This is a draft of an article that appeared in the hard copy Australian magazine OzSkater
in the July 2008 edition. The final article may have been edited prior to publication.
Precious Metal Goes to Precious by
by J. Barry Mittan
Perth's Matthew Precious earned a piece of gold when he won the Australian junior men's title for 2007-08. That earned the 15-year-old a place in his first international, the ISU Junior Grand Prix in Vienna, Austria, where he finished 22nd. Then in March 2008, Precious had the opportunity to compete in his first Junior Worlds, placing 32nd in a field of 47.
"I wasn't expecting to get to Junior Worlds," Precious said. "I didn't think I'd get that far this season. It was amazing. It was my best experience ever. It was just fantastic to see the best skaters in the world. It will really change the way I train. Everything they do is so precise."
"My grandfather was a hockey player in Scotland," Precious said. "He got me into skating when I was six. I loved the feeling I got when I was on the ice. But I never played any hockey, maybe once. Other than that, the only other sport I've tried is soccer when I was little."
For his short program in 2007-08, Precious included a double axel, double loop and triple toe-double toe combination. He used three combinations in his long program, including triple toe-double toe, double axel-double toe-double loop and double lutz-double toe.
"I landed my first triple toe loop last year when I was 14," he said. "I can do the triple loop and I'm trying to master it now. I've tried triple toe-triple toe but haven't landed any yet. I'm also working on double axel-triple toe."
Irina Stavrovskaia and Valentin Kadzoevitch fill the roles of both coaches and choreographers for Precious, who trains in Perth. He skates for two hours a day, six days a week, then does two hours of intense off ice training with his coach on Sundays. "I work with a personal trainer twice a week and a ballet teacher comes in for an hour on Saturday," he added. "I also do a lot of running at home."
He skated to "Carmen Suite" by Rodion Shchedrin in his short program and to "Dark Angel" and "Virtuoso" by Edvin Marton for the free. "I like to express myself with emotion when I skate," Precious said. "So I like to skate to strong music. Both of the programs were old music that I used last season. My coaches usually pick out some music and see if I like it. I loved the violin work by Marton."
"I'll probably change the music for next season," he noted. "If I like the music, using it for two years doesn't worry me. But I like skating most to classical music."
Off ice, Precious said he listens mostly to "AC/DC, Guns and Roses and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, that kind of stuff. I play the guitar and like to jam with my Grandpa at home."
For fun, "I like hanging out with my friends and playing video games a lot," he said. "I go to movies, action and comedies mostly. And I like to go to the beach, but I've never surfed."
Precious is in the 11th grade in high school, but hasn't thought about any future career as yet.
"Right now, my goal is to land a few more triples and do well at Nationals next season," he said.
