Tim Geobel Interview
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The Skating Lesson Podcast Transcript The Skating Lesson Interview with Tim Goebel Part I Jenny Kirk: Hello, and welcome to The Skating Lesson podcast where we interview influential people in the world of figure skating so that they can share with us the lessons they learned along the way. I’m Jennifer Kirk, a former US ladies competitor and a three-time world team member. Dave Lease: I’m David Lease. I didn’t compete at nationals, I wasn’t on the world team – but I am a figure skating blogger and current adult skater. Jenny: If at any point during this podcast, you have questions, comments, anything you’d like to add, feel free to shoot us an e-mail at [email protected]. You can also find us on Twitter at twitter.com/ skatinglesson. Dave: Today, we are thrilled to welcome Timothy Goebel to The Skating Lesson. Tim Goebel is the 2002 Olympic bronze medalist. He’s a two-time world silver medalist, the 2001 United States men’s champion, and a 2010 graduate of Columbia University. [Tim enters] Dave: All right, well, Tim, nationals are coming up, and Dick Button always said – it’s the most important competition of the year, you are competing against your peers. Now I actually heard that you hated competing at nationals. Timothy Goebel: Oh, absolutely. I hated nationals. Jenny: Me, too! Tim: I hated nationals because it really is – it is the most important competition in the year. It decides your entire next season, and in some cases, basically the rest of your career. I mean, one disastrous nationals, you’re off the world team, you’re not getting good Grand Prix assignments or junior Grand Prix assignments depending on your eligibility. And it’s a lot of – it’s really a lot of pressure. Like without question, competing at nationals was a thousand times harder than competing at the Olympics. Dave: Now, how would you describe being at nationals? Like what do you remember about competing at nationals – the whole week, everything? Tim: Being at nationals is like the death by a thousand cuts. It’s just – every time you walk out of your room, you feel like you need a flak jacket, it’s – everything you do is scrutinized from what you’re wearing in the elevator to like who and how you talk to people. And it’s just – it’s a miserable, awful, gut-wrenching experience. And I miss a lot about competing, but I absolutely despised nationals. Dave: I guess, looking at nationals this year for the US men, Jeremy Abbot’s the defending champion, but he hasn’t really landed the quad in competition consistently. And we started to have some younger skaters like Max Aaron, Joshua Farris, Ross Miner – who are really starting to land the quad, but they don’t have that kind of international reputation or maybe the component scores. So I wonder, how do you see nationals shaping up this year? Tim: Well I think, you know, we have a lot younger skaters that are really talented that are kind of starting to break through to the top. And really, like once you go to worlds for the first time or even get your first senior Grand Prix event and do well, your component scores automatically go up by a point. I mean, it’s just kind of how it is. It’s going to be very interesting because when you have only two spots and you have five or six that on their best day could make the team, it’s either going to be a great last six skaters or they’re all going to implode. You know, it’s tough when you have a lot of talent and not a lot of room, people either are amazing or they completely fall apart. I’m thinking with the experience that some of the newer kids have had competing well all the, you know, through the whole junior Grand Prix season, I think they’re ready to go out and really perform. It’s just a matter of making not such a big deal about it. Jenny: You know, Tim, while I was doing my research for this, I actually found an interesting quote from you from a January 2003 New York Times article. I think it was before Dallas nationals that year. And you said, “I don’t come into a competition to be the star or anything. I come in to do my job.” And I thought that was just really interesting because as you’re saying, you were really known as a consistent skater. That you could – I always admired you because you were someone who could really put it down when it counted. But you also were criticized at some points during your career because of – you were so focused on the technical, maybe a lack of artistic merit. So I was wondering if you could just elaborate on what you meant by that quote, and was this really a philosophy that you had throughout your career? Tim: Well I think it’s really about – like a lot of people I feel that don’t compete well go into a competition and try – they try to go out and make it like the best long program that they’ve ever done when in reality, it’s just about going and doing what you do every day. And I think – you know, like when we were with Frank, we did a short and a long every day. It was compulsory, and that’s what we did. Like, take it or leave it, we knew that we could get through the programs, we could get through all the steps. It’s not like now under the Code of Points where you, like, sort of like down to take things out of the program or make it easier because other people make mistakes, and you can kind of juggle things around more. Where like, we went out and did the exact same program in competition that we trained. So in that sense, it’s like – okay, I go to the rink, I put my skates on, and I do my long program. There’s just – at nationals happened to be a lot more people watching. Not so much maybe any… Jenny: And unfortunately, maybe not so much anymore than the early 2000s. Tim: But yeah, I mean, I think the key especially at nationals, the key is to not make such a big deal about it even though it is a really big deal. And just to go out and do whatever you’re trained to do. And I think that was probably one of the things that helped me compete consistently. That didn’t work out so well for me in Dallas, necessarily, but in, you know, in general, you’re not going to go out in competition and have this magical skate that, like, if you’ve never done a clean long in practice, it’s probably not going to happen in competition. So, like, you have to know – you have to be sort of realistic with what you’re prepared to do and what you’ve actually, you know, put down either in competition in prior to nationals or what you’ve been doing in practice up until it. Dave: So one thing I wanted to ask was that we have a ton of men at the top who’ve been around a while that have been very inconsistent skaters, at least on the world stage. And I was wondering, how do you get that consistency back? Do you think the judges almost need to push down some of these older skaters who haven’t delivered and kind of, you know, promote the younger skaters who are seemingly delivering on the junior Grand Prix, or, I guess, how do you think the US gets that consistency back for the men? Because they really have a struggle about getting three spots next year. Tim: It’s – when you have two spots, it’s tough. When you have three spots, you have a throwaway spot. So you send your, you know, kind of the top two that have the best realistic chance of getting on the podium and then you send a developmental. The game changes when you only have two spots because we know that we have some really great talent at the top that is experienced on the international scene as senior, but they really haven’t delivered under pressure. So the question then becomes – since they’re not really all that dependable, personally for me, I would like to see one of the sort of veterans go and then send a developmental because they’ve have proven themselves. They’ve been consistent at the junior Grand Prixs, and really, it’s not that different anymore. Like, they’re doing the same program at the junior Grand Prix that they’re doing at senior. They’re really – when you look at the sheets, there’s not that much difference in the content of the programs. I would like to see one of our, you know, sort of more experienced people go and then send a developmental because they need that experience. Because say a Josh Farris or a Max Aaron has a blowout season next year and ends up going to the Olympics, hypothetically. If they have not been to the worlds, they will not break into the top five. That’s just the way it goes, and it’s time to give them an opportunity.