Looking Ahead

Vlassov, Meekins hope to be convincing in second year as seniors

Former World Junior Champions are using new styles in a run for the nationals podium

By Jamie M. Blanchard

Julia Vlassov and Drew Meekins won the 2006 World Junior Championship

(July 2, 2007) — Julia Vlassov and Drew Meekins, the 2006 World Junior Champions, came from different corners of the world to find success together as Marlborough, Mass., based pairs skaters.

Since forming their partnership, Russian born Vlassov (16) and Alaska native Meekins (22) have won four national medals including the 2004 U.S. Championship in novice pairs.

The pair has also won five medals on the Junior Grand Prix. In 2005, they won the silver medal at the Junior Grand Prix Final before taking the 2006 World Junior Championship.

Last season, Vlassov and Meekins made their senior debut by winning the silver medal at the Nebelhorn Trophy. They also finished sixth at Cup of China, fifth at NHK Trophy and seventh at the U.S. Championships.

Vlassov and Meekins, who will return to the Grand Prix circuit this season for Skate Canada, recently sat down with Figure Skaters Online to answer questions from their fans.

____________________________________

Amber (Illinois, USA): What are your overall goals for the season?
Julia: This season we are simply looking to improve on last year. Last season was certainly an interesting one with new experiences on the Grand Prix circuit and competing senior at nationals for the first time, so now that we have experienced that we would like to improve on our past results. Our main goal for this year is to medal at nationals and see how it goes from there. Making the world team would be fantastic. Four Continents would be great as well. Overall though, we do not really have any straightforward goals. The better we skate, the better we do so we will try our best and see what happens.
Drew: This season our main goal is to medal at the U.S. Championships and make a run at the world team. Also, we would like to improve on our results from last years Grand Prix series. I do think, however, that skating clean programs is really most important for us.

Elizabeth (Québec, Canada): I am very excited that you will be skating in my hometown of Québec for Skate Canada. As your only Grand Prix competition this season, what are you two hoping to accomplish there?
Julia: Skate Canada is one of the harder Grand Prix events this season, so we are just hoping to skate well and hopefully place in the top four. Last year, we were fifth and sixth in our Grand Prix events, doing a little better than that would be fantastic. In my opinion, taking little steps forward each year is the best way to success for a longer time.
Drew: I think at Skate Canada our focus will be skating clean programs and improving on our score and placement from last year. With one event, that's all we can really hope for. But we are still keeping our fingers crossed for a second event!

Mindy (Illinois, USA): Are you disappointed that you received only one Grand Prix event?
Julia/Drew: We were certainly disappointed in only getting one Grand Prix assignment. But, there is still a chance that we will receive another Grand Prix, so that is what we are hoping for. With one assignment, we just have to look at things a little more urgently. We will need to focus more this year because we only have one chance to show what we have to international judges.

Rene (Rhode Island, USA): Julia and Drew, I enjoyed watching you at both of your Grand Prix assignments last year. As a new senior team, what were you able to take away from your experience at Cup of China and the NHK Trophy?
Julia/Drew: Cup of China and the NHK Trophy were both fantastic experiences. Being our first senior Grand Prix events, we had no expectations going into the events. We only wanted to gain experience and skate our programs well. The skaters that we competed with were phenomenal! Just to be in their presence was a treat for us and an honor. We learned a lot from seeing them practice and seeing them behind the scenes. For sure, we took away the feeling we had when we were put up against them. It has motivated us to work hard so that soon we can actually compete against them, and not just with them.

Viktor: How are you approaching this season in comparison to your first year as seniors?
Julia/Drew: This year we know what to expect at our Grand Prix event and at the U.S. Nationals. Last season, there was a lot of pressure coming from trying to make it as "seniors" when we still felt more like juniors. A lot of our focus was spent on wondering about the things and events we had never yet experienced. This season we will be able to focus more on skating well, and winning.

Kate (Alaska, USA): Julia, last season, I noticed that you tried a lot of different looks with your hair and makeup. My first question is why did you sort of have a makeover? And my second is what can we expect from you next season? I think you're beautiful so don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Julia: Thank you very much for that compliment! As for my makeover, at one of our Grand Prix events, some of the judges came up to us and really tried to help us out in making us look more like a "senior team". Part of that was changing my image from a little girl to a grown-up woman. So in order to do that, I changed my hair color, style and went to a make-up artist who taught me how to do my make-up better. I believe that all these changes really were for the best and I am thankful to the judges that helped me. For this season, I do not really think I will change too much, except maybe I will play around with my hairstyle because I am growing out my hair so that will give me more freedom on what I can do with it. It will also depend a lot on the outfit and music that we skate to. But hopefully, everyone will like it and Drew and I will look more "senior" this season!

