{"id":58479,"date":"2026-08-13T09:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/?p=58479"},"modified":"2026-08-13T09:16:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:16:00","slug":"aleksandr-selevko-ready-for-post-olympic-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/2026\/08\/13\/aleksandr-selevko-ready-for-post-olympic-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Aleksandr Selevko ready for post-Olympic season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Victoria Burdman
\nPhotos by Victoria Burdman, Gina Capellazzi and Robin Ritoss<\/p>\n

Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia finished on top of the podium at the ISU Challenger Series event, Cranberry Cup, at the Skating Club of Boston last weekend. Selevko\u2019s combined 246.15 two-program score put him comfortably ahead over a second place finisher Daniel Martynov of the U.S. (221.38) and third place\u2019s Mark Gorodnitsky of Israel (203.11) in this early season competition. (Mark lost a good number of points due to the downgraded and invalidated elements under the new scoring rules).<\/p>\n

Victoria Burdman, of Celebrate the Weekend<\/a>, caught up with Aleksandr (Sasha) Selevko, who trains and coaches at the Skating Club of Boston, briefly the day after the event – and before his short trip back home to Estonia in-between competitions.<\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> What are your thoughts on your performance at Cranberry Cup?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> It went well, I am happy, but we have a lot of work ahead. There were a lot of mistakes in the free program. The short program was not bad: there was a mistake on the toe loop [jump] and there were several levels lost on the spins. So we will work on all of these \u201cdetails.\u201d\u00a0 In the free – there is more work to be done- there were a lot of problem exits from the jumps. So yes, a lots of work ahead. But I am happy that the programs were well received overall. I received a lot of positive feedback on the choreography. So this is a good beginning of the season.<\/p>\n

VB: <\/strong>What do you think about the new scoring rules?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> My new \u201cendless\u201d combination [quad toe-euler-triple salchow-double axel sequence, which earned him over 18 points] is new this season- a result of new rules [he smiles]. I tried hard to study the rules and even sent some videos to the judges in the off-season to clarify what was allowed. And still there was some difference of opinions among the judges. As a result, I made a mistake with one of the spins here. But now we know what to change.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> Where are you training this season?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong>.I spend 90 percent of my time throughout the year here at the Skating Club of Boston training with Olga [Ganicheva] and Alexei [Letov] but I still talk to my coach in Estonia. Boston is my main training base. I like everything in Boston, it is a comfortable environment for me to train and coach here, but a skater can only take it one season at a time! There were some changes in our group but Jimmy [Ma] is still here and we will compete together at the Grand Prix de France in October.<\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> What sort of upgrades technically are you planning this season?<\/p>\n

AS<\/strong>: I was planning three quads in the free program at Cranberry, and to add another quad toe loop, it just did not happen here. I also plan to put two quads in the short program \u2013 I only planed one for this event but a quad lutz is in the works for the season [Aleksandr included a quad toe loop here in the short; and a quad lutz and a quad toe as part of a sequence in the free]. I would be happy if I could compete such content cleanly.<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> The short is to Michael Jackson\u2019s \u201cDirty Diana\u201d, which was choreographed by Adam Solya. The free is to music from Rufus du Sol, which was done by [ice dancer] Jean-Luc Baker, who came from Montreal to work with me. I liked this experience. The short was Olga\u2019s idea. She is the one who is involved with music and choreography for the programs in my coaching pair. We then sent the music to Adam [Solya] and started working on it. At the time, we didn\u2019t know that Michael Jackson the movie {Michael] was coming out. When I was headed to my choreographing session with Adam, I saw the banners and realized that I had to announce the program before any other skaters might take Michael Jackson\u2019s music for programs. I didn\u2019t plan to announce it as early as I did.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> How do you think last season went?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> Overall, it was a good season. I would have wanted to have a better showing at the Europeans [he was second after the short but then dropped to fifth after the free skate]. At the Olympics, I have many silly mistakes [he finished 16th]. But overall it was a fairly successful season. [Selevko was 6th at the Worlds with a new personal best total score and a “small” bronze medal for the short program; he also earned silver at the Skate Canada International.]<\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> What will be your next competition?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> It is going to be the Nebelhorn Trophy in Germany in September. We have a little over a month to prepare. And then my two Grand Prix Assignments: the Grand Prix de France in October and Skate America in November. I am more prepared this time than when I\u2019ve had two assignments in 2024-2025 season. [Selevko was assigned only one Grand Prix event in 2025-2026 season].<\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> What is your training like before competitions?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> Everyone\u2019s approach is different. I usually increasing the intensity during the weeks prior but then turn it down a bit right before.<\/p>\n

VB:<\/strong> What did you do during the off-season?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> I went home to Estonia for a bit, then my girlfriend, Emily Chan {2026 U.S. Olympic pair skater} and I were in Puerto Rico together for vacation and in Thailand with our training group for a camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Victoria Burdman Photos by Victoria Burdman, Gina Capellazzi and Robin Ritoss Aleksandr Selevko of Estonia finished on top of the podium at the ISU Challenger Series event, Cranberry Cup, at the Skating Club of Boston last weekend. Selevko\u2019s combined 246.15 two-program score put him comfortably ahead over a second place finisher Daniel Martynov of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58479"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58492,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58479\/revisions\/58492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/figureskatersonline.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}