Alban Preaubert: “I skate for my own pleasure, not for the results”

He had two clean programs in Helsinki at the Europeans, but he finished only fifth. After the final pose of his long program he shouted for joy, but he quickly came back to the real, cruel world after seeing his score. Anyway, Alban Preaubert is satisfied with his own performance and although he doesn’t understand why he got such a low score he says, he couldn’t have done better.

Are you satisfied with your performances in Helsinki?

Yes I am, and I’m very proud of myself. It wasn’t easy - there was a lot of pressure. I knew I could get a medal. I had one of the top scores in the European field, so I expected many things from this competition. My goal was to skate very well, and in this way I have nothing to regret, because that’s what I did. I skated very clean in the short program. I skated clean in the free program. I did the quad, seven triples, I couldn’t do much more. So I’m very happy about my performance, but I’m very frustrated because of the result. I thought this would be enough for a medal, but it wasn’t.

What do you think might have been the problem with the judges? It isn’t the only competition when it seemed your score was too low.

I don’t know, I don’t understand. My components used to be quite low compared with my opponents’, but it was fair back then, because I used to be a very good, consistent jumper, but not a very artistic skater. However, I worked a lot on this aspect of my skating and I skate better now, I have better edges, better posture, everybody told me that – but anyway, my components are even lower than before, so I’m quite surprised about that. I think with such low components it’s impossible to medal, even though I skated my best. I don’t understand this but I don’t regret anything because I did the best I can.

Full article.