Georgii Reshtenko: Czech Figure Skating’s Rising Star

You can also listen to the article in audio version.

Attentive viewers noticed this immediately. At the medal ceremony in Sheffield, Georgii Reshtenko came out with the Czech flag in the opposite guard. The blue triangle did not look to the left, but to the right. A stormy discussion immediately broke out on social networks. One mistake was blamed on an athlete from Russia, another on members of the accompanying team.

Meanwhile, the whole scene has a symbolic dimension. Although the bronze from the European Championship belongs to the Czech Republic, it has only a small part in winning it.

Reshtenko is not a product of domestic figure skating.

And he does not owe much to him even for his later development.

The medal belongs primarily to the figure skater himself and his parents. They have invested a lot of money and effort into their careers. They have overcome countless obstacles. At times, they also had to cope with difficulties that the Czech authorities threw at them.

The life journey of a newly minted medalist is typical for figure skating. Georgii started school at the age of three in his native St. Petersburg. The city on the Neva is a bastion of world figure skating. The men here have been kept under their thumb for decades now by 84-year-old Alexei Mishin, a stocky guy with piercing eyes and a prickly sense of humor. He raised the legends Alexei Yagudin, Yevgeny Plushenko and many other stars.

The group of young athletes, to which Reshtenko belonged, was commanded by Mishin’s pupil Yevgeny Rukavicyn. That’s a big name too. At one time, Anastasija Gubanovová trained under his baton, who later became the European champion in the colors of Georgia.

At that time, no one called Reshtenka by his first name. They called him Žora, which is a typical Russian diminutive of the name Georgii. Much later, she underwent minor modification in a foreign environment. Today, everyone calls him exclusively Žori.

At the age of fifteen, he won the St. Petersburg championship and the regional championship, successfully mastering all triple jumps. However, it did not look like a great career. Therefore, when Reshtenka’s father unexpectedly received a job offer from Prague at the beginning of 2018, the family council did not address his son’s hobby at all. She was more interested in the level and quality of Czech education.

In addition, the echo of an exceptional generation echoed in domestic men’s figure skating. Although Tomáš Verner had already ended his career, Michal Březina was still racing. Close behind was the second wave – brothers Jiří and Matyáš Bělohradští, Petr Kotlařík. There was clearly no room left for foreigners.

However, after a few months in a new place, Reshtenko discovered that the situation was not hopeless. The competition – with the exception of Březina – did not master the complex elements and it seemed that they did not even want to. Therefore, together with his parents, he decided to act and signed up for the figure skating association.

“I came there and said I want to represent their country,” Reshtenko told a Russian daily several years ago Sport-Express. “They listened to me, but without much enthusiasm. We had to get all the permits needed for a long-term stay in the Czech Republic and participation in the races ourselves. The union did not help at all, it was long and tiring.”

When the paperwork was successfully completed, another disappointment came. The young foreigner understood that he did not have much favor with the judges: “I knew the point value of my programs. They were more complicated than those of my opponents, but I still lost to them. The judges simply pushed me down, while the Czechs, on the other hand, pulled me up. Psychologically, it was difficult to get over it and fight on.”

The turning point came only a few years later, when the union found out something unpleasant. There is not a single domestic figure skater left in the country with the difficulty of the programs needed to participate in top events. Only Reshtenko met the strict requirements, who then resumed cooperation with coach Rukavicyn. He mastered not only 3+3 combinations, but also started to try quadruple jumps.

Until then, all expenses related to travel to St. Petersburg, payments for coach services and ice rental were covered by the parents. The union has recently started to participate in the financing of the preparation. From the point of view of Reshtenka’s sports development, these were very successful years. It was then that he definitively included the quadruple toeloop and salchow, and also started working on the rittberger with four turns.

Everything was stopped by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The leadership of the figure skating union immediately withdrew its competitor from the country of the aggressor. The question legitimately arose as to where Reshtenko would continue training. The choice fell on Irvine, California, where one of the world’s most respected coaches, Rafael Arutjunjan, works.

It was not only the fact that he trained a number of outstanding names, including Nathan Chen or Ilya Malinin, that spoke in favor of the American expert. Both Czech stars of recent years, Verner and Březina, worked as assistants in the numerous training group. And it was Březina, then the last domestic medalist from the top international event, bronze holder from the 2013 EC, who took on the newcomer.

At the same time, the Czech Figure Skating Association took over the complete financing of the preparation in the USA. Life in California, even quite expensive, together with training expenses was economically unsustainable.

The first years were not easy. Reshtenko had two serious leg injuries, he often commuted between America and the Czech Republic. Because of this, he lacked physical training, he was already half way through the last program. He made a lot of mistakes due to fatigue, lost his speech.

Last summer, he took a completely different approach to preparation. For the first time, he stayed at an American base for a long time. He improved on physics, perfected his jumps. In the middle of the season, everything started to settle down. We already know how it turned out.

What next? The nearest schedule of the figure skater is clear. He is not going to the Olympics in Italy, because he missed the qualification by less than four points. The highlight of the season for him will therefore be the World Championship in Prague in March.

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed that the biggest Czech hopes would be the dance pairs of the Mrázk and Taschler siblings. Now Reshtenko takes over the scepter. It is a question of how he will handle the great attention and pressure he will face at the Prague championship. He had never been in such a position before.

At the same time, it is very important to what extent the union can take advantage of the unique opportunity that has arisen. Whether the huge surge in interest in figure skating, coupled with Reshtenko’s European bronze and the hosting of the World Championships, will translate into something more tangible. Or he will let it go out again soon.

The biggest problem is the still collapsing National Training Center. It is crucial not so much for today’s representation as for the teenage generation. Figure skating needs a place where the best young athletes can at least spend some time training together, learning and motivating each other. Where progressive domestic experts could be invited for internships and renowned experts from abroad for lectures and camps.

At the same time, the figure skating background does not have to be in Prague, where the prices for real estate and ice rental are exorbitant. It can be any bastion of Czech figure skating – Ostrava, Brno or České Budějovice.

Another burning problem is the poor state of the membership base. The 2008 European champion Tomáš Verner, who returned home after years spent in America, started an interesting project last year. It’s called “Kids on skates” and it’s aimed at preschoolers and younger school-age students. The goal is to teach children the basics of skating and, most importantly, to instill in them a love for the sport.

The organizers do not differentiate between speed skating, figure skating or hockey. Their ambition is to teach children to move correctly on skates. The time for possible specialization will come later, if at all. The project currently operates in three Czech regions and involves several thousand girls and boys.

It would be useful if it could also be transferred to the national level. And if at least some of the above could be implemented, Czech figure skating would perhaps not have to wait a decade and a half for another medal from a major event.