Annabelle Prölß and Ruben Blommaert

Video interview, Oberstdorf, July 2013

 

Annabelle: We are Annabelle Prölß and Ruben Blommaert and we are the German National Pair skating champions.

 

Q: Yes, and you also competed at Junior Worlds where you finished a respectable 7^th. What did you do since Junior Worlds?

 

Ruben: Well, after Junior Worlds we had one week off. I went home and Annabelle as well. Since then we’ve been training. We’ve started to work on new elements, new programs, a new triple throw. We are preparing for the next season.

 

Q: What programs did you choose for the new season?

 

Annabelle: We use “Pirates of the Caribbean” for the free skating. I think the music is really good, because we took various parts. One part is well known, but most of it isn’t something that many others have used before. For the short program we have “O Mio Babbiro Caro”, performed by David Garrett. This is something slow, something completely different and new for us. But we have to learn how to do this as well. I think both programs are good.

 

Q: Who suggested the music?

 

Ruben: We did that together with our coach. Mr. Fajfr (coach) decided it and all of us really like both music pieces.

 

Q: You mentioned that you are working on new elements, on a new triple throw. Which one is it and have you landed it already?

 

Ruben: It’s the throw flip. It worked already. We have it on video. Unfortunately she (Annabelle) was injured for a short while and so we didn’t practice it recently. But we know we can do it. Well, new elements, we are working on the backwards-inside (death) spiral. It works quite well, a lot better than the backward-outside (death spiral) last year. It’s going well.

 

Q: What are your plans for the rest of the summer?

 

Annabelle: In any case we will continue to train and to work on our skating skills most of all, on our artistry, especially for the slow music. Obviously we want to get everything consistent.

 

Ruben: (We want to) finish the SP, it’s not completely ready yet, to make everything consistent and to do run throughs so that we are ready for the new season.

 

Q: In this upcoming season you can’t skate juniors anymore as Ruben is too old but you can’t skate ISU senior-level Championships either as Annabelle is too young. Which competitions do you plan to attend?

 

Annabelle: We don’t know for sure yet where we will skate. We thought about it, but we don’t know yet for sure. In any case we want to compete at Nebelhorn Trophy and hopefully we’ll finish decently.

 

Ruben: Yes, for next season we are focusing on getting world ranking points. So we want to do international ISU senior programs. We’ll try our best to collect world ranking points.

 

Q: Thank you very much! We wish you good luck for the new season and we are looking forward to seeing you in the new season.

 

Annabelle and Ruben: Thank you very much!