Billie (Arizona, USA): Julia and Drew, I enjoyed watching your "Warsaw Concerto" free skate last season because it was a beautiful display of your talent. Can you tell us a little bit about the direction of this season's programs?
Julia/Drew: This season, we have decided to take a little bit of a different approach for our music selections and our programs. We tried to choose music for both programs that we feel has not been used very much in skating. Our short program will be to a piece of music that is fast, fun and very interesting. We hope to show a lightness to our skating and presentation that we have not shown before. As for the free program, we will be skating to "Titanic Symphony" by Richard Clayderman. While we feel the music from the movie Titanic has not been used very often in skating, the story from the movie is widely known. This is a new direction for us, to portray a piece of music where the story of the music has already been told and the audience and judges already have expectations for the representation of the music. We feel that skating to this music will help us show our ability to tell a story with our skating and give us a chance to further improve on our presentation and relationship to each other. We hope you will enjoy our programs this year as well!

Natalie (China): What makes a good program?
Julia/Drew: A good program is one that holds the interest and attention of anyone who watches it. This is accomplished by first of all, flawless elements—mistakes tend to break the attention and interest of the audience, and also by portraying an interesting story to the music.

Lauren (British Columbia, Canada): How much input do you have in your programs?
Julia/Drew: We have a lot of input into our programs. Essentially, they need to work for us and we need to feel comfortable with what we are doing to be able to skate well. We always express our ideas to our choreographers and coaches; creating programs is a group effort in our team. We always try to come up with something that we all think is interesting, innovative and enjoyable, so then hopefully the audience will feel the same way!

Amanda (California, USA): Who selects the music that you skate to?
Julia/Drew: The music selection process is a tiring one that our whole team works on! When one person finds something that they think will be good, everyone in our team listens to the music and gives their opinions until we find something that we all like. We are constantly looking for good music! Though the whole year, we all gather ideas and make notes whenever we hear something we thing might work.

Rei: I'd like to ask you something about exhibition programs. I heard you skated to Meat Loaf's song in a benefit show in February. Which song did you skate to? Luckily, I could watch your old program "Hero" on the Internet and loved it!
Julia/Drew: We're very glad you enjoyed our program! Our exhibition program was indeed to a song by Meat Loaf called "It's All Coming Back to Me Now". It was kind of a funny and random song selection for us. We had been listening to this song a lot at practices, and just fooling around to it, when suddenly we thought it might be fun to try. We ended up really liking the program. We will be keeping this program for this season so hopefully you will be able to see it at some point.

Hilery (New York, USA): I have a question for the lovely Julia. Ever since you were a little skater, you have been coached by your parents Alexander and Laura. Does it ever become difficult for you to have them sharing the role as both coach and parent?
Julia: Obviously there are times when things get tough. But who doesn't have difficult times in figure skating?! We are very good at keeping our off-ice issues off the ice and our on-ice issues on the ice! When the two cross, we try to remind each other that this is not the place to discuss these problems and we try to continue as if nothing was going on. Since I have never had a coach other than my parents, I have nothing to compare it to. It is something that I have gotten used to over the years and is rarely a problem for me.

Hilery (New York, USA): My second question is for the handsome Drew. As Julia's partner, is it challenging for you personally to have both of her parents as your coaches? Do you feel that you are treated the same as Julia?
Drew: As Julia said, Alex and Laura are very good at separating their relationship with Julia as her parents and as her coach. I have never felt that they treated me any differently than Julia. I think it helps us that we are all very close. Julia and I are very close friends, and Alex and Laura are really like my skating "family". I even accidentally call Laura "Mom" sometimes, especially when I'm feeling kind of tired or out of it.

Lizzie (Massachusetts, USA): Do you enjoy coaching? How many students do you have?
Julia: I love coaching little kids. They are so much fun to teach because they can accomplish something every time they step on the ice! But for now, I am sticking to teaching Basic Skills with only a few private lessons here and there. With all the training that goes into every day, it can get pretty hard to have students on an everyday basis.
Drew: Coaching is something I've just started to get into in the last year, and I love it! I have only a few students so far, but they are all so fun to teach. Coaching challenges my skating in a different way than training, because it forces me to digest the things I do with my body, and translate them into words. I really enjoy it a lot and I think it could be something I would like to do in the long term.

