Word: fassi
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Fassi calmly reassures his skaters that they are good even when they are depressed. "To make a champion," he says in his slightly fractured English, "I have to be patient. With Dorothy, it is not always easy. She gets mad at herself." Curry also benefited from Fassi's encouragement: "Months before a major competition he starts telling everyone how good you are. Pretty soon you think so yourself...
...Fassi is regarded as skating's best compulsory figures tutor. Says Hamill: "Before I got to Carlo, I was tied up in a knot doing figures. I looked like a pretzel...
Fluid, elegant body movements are a hallmark of his style. Moreover, he is a master at manipulating the politics of figure skating. When judges attended practice sessions in Innsbruck, Fassi ordered his skaters to work on their best moves: he told Hamill, for example, to trace her strongest figures near the judges and her weakest on the far side of the rink. It also does not hurt that Fassi coaches skaters from so many nations. In competition, judges from those countries sometimes give his pupils the benefit of the doubt: in Hamill's short program, the Italian judge gave...
...Fassi started skating when he was six, at a rink in Milan where his grandfather worked as an electrician. Though he was excellent in compulsory figures, he was never an inspired free skater; Fassi's best showing was a third in the 1953 world championships. He began coaching Italians in 1956, and later took on Europeans and Americans-including 1968 Gold Medalist Peggy Fleming...
...Fassi loves to regale his pupils with stories about Italian history, or show them his basement full of electric trains and handcrafted wooden ship models. How much time he will have for such pastimes in the future is debatable. "We go back home soon and rest," he said last week. "At least I hope. But I got some young skaters you should...