- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
pangtongfan said:While on paper Sotnikova has many of the things to challenge Kim- big jumps, very strong spins, nice lines and artistry, her poorly choreographed programs which are mostly a sea of meaningless arm movements and gyrations of different parts of the body going at once that seemingly serve no purpose, warrant lower PCS than the very best PCS getters should be (and not just Kim), and the technique on major toe jumps is flawed and ugly. That is without even getting the miracle of what a clean competition would be for her, although I will give her credit for MAJORly improving her consistency and mental toughness this year to what it has been on the past, and cementing herself a real senior level contender for the first time ever as a result. Now she just needs to up it even more to the point she has Julia like consistency and can reel off totally clean program after another in competition (if that is even possible for her or hardly anyone not named Kim or Lipnitskaia), get a way better choreographer, and fix her lutz and a couple of her other jumps technique wise, and with the vets retiring after this year she could be the new dominant skater in the next quad.
Adelina shouldn't be considered even an outside shot for the OGM, even though I really, really love her. If everything comes together for her, she has a got shot at the bronze medal, and for her second senior season that's amazing enough.
I doubt she'll ever be as consistent as Julia is now. But so what. Nearly nobody is, and I'm not sure any other of the strong ladies the next 4 years will be (Julia still has to deal with puberty - and while I think people claiming she'll be completly out due to that are overblowing things, she certainly might lose some of her consistency on some of the jumps, like her 2A). Most of all, I think she needs better choreography. I doubt it will happen, since she's likely to stick with a russian choreographer, but I'm sure she could be amazing with some lovely choreo from Buttle or Carmalengo (hey, one can dream!). Next in line would be to get the Lutz edge. Maybe cancel the 3Lz-3 combo and stick with a 3T3T in the SP and 2 2A3Ts in the LP. She has the overall skating quality, these combination will keep her in the running. She could go for a solo 3Lz and really work on the edge (I think her Lutz edge has gotten better, and some of her jumps in training seem to be on a flat edge at least). That would probably already be enough to keep her at the top. The flip technique could use some tweaking, but as long as she lands the jump, the judges really don't seem to mind.