Elliott (Delaware, USA): Julia and Drew, what is an average training day like?
Julia/Drew: Our schedule includes two sessions in the morning, some sort of off-ice training class, two more sessions in the afternoon and another kind of off-ice class. Our off-ice classes consist of ballet, jump training, strength training, lifts, stretching, and ballroom. Depending on the day, we have a different class in our off-ice training blocks. We also have an on the ice "edge" class twice a week. In between our sessions and off-ice classes, we have some breaks for lunch and just to relax. Normally we would get home around 4:30 p.m. so we have the night to relax and prepare for the next day.

Marie (Massachusetts, USA): Julia and Drew, both have beautiful artistry. What is your off ice training like?
Julia/Drew: Aw, thank you so much! We include a lot of off-ice training in our schedule because we believe that it is very important to our on-ice look. We have both ballet and ballroom classes to improve on our artistry and partnering skills. We also work with our choreographers on the floor in front of a mirror so that all our lines and movements match and look good. As for our other off-ice training, you can read our answer to previous question from Elliott.

Hannah (Virginia, USA): What moment in your career stands out the most?
Julia/Drew: I think that we both agree that winning the World Junior Championship has been the moment in our career that stands out the most so far. After being fourth in the short program, we were really just focused on trying to skate our absolute best, and really go for it. We skated about as well as we could have, and on top of that, skated last in the event so it made for a very dramatic victory for us. After all of our hard work, it was the best reward we could have hoped for, and a memory we will have forever.

Nate (California, USA): How do you stay focused in competition?
Julia/Drew: We have a great relationship with each other off the ice so before competitions we always spend some time with each other and simply relax. Usually we walk around the city where the competition is being held and try to forget about the pressure of the competition. This helps us conserve our energy and focus for what really matters. With only four minutes to prove ourselves and to show what we have worked so hard for, it’s hard not to stay focused on skating, actually! The support of our families, friends, coaches and fans really helps of pull it out too. Knowing that in some way, you're not alone out there is very comforting.

Sarah (Maine, USA): What is the funniest or weirdest thing that has ever happened to you during a competition or during practice?
Drew: The funniest thing that has ever happened in competition was actually not so funny at the time. It happened at one of our Junior Grand Prix events in Zagreb, Croatia. During the first five seconds of our short program, we had a move where I pulled Julia through my legs by her hands. We had never had a problem with this before, and frankly it wasn't really something we paid a lot of attention to. But this time, however, our hands never caught each other, and the only thing that Julia could find to grab onto was the fabric of my pants. She slid through my legs and crashed to the ice while she pulled my pants down! Luckily, her butt hit the ice before my pants came down too low. Unluckily, this cost us a one point deduction for the fall. What was even funnier is that after that one mistake, we skated a perfectly clean program with no mistakes. At the end of the short program we were in third place—less than one point behind first.

Brittany (Maine, USA): What is your favorite jump?
Julia: My favorite jump is definitely a triple Salchow or triple toe depending on the day. I feel extremely comfortable with these jumps and some days can basically do them with my eyes closed.
Drew: I'm starting to like triple Salchows more and more every day. I think it's becoming my new favorite!

Larry (USA): What is your favorite costume that you have worn?
Julia: I think that my favorite costume would be the black and pink one that Drew and I wore for our "Picante" short program the year we won Junior Worlds. That dress has very good memories and is just so brilliantly made that I still love wearing it for shows. All of our REST costumes have been spectacular so picking just one is very difficult.
Drew: I agree with Julia. I think that or the short program costume from 2006 is my favorite. It was out first REST costume and it was such a step up for us to use them, that this costume looked especially fantastic to us.

Brittany (Maine, USA): What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Julia: Mmmm!! I personally love ice cream so to pick a single flavor is extremely difficult. My favorite place to get ice cream would definitely be Cold Stone Creamery because they have the most amazing ice cream I have ever tasted. As for some flavors, I like anything with chocolate in it, black raspberry, pistachio, butter pecan, any kind of sorbet... As you can see the list can go on and on.
Drew: I'm also quite the fan of ice cream. I think that if I had to pick a favorite, it would be Oreo with Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I also love coffee soft serve!

Natalie (China): What animal would you compare yourself to?
Julia: I love cats and I would probably compare myself to one. Even though I am an athlete, I love to just lay out in the sun and relax. But also, I believe that I have the same fighter instinct that wild cats have, which is very needed in a sport like figure skating. I fight for every element!
Drew: I think that I am most like a penguin. We both are interested in fashion, we both are (or can be) from Alaska, and we both enjoying ice skating—although penguins usually enjoy "skating" on their bellies, which is something I generally try to avoid!

