Who trains Adelia Petrosyan: the role of Tutberidze, Dudakov and Gleikhengauz
Russian figure skater Adelia Petrosyan, who will represent Russia at the 2026 Olympic Games, has become a star in Eteri Tutberidze's team. The athlete is trained by three mentors at once. How they affect the success of a figure skater in upcoming competitions is described in the Izvestia article.
Who trains Adelia Petrosyan
Adelia Petrosyan represents the Khrustalny branch of the Moskomsport Sambo-70 Center for Sports and Education, where her official coaches are Eteri Tutberidze, Sergey Dudakov and Daniil Gleikhengauz. The athlete joined the Tutberidze group in 2019, before that she trained with Irina Strakhovaya and Alexey Shemet in the Moskvich Sports Club.
Adelia Petrosyan and coach Eteri Tutberidze after performing the free skate in women's single skating at the II stage of the Russian Grand Prix of Figure Skating in Sochi in 2022
At first, Adelia Petrosyan was "a little afraid" of Tutberidze. "Before her (Tutberidze. — Ed.) I was in a slightly different world. Eteri Georgievna was a completely unattainable person for me. I didn't understand what it was like to come and train with her so that she could fix something for you. That's why I wasn't afraid. It's more like admiration, awe," the figure skater admitted in an interview for Match TV.
According to the figure skater, she did not know for a long time whether she would get into the Tutberidze group. "We had our first training camps, and I was told that I was going to them. That's when I realized that they probably took me," the girl said.
What are the roles of Tutberidze, Dudakov and Gleikhengauz?
The coaching staff around Adelia is based on the principle of separation of competencies: each specialist has his own area of responsibility, but training is a single process. Thanks to the distribution of roles, the team increases the difficulty of jumps and enhances the artistic expression of the athlete's programs.
As Petrosyan said, it's more interesting to work with three coaches. "Eteri Georgievna sets up very well, I really like it. Sergey Viktorovich — he is often alone with me at the start. Daniil Markovich tries to tell more and explain on the programs what I did not do in the track and all that. And Eteri Georgievna monitors the whole process, as it were, adjusts, calms down before the start and helps to skate with dignity," Petrosyan said.
Adelia Petrosyan at the Russian Figure Skating Championships with coach Eteri Tutberidze
At major starts, it is Tutberidze who most often accompanies the figure skater at the side. At the same time, in international protocols and tournament applications, both Dudakov and Gleichengauz appear on her team's list as specialists who work with Adelia on an ongoing basis.
For example, Tutberidze took the figure skater to training before the Olympic Qualification Tournament Skate to Milano, which took place in September 2025. Choreographer Gleichengauz was refused by the International Skating Union to attend the tournament as Petrosyan's escort.
The roles of Petrosyan's coaches:
head coach Eteri Tutberidze;
technique and jumping coach Sergey Dudakov;
choreographer and skating coach Daniil Gleikhengauz.
What athletic approaches do Tutberidze, Dudakov and Gleikhengauz have?
The Tutberidze school in women's single skating is built around the idea of strict discipline and high training pace. Adelia herself admitted that, having moved to the Crystal, she had to get used to the "frenzied rhythm."
Figure skater Alyona Kostornaya, who trained with Tutberidze, stated that when Eteri appeared, the girl clung to the side, afraid to do something wrong. Kostornaya behaved like this for about two years. "Eteri Tutberidze is the extraction of results by any means, because there is a conveyor belt. This one is broken, the next one is coming. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. They have such methods of work, they all have their own. Someone leads one athlete from the age of 15 to 30, and someone from 15 to 18," RIA Novosti quoted Kostornaya as saying.
Eteri Tutberidze does not consider his team's methods harsh or even more cruel. According to her, the training system is advisory in nature, and she herself evaluates the level of rigor at 3 out of 10.
The coach explained that the teachers do not insist on mandatory assignments: if some athletes do not feel in working order during training and limit themselves to skating in circles, this is not considered a problem if such a situation does not become permanent.
Coaches Sergey Dudakov, Daniil Gleikhengauz and Eteri Tutberidze at the Russian Championship in St. Petersburg
Figure skater Artyom Frolov, talking about Tutberidze's working methods, noted that the group strictly monitors the weight of athletes, sometimes it was forbidden to perform jumps in order to eliminate the risk of injury.
What is the difference between Adelia Petrosyan's program and that of other figure skaters?
Adelia Petrosyan's programs stand out in modern women's single skating with a high level of technical complexity. In the short program, the figure skater performs a triple axel, and in the free program she declares several ultra-c jumps. At the 2026 Russian Championship, she took the risk to complete three such elements and, despite the mistakes she made, retained a significant advantage in terms of points due to her high baseline and component scores.
Petrosyan's free program is built around a complex technical framework — triple axel and quadruple jumps, against which musical and choreographic solutions enhance the overall drama of the production.
According to Sport-Express, choreographer Ilya Averbukh believes that figure skaters Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova and Alyona Kostornaya had a more complex set of content than Petrosyan does now. Adelia herself admitted that she still does not reach the level of the previous generation of athletes from the Eteri Tutberidze group.
Figure skater Anna Shcherbakova
Speaking about the preparation of the program for the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy, Eteri Tutberidze noted that the final content is still under discussion and will be determined by the stability of the elements.
According to her, competing at the Olympics without ultra-c jumps does not make sense, since in the absence of a rating, the athlete will have to start the competition from the first warm-ups and without high technical complexity, the program risks remaining unnoticed. If the triple axel does not become a stable element, the team, according to the coach, may focus on sheepskin coats.
After Adelia Petrosyan's victory in the qualifying tournament for the 2026 Olympics, choreographer Ilya Averbukh said that the team was waiting for a large amount of work and extremely high tasks, noting that the figure skater was considered among the favorites for Olympic gold.
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