Transcripts

2001 World Championships - ABC profile

Elena - I'm playing a flower girl.

Anton - He's (Charlie Chaplin) funny and he's very serious, sometimes very, mmm, fool, maybe.

ABC (Terry Gannon) - In an attempt to reinvent themselves, Russia's Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze have turned to comedy. In their compelling new program, they pay tribute to silent movie legend Charlie Chaplin. An interesting choice because last year, their lives more closely resembled a tragedy.

Anton - Nothing was easy, nothing. A lot of problems with our off-ice life. It's like snowball, go, go, go, and going.

ABC - The lowest of lows came when the defending champions were disqualified from Worlds because Elena had tested positive for a banned cold medicine.

Elena - I was shocked, you know. I didn't know. I was like, what? how?

Tamara - We confirmed that she took this medicine against cough but we never expected there was something prohibited in those pills.

Anton - It happened anyway and we just forget about this and thinking about the future.

ABC - Easier said than done. That incident caused them to be stripped of their European title. While in their personal lives, they've had to deal with adjusting to a new life in America and the end of their much-publicized romance.

Anton - I wanna tell you, we still be good friends like usually and nothing is changing. We feel great again.

Tamara - Elena is very cold in her reactions to happenings and he is very hot. So I call them north and south poles.

ABC - And so these polar opposites skate, inspired by Chaplin, hoping transform tears into tears of joy.

Tamara - She starts to skate as a blind girl but after she feels that he cares about her, then she slowly opens her eyes and the rest of the program they are both happy, enjoying life.