A Russian Domination at the Olympics?

[BlackAxel]

I have to first start off that the Russian Federeation has done a wonderful job with prepping and training their skating students to gold medals from the Grand Prix events, Grand Prix Finals, World Championships, and of course the Olympics. Also, we were all witness to a complete demolition by the Russians at the 2006 Olympics with a 3/4 Gold medal win out of the discplines.......

However, as I am looking at all the discplines, I really am wondering if a Russian Domination can occur at Vancouver.

For Ladies: It pains me to day that basically no Russian lady is the running for a gold medal or even a medal for that matter. While there is Alena Leonova to consider, there is also the likes of Yu-Na, Mao, Joannie, Miki, Akiko to consider as well.

For Men: Even though I personally am rooting for another to win gold, Plushenko is definitely in the running for a medal at the Olympics with a heavy emphasis on the Gold as well....I really believe that if Plushenko gives a clean sp and lp, then the gold is his.

For Pairs: Well the main Russian pairs contenders are Kavaguti/Smirnov and Mukhortova/Trankov...and do I think that they can win Gold? Not at all....There are other strong teams such as Savchenko/Szolkowy and Pang/Tong and of course the undefeated Shen/Zhou. It extra pains me to say that I think the Russians are gonna miss out on the gold which would be the first 1964!!!

For Dance: Along with the men's competition, I am really excited as to how the pedal will turn out. With strong teams such as Virtue/Moir, Davis/White, and Belbin/Agosto, it is really hard to pick a team out for gold. Without a doubt I know AT LEAST 2 of the previous teams will win a medal. But now what the Russian teams, Domnina/Shabalin and Khoklova/Novitski? D/S won the worlds in LA with a performance that many have said was lackluster and not worthy of gold (personally I liked it fine). But with Shabalin's knees and their OD which is already stirring controversy based upon its Aboriginal "stereotypes" and the heavy usage of the belt on Domnina's costume in the FD and also the fact that they have competed just once at Nationals this season, etc... There just seems to be too many reasons of why their chances of winning Gold or even a medal is slim. And of course, due to the heavy music and dislike for their costumes, K/N have changed their FD music to Firebird (I am actually intrested into how this will turn out). But do they have time to really "bring out all the stops" with this very NEW program? Again, the Russians have not lost the gold since Torvill/Dean won in 84 Sarajevo (also except Asinnina/Peizerat won in 2002).

In all I think that there is a lot of pressure upon the Russian skaters to go out and skate their way to a OGM....And the question lies on to who will deliver....Comments?

 

[ImaginaryPogue]

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: Take a quick glance at the previous quadrennial. Russia won four medals. Now, that's about a medal a season. Now, take a look at the quadrennials before that. Russia/Soviet Union was averaging four medals a season, going as high as six sometimes.

At BEST, they'll end up with three medals, and that requires Plushenko to skate well (no difficulty there), M/T and/or K/S to skate lights out AND one of P/T or S/S to falter (more difficult; I think S/Z are guaranteed a medal if they skate, given how well they're doing), AND D/S... I don't know, they're so far behind. It's telling that their hugely inflated Nationals score is only on par with what D/W and V/M were achieving internationally. At this point, I think if DelSchoes are even close to on track to where they need to be, D/S will be fifth at the Olympics at best, but I can imagine them ending up in the lower half of the top ten.