows them best, the one who has guided them through the past
seven years of their career.
The response does not come easily from their coach Romain
Haguenauer. He finds a definitive answer difficult to produce, given
that Papadakis and Cizeron are both only 24 years old, with many
years of greatness no doubt still ahead of them.
“It’s a bit difficult for me to answer that,” Haguenauer admitted.
“Skating and ice dance is not just a sport. It’s an artistic sport, so
there is no limit to that area of improvement. Yes, you have the
technique, but you also have the composition, you have the artistic,
and every year, it’s a new artistic project.
“Technically, they are at the top, but each year they have to put
their technique at the service of the artistry. At their level, it’s what
they do. And the reverse, if we have a new choice, like we do every
year, to express that artistry and to be able to perform it, you have to
improve your technique. Different lifts, different twizzles, different
transitions ... so for me, there is no limit to their improvement.”
The 2018-2019 season surely offered some evidence of that. The
French team, who own the historical records for the short (now
rhythm) dance, free dance and overall scores, spent the previous
campaign raising the International Skating Union’s scoring bar
from their first competition to the last.
Four times they established a new standard for the overall total,
pushing that number to 223.13 points at the 2019 World Team
Trophy, their final event of the season. Along the way, they pushed
the record scores for the rhythm and free dance to 88.42 and
135.82, respectively.
Papadakis and Cizeron also continue to win major titles at a
dizzying rate. They claimed their fourth World title in five years in
Saitama, Japan, and made it five straight European crowns with their
triumph in Minsk, Belarus. Only a minor back injury to Cizeron
— which caused them to withdraw from NHK Trophy, the second
of their two Grand Prix events last fall — prevented them from
possibly adding Grand Prix Final gold to that list.
It was as impressive a leap into a new Olympic quadrennial as
they could make. “We had a really good season,” said Cizeron. “We
couldn’t do both the Grand Prix events because I was injured, but we
had some really good results. We liked the programs and everything
went pretty smoothly. It was a nice transition season, but we still
managed to do some programs that ... we were able to challenge
ourselves without pushing ourselves to death.
“It was a little bit more chill than the Olympic season, once that
pressure dropped. It’s also nice to have time to plan the next four
years and take some time to settle down and just think about what
we want to do for the next Olympic season.”
In the wake of the physical and emotional strain that the season
leading up to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games placed on Papadakis
and Cizeron, Haguenauer thought it best to give his prize pupils an
extended break before preparing for the next season. It was nearly