Andrew (Massachusetts, USA): Which skaters inspire you?
Julia: When I was little, I would look up to Kurt Browning because of his amazing artistic skills and ability to incorporate the audience into his performances. Today, since I am a pair skater, I look up to Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao because they have been able to combine unbelievable technical strength with artistry that makes you want to watch them for hours. Someday, I hope that some up and coming skater will be able to say that about me!
Drew: Lots of skaters inspire me, in fact, simply good skating inspires me. Michelle Kwan has always been an inspiration to me. The joy she radiates when she performs is almost enviable! Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov have also been very inspiring to me. For me they are the ultimate. Often when I need inspiration, I'll watch (Michelle Kwan's) "Lyra Angelica" or (Gordeeva and Grinkov's) "Moonlight Sonata" in the morning before practice to get me going.

Katya (Russia): Privet! I've noticed that both of you share interests with my Angel Johnny. Do you two both love the Russian culture? I would love to see you come to Russia.
Julia: I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, so my family heritage is from Russia. I have been back to Russia a few times since my family and I moved to the United States. It would be a thrill to me to come back some day and compete in my original home country.
Drew: I think that my interest in Russia started because of Julia, Alex and Laura. I've learned a lot about Russian culture from them, and I have even learned to speak Russian from being around them. They took Julia and me to Russia one spring and I had such an amazing time there. I too would love the chance to go back to Russia for a competition or show!

Eva (Washington, USA): Julia, how do you feel about representing the United States even though you are from Russia?
Julia: My parents and I moved to the United States when I was four because America is land of opportunity. My parents were looking for an opportunity to start a new life and be able to earn money to afford my future. I am very thankful to the country that I live in, it has made that dream possible for my parents. Every time the "Star-Spangled Banner" plays for me, I am very proud. It gave my parents the opportunity for a new life and it is giving me a wonderful opportunity to thank the country that made it all possible for them.

Samantha (Alaska, USA): I'm from the Fairbanks Figure Skating Club. When I told my mom that I was sad no famous skaters were from Alaska, she told me that you are from Juneau. She saw that on your cool site. That is so cool Drew. Thanks for inspiring me to be the next famous skater from here.
Drew: Haha, thank you, that is very sweet of you! I love Alaska! Both of my parents are from Alaska, and my two older brothers and I were all born there. I have been back several times since I moved from there to Boston. It's gorgeous. So different from Boston, but amazing and beautiful in its own way. Good luck to you!

Brynn (Colorado, USA): Julia and Drew, I look up to both of you. How does it feel to be an inspiration for skaters?
Julia: Thank you so much Brynn! It is very exciting and simply makes me want to skate even better every day so that I can show up-and-coming skaters that it is possible to reach your goals no matter what. To be an inspiration to other skaters is simply a fantastic feeling and I am excited that some people are already looking up to me. Good luck in the future, Brynn! Aim for the stars!
Drew: Brynn, knowing you look up to us is such an honor. Being an inspiration to other skaters is so amazing that I hardly can believe it's true! The skaters who inspire me are such an important part of my skating life, so to be that person for someone is really an honor.

Vicente (Mexico): I'm sure that you have already gotten a lot of questions. But what is one question that you wish people would ask you?
Drew: That is a very interesting question! I think that is so great that people have an interest in us and our skating, so really we love answering all of the questions we get asked. We love to interact with fans, so if anyone ever want to ask us something, or just say "Hi," we would love to hear from you all. You can write to us on our official Web site.

Jamie (Arizona, USA): Julia and Drew, thank you for taking the time out to answer questions from your fans. Is there anything that you would like to add?
Julia: I would just like to thank everyone who has supported Drew and me in our skating career. Every tiny comment helps us become a better team and we are looking forward to your comments as we grow as a team. Thank you for visiting our Web site and we hope that you will come back soon!
Drew: We would really like to thank everyone who took the time to send us questions. Also, a huge thank you to Figure Skaters Online, Jamie, and our webmaster Lanie for everything they have done for us and for our site. To all of our fans and everyone who supports us and our skating, we are so happy to have you and thank you with all of our hearts.

____________________________________

For more information on Julia Vlassov and Drew Meekins, visit their official Web site Vlassov and Meekins Online at www.figureskatersonline.com/vlassov-meekins/.

[TOP]