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[Transcript of the ESPN late-night interview following the World Championship women's final broadcast. Helsinki, Finland, March 31, 2017]
Scott Hamilton: Good evening, I'm Scott Hamilton reporting live from Helsinki, Finland, where the Figure Skating World Championships are in full swing.
Coming up later: Tara Lipinsky will interview Ladies' gold medalist Sara Crispino! First this evening, however, I'm very pleased to have a moment to speak with two of the skaters who are considered the closest to taking the podium in tomorrow's men's free skate.
Victor Nikiforov: (laughing) Don't jinx us, Scott, please!
SH: Of course not. But here I am with yesterday's leader after the short program, Four Continents champion Yuuri Katsuki; and with the five-time World Champion trying to defend his title, Victor Nikiforov. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us.
Yuuri Katsuki: Thank you for having us. I have many friends in the States and am happy to say hello.
SH: Victor, you're in second place after the short program. That hasn't happened to you for a while.
VN: The fact that I can be in second place is the entire reason that I decided to come back to figure skating. There are such good skaters right now. The two Yuris, Katsuki and Plisetsky, are my rinkmates -- and Yurio actually beat me at the Russian Nationals and the Europeans this year. Otabek Altin, who won the Europeans. Seung-gil Lee, and of course Jean-Jacques Leroy, who both brought massive jumps to the Four Continents. And of course, you always have reliably brilliant skaters like Christophe Giacometti, but the truth is I've never lost to him. Of course, I have never lost to Yuuri Katsuki either. Yet.
(Katsuki and Nikiforov grin at each other)
SH: Yuuri, you were always in the mix as a strong men's skater, but kind of as a supporting player until this year.
YK: That's entirely true. I was a mediocre mid-list skater because I was afraid to push myself. Victor saw something in me and wanted to make me better. It was Victor's choreography and training that really started that process.
SH: Let me set the scene for those at home who don't follow the sport closely. You made it to your first Grand Prix last year in 2015, but cracked under pressure and ended sixth.
YK: Yes. It was a hard time for me, and I followed up by absolutely crashing at the Japanese Nationals. The Japanese team's coach actually had tests done to make sure nothing was physically wrong with me. They thought I had hit my head or something! But the truth was that it was anxiety, which is something I've always struggled with. I love skating, but performances were very difficult for me until Victor came along.
SH: And Victor, what was it that you saw in Yuuri?
VN: Well, as usual he is selling himself short. Before I ever really looked twice at him, he was already a two-time Japanese champion and had gotten himself to the Grand Prix with, hmm -- with choreography that was less that what he could really do. But he sold it like a champion. Scott, you know, Yuuri Katsuki has always been a skater's skater. You follow the sport - you tell me what you knew about him.
SH: The name Yuuri Katsuki, even before this year, always was synonymous with those gorgeous deep edges and the kind of footwork and musicality you usually see predominantly in ice dancing. To be honest, Yuuri, until this year, I had always wondered why you didn't take up ice dance.
YK: Well, I could talk about the economics of it -- ice dancers rarely get even modest endorsements, and I needed those until I went to the States to train as part of my college scholarship. Or I could talk about the logistics of finding a dance partner in my tiny corner of Japan -- the best women's skater in my town was married with triplets by the time I was seventeen! But the truth was -- and Yuri Plisetsky always makes rude noises when I say this -- the truth was that I wanted to skate like Victor Nikiforov. He was my idol.
VN: As Yuuri became my muse. And yes, this is about when Yuri Plisetsky can usually be heard gagging.
SH: The three of you all train in St. Petersburg, along with Georgi Popovich, who is the third skater qualifying from Russia at this competition, and with Mila Babicheva, who just won a silver medal this evening.
VN: Yes, after speaking with you we will be going to toast Mila for a little while!
SH: And this is where I think it gets interesting. Victor, you retired after the 2016 World Championships--
VN: Let us say, took a break.
SH: All right, you took a break and went to coach Yuuri Katsuki, in Japan. Almost overnight.
VN: I had met Yuuri -- more than just to smile and nod at, you know -- at the banquet after the Grand Prix last year. I had thought him a very interesting and charming person, and had expected to see him at Worlds last year. But then he didn't make the Japanese team. It was like he disappeared!
