- Joined
- Apr 3, 2014
This goes way back to when Anissina competed for France and became its most decorated ice dancer.
Zlobina and Sitnokov now has a chance to compete at the international level that they would probably lack of if they had stay in Russia. They would never get two GP spots and a certain performance at Europeans and Worlds. Changing countries is a controversial thing but I suppose it has more advantages than disadvantages: if Leonova had switched to another country, this country's fs fans would have great skater to support and Russian fans definitely wouldn't grumble about shortage of good ladies
Ladies is the obvious discipline for Russian/US skaters to move to Canada (Japanese skaters lose citizenship). With Osmond struggling, and not a lot of huge competition from Chartrand/Daleman at this point, a well-established skater like Leonova could actually flourish here compared to fighting a sea of Russian youngsters.
I don't know much about financing figure skater but I suppose Lubov doesn't have a strong financial help from Canada now. I think that "skatingly poorer" country would be much more eager to pay for her trainings.