Russian Cup Final ( Feb 16-19), Tver

[let`s talk]

Protocols?
And, when will they announce officially the complete World Team? (I still have a tiny hope that Menshov will be sent )

Protocols are here: http://fsrussia.ru/upl/ckeditor/35120.pdf I believe the official announcement of World Team is delayed due Gorshkov's being ill and also due to the unclear situation in Pairs. The rumors that were flying around that BazLar left their coach and now is temporary training in Novogorsk with Kudryavtsev seem like turned out to be true. So, no idea if they will go or S/K.


Do you people seriously belive that Menshov wants to go to Worlds? Come on! No way. His team and he were saying in each interview before Tver, during and after that Kovtun is a set deal. Why on earth Menshov would want such a responsibility as getting two spots for Russian in London? I am sure he would be more than happy to end up in WTT in Tokyo (where I will give him roses, in person ) than to go to Canada and deal with the hell of crap. Objectively Kovtun has more chances to finish in top 10 than Menshov. He has a killer quad combo, rather reliable jumps, he is more beautiful on the ice and has some sort of charisma. His main leverage is intellectually he is charmingly dumb, and being mentally strong is what required in the situation like that. He needs to skate clean and no doubt judges will put him in top 10 because everybody knows what it's all about- to give Russia two spots in Sochi.

[tulosai]

Protocols are here: http://fsrussia.ru/upl/ckeditor/35120.pdf I believe the official announcement of World Team is delayed due Gorshkov's being ill and also due to the unclear situation in Pairs. The rumors that were flying around that BazLar left their coach and now is temporary training in Novogorsk with Kudryavtsev seem like turned out to be true. So, no idea if they will go or S/K.


Do you people seriously belive that Menshov wants to go to Worlds? Come on! No way. His team and he were saying in each interview before Tver, during and after that Kovtun is a set deal. Why on earth Menshov would want such a responsibility as getting two spots for Russian in London? I am sure he would be more than happy to end up in WTT in Tokyo (where I will give him roses, in person ) than to go to Canada and deal with the hell of crap. Objectively Kovtun has more chances to finish in top 10 than Menshov. He has a killer quad combo, rather reliable jumps, he is more beautiful on the ice and has some sort of charisma. His main leverage is intellectually he is charmingly dumb, and being mentally strong is what required in the situation like that. He needs to skate clean and no doubt judges will put him in top 10 because everybody knows what it's all about- to give Russia two spots in Sochi.

I don't doubt it but why on earth have BazLar left their coach (if this is true?) It seems like a ridiculous time to do so at the very minimum, if not a ridiculous decision all around considering their results this year.

I think they will still be sent (international judges quite obviously prefer them to K/S now though like everyone else I have no idea why- and this is with me being a huge fan of BazLar). However, I am confused about what they are doing.

[Mrs. P]

So Leonova did beat Gosviani by a solid margin. Interesting to see what the Russian Fed does now.

I think they should send Leonova, otherwise they might as well as not have had the skate off.

I don't have skin in the game either way; simply that I did not care for Leonova's FS. Though it looks like Gosviani had a few DG given her low TES score. Gosviani is still rough I agree, but I still like her performance and I think she can build on her experience at Euros.

[gmyers]

Protocols are here: http://fsrussia.ru/upl/ckeditor/35120.pdf I believe the official announcement of World Team is delayed due Gorshkov's being ill and also due to the unclear situation in Pairs. The rumors that were flying around that BazLar left their coach and now is temporary training in Novogorsk with Kudryavtsev seem like turned out to be true. So, no idea if they will go or S/K.


Do you people seriously belive that Menshov wants to go to Worlds? Come on! No way. His team and he were saying in each interview before Tver, during and after that Kovtun is a set deal. Why on earth Menshov would want such a responsibility as getting two spots for Russian in London? I am sure he would be more than happy to end up in WTT in Tokyo (where I will give him roses, in person ) than to go to Canada and deal with the hell of crap. Objectively Kovtun has more chances to finish in top 10 than Menshov. He has a killer quad combo, rather reliable jumps, he is more beautiful on the ice and has some sort of charisma. His main leverage is intellectually he is charmingly dumb, and being mentally strong is what required in the situation like that. He needs to skate clean and no doubt judges will put him in top 10 because everybody knows what it's all about- to give Russia two spots in Sochi.

