An edge in the compulsories helped Hamilton outduel Canada's Brian Orser (left) for Olympic gold in 1984. Josef Sabovcik (right) took the bronze. PHOTO: 1980 Olympics (Paul J. Sutton/Duomo)
This year during the Nancy Kerrigan Christmas Tour the 1984 bronze medalist, Jozef Sabovik, thrilled crowds with his triple jumps and flying spins. He reminds us how the Olympics Class from 1984 continues to thrill audiences. Sabovcik, however, does not think about the past or the difference between a bronze and a gold medal. He's still practicing his quad on a daily basis and plans to join fellow members of the quad club, Elvis Stojko, on Stojko's Canadian tour. Yet, the most important news in Sabovcik's life is his son, Blade. Sabovcik wanted to be sure that Blade was mentioned in this article. Sabovcik and his wife, former Canadian Ladies' Champion Tracey Wainman, didn't name his son for his skates. He wanted a distinctive name for his son and for reasons not related to skating, he and Wainman kept coming back to distinctive names with a literal and figurative edge.
Thrilling audiences this Fall, Sabovcik will join a national tour with Elvis Stojko. Sabovcik shares Stojko's love of rock and roll and big jumps. Combat and weaponry fascinate Sabovcik. He is also fond of horror films -- the adaptation of Clive Barker's Hellraiser is his favorite. He also likes reading horror novels by Stephen King and others.
That love for rock and roll and big jumps -- including the quad -- will make Sabovcik a popular and significant part of this fall's Elvis Tour in Canada. Along with Randy Gardner and Uschi Keszler, who are choreographing the shows, Jozef is still deciding which routines to perform but he will do a Bruce Springsteen number called "Trapped." Sabovcik loves Springsteen's music and admires his ability to reach a crowd. "I love his concerts," Sabovcik says, "sometimes he will be so into a song that he doesn't notice the crowd... but then he catches someone's eye." Sabovcik sees a parallel between this and skating in shows such as the Elvis Tour. "A lot of my work is oriented inside," is how he explains the parallel between his performing and those moments when a singer appears to be so caught up in the emotions of a song's lyrics that the band and the stadium crowd disappear. When Sabovcik is lost in the moment of yet another perfect triple axel, "even though the audience is not on the ice with me... you can still feel like you are part of it." The skater also admires that when Springsteen performs "nothing is half way. I too never perform halfway... regardless of how I feel."
Cranston has had and continues to have a large impact on Sabovcik. While he works with several other choreographers, when he works with Cranston: "I leave everything to Toller, costume, music, choreography. Toller's been my mentor." The two first met when Sabovcik was an amateur and later skated at Toronto's Cricket Club. " We would skate together and he would give me pointers. There wasn't any time when we decided we would work together. It just developed into a friendship and partnership." One of Sabovcik 's most memorable performances, in addition to the long program at the 1984 Olympics was a debut program skated to Cranston's choreography of Elton John's "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" at a competition. Even though he makes each performance special, Sabovcik feels he "never quite recreated the same feeling" in the many other times he performed the program.
|
An edge in the compulsories helped Hamilton outduel Canada's Brian Orser (left) for Olympic gold in 1984. Josef Sabovcik (right) took the bronze. PHOTO: 1980 Olympics (Paul J. Sutton/Duomo) |
Despite his profound admiration for Cranston's work, Sabovcik puts his own distinctive stamp on each piece. When the two work together "we can put together a program in 45 minutes." Then, Sabovcik modifies the work on his own and returns to Cranston for "fixes." Cranston picks the music but Sabovcik says "I have to like it...feel my way through it," Sabovcik explains. "I could never just copy the choreography" because Cranston is "a very distinctive skater. I would look like a bad version of Toller." Sabovcik views the choreography almost as a gift: "he gives me the choreography but he lets me do it my own way."
For the Elvis tour, Sabovcik picked "Trapped" and turned to his friend, Stewart Sturgeon, a skater who has won the U. S. Open Challenge Cup, teaches in Salt Lake City and is a Sun Valley regular. Jozef enjoys working with Sturgeon because "if I have an idea in my head and I don't know how to put it on the ice, he still understands what I want and he can do it in a way I'm happy with." Sabovcik also skated to choreography by his wife, from whom he is now separated, Tracey Wainman, and by Gia Guddat, a popular choreographer known for her quirky sense of humor and innovation who has also created traditional and commercial shows such as Nancy Kerrigan's Christmas tour.
Sabovcik, however, doesn't rely on a relationship with one person to work on his skating. Even though he still practices a quad toe-loop every day he doesn't have a coach. Instead, he prefers to practice with other skaters.
"I like to skate with Elvis, " he says, "we have similar timing with our jumps." When skaters are on tour and away from coaches, "sometimes you start forcing your technique and you start picking up mistakes. It's nice to have someone else there and see what the jump is supposed to look like. Then I try to feel the jump in my own body in the same way that I just saw it." He also likes giving advice to others and wants to coach some day. "Everyone asks me will you watch this jump. Stephen Cousins was having trouble with one of his triples in Sun Valley and asked me to watch. He was having a problem because he was jumping into the shadow." (Rumor has it he may do something with Cousins as part of the Elvis Tour.)
Sabovcik remarks that he and Stojko hit it off right away. A lot of young kids don't know who I am." Stojko's respect for his work impressed Sabovcik, who was surprised that someone nine years younger -- a whole generation in skater years -- knew who he was. Many people do know who I am "people come to me and say you should go back but I didn't like competing. I have to compete my way." Sabovcik loves his sport and is content with his place in history. "If I had to give up everything just to have a won a gold at the Olympics or Worlds, I wouldn't have gone half as far as I did." Skating has to be fun "or it would lose the meaning for me...otherwise it would be a prison."
Lucky Canadians and skating fans from the North border of the United States will get to see Sabovcik, join Philippe Candeloro, Surya Bonaly, Michelle Kwan, Liz Manley, Stephen Cousins, Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin, Maria Klimova and Sergei Ponomarenko, Oksana Gritschuk and Platov, Kovarikova and Rene Novotny, Shae-Lyn Bourne and Victor Kratz, Barbara Underhill and Paul Martini, and Calla Urbanski and Rocky Marvel in Elvis Stojko's nationwide Canadian tour September 21 through October 6.
Back