Gogolev still discovering full potential

Stephen Gogolev finished fifth at the Olympics and fourth at the world championships.

STEPHEN Gogolev still can't quite believe the heights he reached last season.

The bench, born in Richmond, foregoes even higher peaks.

“The season was fantastic last year but there were parts of the most stable skaters, but it's still very far from his capacity,” the renowned French figure skating coach Brian Orser said. “I still don't feel like he's skated clean, and I discover every day some stuff he can do.”

Gogolev delivered on his promise as a junior prodigy last season, finishing fifth at the Milano Cortina Olympics and fourth at the world championships two months later, capping off years of injury setbacks.

“Whenever I look back at my season, I'm able to see what I did well. I was able to do as much as I became known as the 'Gogoleva' figure skating circles.”

Gogolev, from Toronto, is trying to expand his boundaries, both technically and artistically.

Gogolev will compete at Skate Canada International on Oct. 31-Nov. 2 in Halifax, making his international season debut at Skate Canada International event at the same arena where he won his second step on the Grand Prix circuit, figure skating's top international series.

Gogolev spent 10 weeks working with Richard in Italy and France this past summer, developing two new programs for his senior-level quadruple jumps to his arsenal.

From a technical standpoint, he is considered one of the best young skater land several years of back problems held him back, limiting him to two quads — a quad Lutz and a quad toe loop in practice last season. But this summer he added the quad flip and a quad Lutz to his list.

Even the quad axel — an elusive jump landed only by American star Malinin and a handful of other skaters — could be entering Gogolev's coaching realm in the future.

“Believe it's possible,” Richard said. “I've been speaking also with (famed Russian coach) Alexei Mishin ... he believes that Stephen could do it on that. We will definitely spend some time. Smart time, I would say, not that any jump or anything like that.”

But Gogolev may be poised to make his biggest leap artistically, will skate to the energetic synth-pop anthem “Smalltown Boy” by Bronski Beat in the short program. For his free skate, he'll take on the dramatic soundtrack from the movie “Gladiator.”

His short program for the free skate, he'll take on the dramatic soundtrack from the movie “Gladiator.”

Over the last season, if you look at my first and last competitions, there's quite a bit of a difference in the way I present myself and the way I interact with the audience and the view last month. “And I think more programs will elevate that a little bit more.”

As Gogolev's preparations for the new season haven't been without obstacles. He revealed during a conference call Tuesday that he has been managing a knee issue that forced him to withdraw late February, ahead of the world championships, and persisted through the post-season.

The issue, relating to the structure of his foot, has flared at times and forced him to adjust his workload, limiting how much time he can spend on the ice, on sandal and toe loop.

After navigating back injuries that nearly ended his career, he's drawing confidence from his ability to manage the latest setback.

“Once you feel pain, you need to figure out what's going on, separate it from just that and if it's just something regular or pain that you feel day to day or if you can develop something to work around it,” Gogolev said. “If you adopt your training plan instead of pushing through with it.”

“As we have a lot of new stuff, it is up to me to manage it, to know when to stop, to know when to push through the season,” Gogolev said. “I'm enjoying training,” he said. “Rather than training with the thought of what is the future.”