I thing a good story about menshov is when he went to euros in 2011 and tarasova was there and because he was Russian champion she would not stop bothering him when he was practicing before the sp! Imagine if he went to worlds instead of kovtun and tarasova was all over him again? Let her student kovtun go he is used to it!! And because kovtun beat voronov at euros now voronov is really out especially now that menshov beat him to.

[Mao88]

ROUND-UP: RESULTS & VIDEOS

JUNIOR MEN'S FREE PROGRAM

1. Alexei Genya - 205.08 Free Skate
2. Murad Kurbanov - 204.97 Free Skate
3. Моris Kvitelashvili - 201.51 Free Skate
4. Feodosiy Efremenkov - 197.19 Free Skate
5. Andrei Lazukin - 193.60 Free Skate
6. Roman Savosin - 180.91 Free Skate
7. Andrei Zuber - 180.30
8. Artem Lezheev - 177.78 Free Skate
9. Еvgeni Vlasov - 173.64 Free Skate
10. Vladislav Tarasenko - 171.33

SENIOR MEN'S FREE PROGRAM

1. Konstantin Menshov 233.92 Free Skate
2. Sergei Voronov 230.44 Free Skate
3. Vladislav Sezganov 196.02 Free Skate
4. Artur Gachinski 193.88 Free Skate
5. Zhan Bush 188.73 Free Skate
6. Artur Dmitriev 187.46 Free Skate
7. Vladislav Smirnov 185.32 Free Skate
8. Mark Shakhmatov 181.40
9. Konstantin Milyukov 153.13
10. Sergei Borodulin 149.79

SENIOR LADIES FREE PROGRAM

1. Alena Leonova - 171.99 Free Skate
2. Polina Agafonova - 169.60 Free Skate
3. Nikol Gosviani - 166.06 Free Skate
4. Evgenia Gerasimova - 164.99 Free Skate
5. Alsou Kayumova - 158.25 Free Skate
6. Polina Korobeynikova - 158.06 Free Skate
7. Valentina Chernyshova - 141.94
8. Tatiana Fedoseeva - 141.68
9. Alina Maksimova - 131.97
WD. Sofia Biryukova

[Ziggy]

I don't doubt it but why on earth have BazLar left their coach (if this is true?) It seems like a ridiculous time to do so at the very minimum, if not a ridiculous decision all around considering their results this year.

I think they will still be sent (international judges quite obviously prefer them to K/S now though like everyone else I have no idea why- and this is with me being a huge fan of BazLar). However, I am confused about what they are doing.

They have left their coach because she sucks and has failed to develop them beyond 'big pair tricks but mindnumbingly boring.?' :P

I wish they went to Pavlova.

[AlexRus]

I believe the Men's LP posts were some of those that disappeared

Migration to new server, I understand.

All my posts of 19 Feb disappeared. I hope that it is not so important - it was "real time info", now, when protocols exist, it is not so actual.

[dorispulaski]

It is sad they disappeared, and that there is nothing GS can do about it.

But those who were checking in real time did get to see them; they had great value, even though they are now gone.

But I still feel bad about Menshov. This keeps happening to him.

(When he lands it, his 4t3t is amazing And he has a lot of personality on the ice, as we saw at SkAm. Unfortunately, that was a very tough competition, with both Hanyu and Kozuka (who was briefly healthy). And then Machida had two error free skates, and Konstantin was fourth overall. All 3 ahead of him made the GPF. There were other GP's where his performance would surely have medalled, and I would have had him higher in the SP than Machida.

[Ziggy]

So after all your wailing about Leonova's unfair, cruel treatment , gmyers, she got ridiculously overmarked at this event. So much her being dumped.

She showed weak, sluggish, uninspired performances yet still has beaten Gosviani on the PCS in both programs with a healthy margin. Her GOEs were high for what she's actually executed and let's not forget Gosviani actually skated two solid programs that according to me at least deserved to win.