YK: I had had such a disappointing season that I decided to end things with Celestino Cialdini, who was my coach at the time. He's a great coach, working with Phichit Chulanont in Thailand right now. But he and I had gotten about as much as we could out of each other after five years, and I was seriously considering retirement. I came home to Hasetsu to figure out what I wanted.
SH: And then you sort of fired a shot across the bow. A viral video.
YK: The funny thing is, if I had known I was being filmed I would have fallen on my face! But yes, I skated Victor's long program from that season, "Stammi Vicino," for my friend Yuko Nishigori -- the skater with the triplets, as it happens. It turns out her kids are very serious about social media!
VN: The amazing thing is -- and half the copies of his skate on YouTube have been dubbed with the music, so you don't even realize -- he not only perfectly skated my routine, but he did it without the music playing. That spoke to so much careful practice and attention, not to mention his edges, or his gorgeous line. And he landed the jumps.
YK: I tripled most of them, to be fair.
VN: You skated so that I could hear the music playing. And you did triples, yes, but you were about 15 pounds overweight at the time. (He shrugs.) It was like the universe was sending me a memo. I am sitting in St. Petersburg, yes? Trying to come up with inspiration for another season, not sure if I have anything left to say. Three Olympic medals, five Europeans, five Grand Prix, five Worlds, and I had reached a point in my life where I woke up and I was a 27-year-old idiot who knew how to skate -- very, very well -- but not one damn thing other than that. I can't even cook.
YK: That's true. He can't. When it's his turn we just order takeout.
VN: Da. So anyway, I take a break and go to go see if I can be the one to give Yuuri that push. I had the idea that his interpretive skill, all that charm he had when he danced or skated, could be helped by someone really taking the time to choreograph a program that highlighted his strengths. And I was right -- but I also learned that what Yuuri needed most of all was just someone who believed he could skate at the highest level. Because I still don't think he believes it himself.
YK: Some days I do. (Smiles at Nikiforov.) But yes. Victor didn't cure my performance anxiety. He just gives me one person to skate for, so I can tune out the whole crowd.
SH: Whatever works, right?
YK: Absolutely.
SH: So Victor, you decided to continue as Yuuri's coach, and coached him to a hair-splitting silver medal in the Grand Prix Final.
VN: Yes. And I was right! Now he is in leader's spot at the Worlds. Same season. Even if I fall on my derriere tomorrow, I am vindicated in my decision.
SH: This is the part that has had the entire skating world completely confused. You are his coach still.
VN: Yes.
SH: And also skating here at the Worlds under your coach Yakov Feltzman, who has most of the top Russian skaters with him.
VN: He is the only coach for me. Brilliant man. But so yes, Yuuri skates at St. Petersburg club, but I am his coach. But this late in the season, this is only a part-time job. Yuuri is very motivated, very dedicated. We only have to consider strategy and momentum at this point. And keep --
YK and VN (together): -- working on the damn quads. (They laugh)
SH: Did you have any reservations about being coached by a competitor, Yuuri?
YK: No. And not only because it is Victor, whose integrity I trust absolutely. I think anyone who skates at this level understands, deep down. I suspect you understand.
SH: Go on.
YK: You are only ever skating against yourself, really, at this level. You want your competitors to do their best, because that pushes you. I think before I met Victor I was so focused on it being win or lose that I forgot that my only enemy on this ice is my own weakness. I had to learn that. It's made my skating stronger. I am there to push Victor, to push Yurio, and they push me in return.
VN: I think any serious skater at the international level will tell your audience that winning is nice -- it's very nice, I won't lie to you! -- but you would almost rather lose doing your best than win because someone else had a bad day.
SH: That does sound true to me. And I think you're right - it's something that sometimes the fans don't quite understand. But to go on -- Victor, how did you make the decision to come back for the second half of the season?
VN: (To Katsuki) You want to take that one?
YK: At the end of the Grand Prix Final, I wanted to step down to allow Victor to come back. He was so excited by skaters like Yurio, or Otabek Altin, or even JJ Leroy. He looked alive and in love with the sport again.
VN: And when he said that he was retiring, I was so angry, because Yuuri is in the prime of his career right now. He has literally never been better. Why would he quit? It was very much like that Christmas story where the girl cuts her hair, you know? A sweet but stupid sacrifice.
SH: And so you decided to do both? Skating and coaching?
