While the summer heat hovers over the town of Oberstdorf and tourists stroll through the beautiful mountain resort in southern Germany, Aliona Savchenko and Bruno Massot are hard at work in the cool confines of an ice rink.
Savchenko and Massot practice under the watchful eye of their coach, Alexander König. With the throws and side-by-side jumps in place, the duo has started working on a quad twist and quad throw Salchow.
On this day, a few spectators applaud when Savchenko and Massot do a clean run-through of their playful new short program to “Creature de Siam” from “Cirque du Soleil,” which portrays Savchenko as a princess and Massot as a homeless man. “We feel good in this program. It was easy for us to do,” Massot said.
Everyone can see that this is a new top team in the making, yet nobody knows when Savchenko and Massot will be able to compete internationally.
Under International Skating Union (ISU) rules, Massot, who formerly represented France but will now represent Germany with Savchenko, had to sit out a year following his last competition for France, which was 2014 Worlds.
But the French Federation has refused to release the 26-year-old. He is not alone. Former French ice dance competitor Tiffany Zahorski has a Russian partner and now wishes to represent that nation, but her release is also still in abeyance.
Savchenko, who competed with Robin Szolkowy for a decade, was happy to find a new partner in Massot to pursue her dream of mining gold at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
“In pairs skating, it is especially tough to find a partner at the same level. It is like with love. If you don’t find the right one in your country, it is not working,” said Savchenko, who moved from Ukraine to Germany 12 years ago to team up with Szolkowy.
Savchenko, Massot and their coach are eager to get out in front of the international audiences and judges and hoped to compete at Nebelhorn Trophy at the end of September. However, at this time, they cannot even skate in shows to earn money to pay for their expenses.
“On the one hand, we have a lot to do, and it doesn’t get boring for us,” said Savchenko, who teamed up with Massot in the spring of 2014. “On the other hand, this situation is slowing us down. A lot of financial issues depend on the release, as well; we cannot look for sponsors, for example. It feels like someone is sitting on our shoulders, and that makes it hard for us.”
König, who has been coaching the team since its split with Ingo Steuer last fall, described the fact that the duo still doesn’t have their release as a disaster. “They are showing exemplary commitment, and the French Federation is boycotting them. That is really unfair. We need clarity now; they want to compete.”
The German Federation has tried in vain tried to negotiate a release. It finally turned to the ISU in June to resolve the situation. “What the French Federation is doing contradicts the spirit of the rules of the ISU,” said German Federation Sports Director Udo Döensdorf. “We are corresponding actively, and we are trying to get this done as quickly as possible.”
The ISU told the French Federation to make an “amicable” offer, according to Doensdorf, but all it provided was a list of alleged costs it invested in Massot’s career. Döensdorf declined to reveal the amount.
“This problem doesn’t concern only us, but many skaters,” Savchenko said.“We just want to skate. I feel it is unfair toward the sport. The career of an athlete is so short, and time goes by so quickly.
“It is also unfair that a federation that takes athletes from other countries won’t release theirs,” she added in reference to Canadian ice dancers Isabelle and Paul Duchesnay and Russia’s Marina Anissina, who formerly represented France.
Recently, a dozen skaters from other countries competed at French nationals, including Russian pairs skaters Daria Popova (Massot’s former partner) and her new partner, Andrei Novoselov; as well as Italian ice dancer Lorenza Alessandrini, Canada’s Marie-Jade Lauriault and Michael Bramante from the U.S.
With negotiations apparently at a dead end, Germany is hoping that the ISU will intervene. “It has to be in the interest of the ISU that there are not only top pair teams from China, Russia and Canada at the Olympic Games,” Döensdorf said.
At this point, it is unknown when a decision will be made.
While the wheels of bureaucracy grind slowly, Savchenko and Massot stay focused on their training — the only thing that is in their control. “Their development is positive. They have gelled as a team,” König said.
The most difficult elements for the duo are still the throws, which are not stable. “Aliona has to change her technique, and he has to balance his power. But we’re getting there,” König explained.
He invited Canada’s Gary Beacom to give his team a lesson while he was in town a couple of months ago for the ISU Adult competition. Savchenko liked Beacom’s input so much that she decided that he should choreograph their free program.
“At the end of the session, we left the ice, and Aliona said, ‘He’s going to do our free program,’” Massot recalled. “I said: ‘Good, if you want, but we don’t even have the music yet. I’m ready for it, but we should talk about it.’”
They discussed the idea for 10 minutes, and then Savchenko asked Beacom, who immediately agreed. “We then worked for a week on steps and other things,” Savchenko said, adding that they also work with him on their footwork, edges and polishing their steps and moves.
Beacom is also convinced of the quality of this team. “They are very talented and motivated. I was able to set some quite advanced choreography,” he said.
Savchenko and Massot’s long program is set to “Sometimes” by Wax Tailor, a modern arrangement of “Solveig’s Song” from Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt.”
“For our first season, we wanted music that is nice and that goes everywhere,”Massot explained. “At the same time, thanks to Gary, we wanted to do something different, something that you don’t see every day. We have enough pairs skating to classical music; it is always the same. We wanted to do something different with the style of Gary Beacom in pairs skating.”
Massot compared the storyline of the long program to that of his and Savchenko’s. “At the beginning, we’re doing almost everything side by side, and at the end of the program, we are really together, very close in the last two lifts and in the transitions. That is a little bit like our story.”
They try not to dwell on the uncertainty of their competitive future. “We are motivated; we want to get to the 2018 Olympic Games. And if we have to wait another year for it, we’ll just wait another year,” Massot said. “But we’ll continue to work hard, and we’ll be even better prepared.
“We miss competing, but we don’t have a choice. We know what we want, and we’ll do everything for it. We’re here, and we’ll be here until we win.”
In his spare time, Massot is earning some money by coaching children. Savchenko is a member of the German army, which supports high-level athletes, and she recently started a jewelry and fashion design business.
Massot is also studying German, which he will need to be eligible for citizenship. “My teacher tries to get rid of my French accent, but I tell her that I want to keep it because the girls like it,” Massot said with a wide grin.
But he is joking. Massot is engaged to his longtime French girlfriend, Sophie Levaufre. Savchenko became engaged to Liam Cross in April. The couple met through mutual friends in Oberstdorf in 2014.

Originally published in October 2015