Ioulia Chtchetinina/Michal Wonziak: “I would have hated myself if I never tried”

Two almost retired skaters decide to give it a shot and team up. Now Ioulia Chtchetinina (29) and Michal Wozniak (25) compete in their second season as a team for Poland and placed seventh at the European Championships in Tallinn.

Eine gekürzte Fassung dieses Interviews erscheint auf Deutsch in der Printausgabe 2/25 der Pirouette.

Congratulations again for a successful European Championship and a good season so far. Last year you were new and we learned the fun story how you got together via Instagram. I wanted to go back to that beginning of your partnership. Ioulia, how was your reaction when you saw Michal’s message that he wanted to try out?

Ioulia: Well, when he wrote to me for the first time I actually had planned a try out and I answered honestly that I now have a try out and I will write to you if it doesn’t work out. I had to search my memory who he was. I remembered a Polish team and a face but I had no idea who he was on the ice and so I input his name into YouTube just to see who that is. In his message he also wrote something like ‚the videos online are not corresponding to my actual abilities’.

Michal: Which was true, of course. 

Ioulia: I just input his name and the first video that comes up says ‘Michal Wozniak Nebelhorn Trophy scary fall’. And there is such a picture in the preview and you see how they fall from the lift. I was like okay…