VN: Yes. We made compromises. Yuuri agreed to work with his long-time ballet teacher, Minako Okukawa, on conditioning. Minako comes out every couple of weeks in person, and they also work over Skype. Yakov agreed to take me back and arranged for Yuuri and me to have ice time, and access to our trainers and so on. So it is not an impossible task, it is only a very difficult one.
SH: Since you mentioned a famous love story before, I want to bring you back to the end of the Grand Prix this year. (Both Katsuki and Nikiforov grin, nodding.)
SH: Yuuri, you had been using the "Stammi Vicino" -- Victor's program that you made viral -- as your exhibition skate; we saw it at the Cup of China.
YK: Yes. It seemed appropriate, since it was part of how we got started with each other.
SH: And at the Grand Prix Final exhibition, you two changed it into a partnered dance number, with lifts, spins, twizzles, everything.
VN: We are really very sentimental people. And we like to make Yuri Plisetsky crazy.
YK: Hi Yurio! (he waves at the camera)
SH: At the Cup of China, you celebrated Yuuri's long program with a kiss between the two of you, right on the ice. That's also all over YouTube.
YK: Yes.
SH: And you have matching gold rings that you never take off.
VN: Yes. You can go ahead and ask, Scott.
SH: Well, gentlemen, there are a lot of rumors that the two of you are an item.
YK: We are engaged. Which some days I still don't quite believe, but yes!
VN: We are engaged to be married. Which is still not legal in Russia or Japan. Perhaps we will come to Yuuri's old neighborhood in the States. Although Detroit is not the City of Love.
YK: That's Paris.
VN: We could do Paris. I love Paris. (To Scott) We have not picked a venue yet because Yuuri still owes me four more gold medals.
SH: Wait, what now?
YK: When we started this relationship, before we started this relationship, I had Victor on a pedestal, because I didn't know yet that he leaves his socks in the bed.
VN: Not that we sleep together, because obviously that would be promoting a gay lifestyle, which Russia does not want me to do. We are chaste and pure in our love, like the angels.
YK: Not that we talk about our private life at all, because in Japan that would be extremely rude! But I will tell you and the people in the USA: this beautiful man, always so put together on TV, is a slob in his home.
VN: Yuuri cheats on his diet in the middle of the night. I have pictures.
YK: Please don't say diet, I am so hungry! (To Scott) I have to be very careful during the skating season, to keep at a competitive weight and still maintain muscle mass. So many chicken breasts. Finally, after tomorrow, I can eat proper food! But I'm sorry. You were asking about our bet with the gold medals.
SH: Yes.
YK: We are equals now, in our relationship, mostly. But sometimes the little boy in me still says "I am engaged to Victor Nikiforov," and I don't quite believe it. So Victor came up with a challenge, when we exchanged rings in Barcelona.
VN: He is so shy, he was calling them just good-luck charms to our friends, but I said, no, they really are engagement rings, and I will marry him when he wins the Grand Prix Final.
YK: Which you will note I didn't do. I got silver. So I said, let me try again, I will bring you gold next year. And Victor said, if I am going to stage a comeback and coach you at the same time, you had better bring me five gold medals.
VN: Because by then he will not have illusions that I am a better man or a better skater. He will know he is my equal. And I will get to keep watching him skate for as long as he can, which is what I want.
SH: That's -- actually, that's really sweet.
YK: And I intend to win all five golds! But I would also like to marry him sooner, so we decided that golds from any major competitions count. So I don't have to keep skating in the Grand Prix until I'm thirty.
VN: Why not? I might.
YK: I will enjoy seeing you try. But now I am trying to get another gold for us tomorrow.
VN: I will make you work for it.
YK: (To Scott) See? That is respect, and that is how he shows his love.
SH: I think I do see. Thank you, guys. Looking towards tomorrow's free skate: there are several strong skaters on the board right now. There's less than a point between the two of you, and only three points putting Otabek Altin in third, with Yuri Plisetsky right after him. JJ Leroy is still in the mix, as is Seung-Gil Lee. And that's just the top six -- there are even skaters in Group Two, like Christophe Giacometti, who could have a good day and pull off a medal.
VN: It's going to be a very exciting competition. I hope we all do our best.
SH: This is Scott Hamilton signing off from Helsinki with men's figure skating's most passionate partnership, Yuuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov. Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Good luck tomorrow -- and with your continued quest for gold.