If anybody was dumped at this event, it was Gosviani who did not receive credit for her beautiful posture and lines, interpreting the music well and for whom calling has been very strict (I'm not saying it wasn't fair but had Leonova been subjected to the same level of scrutiny in her marking, she wouldn't have come out on top).

[gmyers]

The federation did indeed dump her from euros and may still send gosviani for worlds leonova only beat her by five points and was the best she'd been all season. Judges were not the issue the federation was but so many think only judge dumping exist I guess. Judges don't send people to worlds the federation does and there is a strong gosviani support there obviously. The Federation doesn't care about judge given pcs at domestic competitions.

[AlexRus]

They have left their coach because she sucks and has failed to develop them beyond 'big pair tricks but mindnumbingly boring.?' :P

I wish they went to Pavlova.

Now there are two texts from Federation about Bazarova/Larionov.
http://fsrussia.ru/news/451_vera-baz...smene-trenera/
http://fsrussia.ru/news/452_o-zayavl...iya-larionova/
(Russian)

Shortly:
Kalinina is not their coach from now, reason - "because of the arisen misunderstanding during training process."
They will prepare to Worlds with coach Kudryavcev and choreographer Vlasova, they are only for preparing to Worlds, no solution about situation after Worlds.

[AlexRus]

But I still feel bad about Menshov. This keeps happening to him.

(When he lands it, his 4t3t is amazing And he has a lot of personality on the ice, as we saw at SkAm. Unfortunately, that was a very tough competition, with both Hanyu and Kozuka (who was briefly healthy). And then Machida had two error free skates, and Konstantin was fourth overall. All 3 ahead of him made the GPF. There were other GP's where his performance would surely have medalled, and I would have had him higher in the SP than Machida.

Yes, amazing 4t3t sometimes. And sometimes not so good or 4t2t or even 4T.
His jumping content is not clean.

Gachinsky now is not so good, Pluschenko ill.
Voronov, Menshov and Kovtun are about same level. Others are worse than these three.

Federation wants one of these three, who has best chance for Top10 at Worlds.

I repeat - all three are about same level, as I see. Federation knows more (test skating etc).
I believe Federation made right choice on all the information.

[AlexRus]

About Leonova and Gosviani.

At Worlds-2012 Makarova and Korobeynikova both had horrible skating of about the same low level. Unknown Korobeynikova had 19th place, well-known Makarova 9th.
Makarova's 9th place saved the situation, together with Leonova's 2nd place - 3 spots tp Worlds-2013.

Leonova is well-known and silver medalist of Worlds-2012. So even if not so good skating she will have significantly better score than unknown Gosviani with typical for Gosviani skating.

Gosviani has not so good and not so stable jumps, her StSq is at most 2 Level (so PCS for Skating Skills, correlating to StSq, will be not so high, also other PCS).
Gosviani's only good skating at season was at Nationals, where she earned Euro. All her skating before and after Euro was significantly worse.
At Euro she lose V.Helgesson, who is in not so good state. So her Euro result may not be treated as good.
At Final of Cup her skating is also not so good.

Leonova demonstrated at Final of Cup progress with respect to first half of season. So she has very good chance to place significantly better than Gosviani.

Federation solved to send Leonova (and Sotnikova and Tuktamysheva) to Worlds.

[dorispulaski]

It is the Russian Fed's decision to make; I'm willing to believe they made the right decision. But I just feel sorry for Menshov; one statement has nothing to do with the other.

Is it possible that Menshov will get a WTT berth? After all, there are two slots there. I do not see how Russia will not be one of the WTT teams; the pairs will be top 1 or 2; surely one of the 2 dance teams will be somewhere between third and fifth; and the top two girls will be top of the charts. That should be enough to do it, despite how Kovtun does or doesn't skate at Worlds.

Or will they just send Voronov again, do you think?

[AlexRus]

Is it possible that Menshov will get a WTT berth?

It is not just possible, it is very probable.
In World Standing first Russian is Gachinsky (in bad state), second Menshov, third Kovtun, fourth Voronov, others are not so good than these.
So most probable Men team for WTT is:
Menshov
Kovtun or Voronov.