Adam Siao Him Fa : "I lost the joy of skating"

Meeting with Adam Siao Him Fa and Benoît Richaud on the eve of the short program at the Grand Prix de France in Angers.

Adam : “I feel much better. I’m happy to be here, it feels good. I couldn’t wait, and now that I’m finally here, it makes me even happier.

Recovering after the Masters took time and a lot of work. It also showed that my approach hadn’t been the right one. I worked a lot, talking with my team, my mental coach, and my psychologist, and it really helped me. I’m trying to detach myself as much as possible from the pursuit of results or performance. I just want to rediscover the joy of skating. I think I had lost it because I was too focused on preparing for the Olympic Games. It had become almost mechanical, like a robot, and I ended up forgetting the pleasure of skating. I realized that when talking with my psychologist, and I became aware that it had been going on for quite some time.

With my mental coach, we do visualization and sophrology. It’s the fourth year we’ve been working together, and we’re trying to approach things differently from previous years, more focused on helping me feel good mentally and in my personal life as well.

Today at practice, there were a few mistakes, but that’s okay. I’m not frustrated, it doesn’t upset me. I’m just happy to be here."

Benoît Richaud : “After the Masters, we had time to work, and it allowed Adam to take a step forward. All these skaters fight an inner battle, you know. The one who manages to win it is the one who performs well. You also have to learn to let go in order to reveal your own genius. Adam has that genius. What he was still missing a little was the ability to free himself. I think he’s starting to get there, you can see it in his attitude on the ice.

What I want above all is for him to deliver two clean programs, with positive GOEs on all technical elements. If he does that, he should get a very high score. At his level, a clean protocol is around 300 points.

I’m glad it’s a strong competition, especially with Ilia Malinin. It’s excellent training. It’s important to have that kind of rivalry. Figure skating sorely lacks real competition. We tend to separate the top skaters so they don’t face each other in the Grand Prix events, and that takes away direct rivalry. The only real confrontation happens at the World Championships, and that’s not how sport should work. Look at tennis, the best players face each other all year long, at every tournament, and that pushes everyone higher. I think that in the Grand Prix series, the top skaters should almost all take part in every event."

Solène Mathieu - Skate Info Glace