They will just need more time to adjust and make a team. The problem is not only the skills, but also that Nikita is the only one who shines a personality at the moment. In all pair dances, classic , ballet, name it, if the woman has not persoanlity the pair suffers badly. They have to find where Vika is comfortable - i presume she is more lyrical - and choose the dances which suits her not only Nikita. I remember how unbalanced Kazakova and Dimitriev were at the begining, the same feeling i get here.
Sinitsina/Katsalapov future prospects
- Thread starter gmyers
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P.S. People on some russian boards speculating if Nikita will drop Vika and team up with BobrovaThe team would be hilarious, and she would kill him at first practice.
Haha, I can imagine that!
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2003
Having one really bad competition is not necesarily anything more than one really bad competition.
Meryl didn't break up with Charlie because he fell three times at COR 2008, and made so many mistakes that the Eurosport guys couldn't stop laughing.
What does concern me here is that it is more clear than ever that Nikita is not a good lifter. Having Elena sit on his shoulders to make lift transitions easier and having him slide on one knee for more stabilty last year covered up some of his lack of skills, but the underlying difficulties are still there.
I hope his coaches will sort this out, but they have not helped so far.
And I would have liked to see some signs of concern for Vika from him. It may be difficult for him to regain her trust in lifts, and that is key to all good lifts.
Meryl didn't break up with Charlie because he fell three times at COR 2008, and made so many mistakes that the Eurosport guys couldn't stop laughing.
What does concern me here is that it is more clear than ever that Nikita is not a good lifter. Having Elena sit on his shoulders to make lift transitions easier and having him slide on one knee for more stabilty last year covered up some of his lack of skills, but the underlying difficulties are still there.
I hope his coaches will sort this out, but they have not helped so far.
And I would have liked to see some signs of concern for Vika from him. It may be difficult for him to regain her trust in lifts, and that is key to all good lifts.
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- Apr 18, 2014
I think this is the more troubling aspect. Lots of new teams have had disastrous initial outings but improved as time went on. However, Nikita didn't seem to be very supportive after the FD or even SD where Sinitsina made a mistake. I get the feeling he hasn't yet outgrown his habit of blaming his partner for every mistake.
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- Feb 13, 2014
But after the FD it's obviously his mistakes!! What's now? Can he admit that himself??
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- Feb 9, 2009
This.
I don't think they should break up over one bad outing.
What concerns me though is the time they spent in Russia between Rostelecom and now. I feel that they have lost progress. I could understand the pressure on them since RC was their first outing but I feel like the pressure was off them here a bit. One part of it, I think, is Nikita is putting a lot of pressure on himself and probably Vika to be better than Elena and Ruslan since he initiated the splits. I feel this is a fair assessment to make. With B/S out for injury there was a case to be made to become Russia's number 1 team. He stated he watched COC plus to watch I/Z pretty much lay a smack down at CoR, I think it brought a feeling of urgency to get better faster. Which you can't always do rapidly as a new team.
The other issue is their coaching. Marina is not a technical coach. She is a choreographer. The combination of her and Igor is what made teams like V/M, D/W, and the Shibs successful. The fact that the Russian Fed had them stay to work with tech specialist in between events says to me that Russian Fed likes her style and politics and that's about it.
They need to seriously regroup. I too was disappointed to see kind of a lack of concern for Victoria. They need to have trust for lifts and right now I wouldn't trust Nikita to throw me gently into a bunch of pillows. He looked like he didn't trust himself when they failed to go up for that second lift.
Sinitsina does need to leave because she can't trust in lifts. She must have had some opinions on his skating and seen him struggle so badly with lifts sometimes with Elena. Maybe she blamed Elena. There had to be instances at russian nationals where she saw problems. But she can go on YouTube now and watch him knowing problems weren't Elena's fault. But now she knows its all his fault. So now she has to make a choice and since there is no security in lifts she has to go.
I noticed a dramatic increase in regards of aborted lifts and stuff over the past two years.
If you ask me is the massive increase in difficulty and the high demands on creating more and harder to do lifts is to blame here. Ice Dance today is a lot about lifts, more than in the past if you ask me.
Don't get me wrong here, I love Ice Dance also because of them but I don't think that this insane difficulty is required, same applies for pair skating. We have amazing couples on the ice who make good performances without the risk of "life" in them...
I don't know, just my opinion of course.
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2014
I don't think so. To quote Jenny from TSL, Nikita's ego "is too big for that ice rink and his partner".
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2014
Who would they skate with though? There aren't really any great partners available for either one. I personally would laugh if they partner swap with Popova and Vlasenko. I have a feeling Popova would eat Nikita alive while Sinitsina and Vlasenko would put the whole arena to sleep
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2012
Jenny knows Nikita so well? When she met with him? Or just thinking it? I can understand if the FS fans are malicious and say judgment too early but Jenny acts she is an expert. I don't expect such opinions like this...
I'm really surprised..What is this great hostility toward Nikita? We don't know why he wanted to break up with Elena. They were my favorite couple since 2010 when they won the JWCH with the beautiful Schindler's list thus I was so sad when I knew they are not a pair anymore. But we don't know the real reasons..and I'm sure we won't know never. Probabaly something personal..
Oh Popova the Diva with Nikita will be so interesting. They will literally kill each other.
That being said I think V/N are making progress, though it's become obvious that Nikita is prone to mistakes. The S/K partnership is going the old I/K partnership trajectory but coming from lower ground. I agree that Nikita isn't a good lifter, and now I appreciate how Morozov had hidden that reasonably well. I hate to say this, but S/K would do a lot better with Morozov than Zueva.
That being said I think V/N are making progress, though it's become obvious that Nikita is prone to mistakes. The S/K partnership is going the old I/K partnership trajectory but coming from lower ground. I agree that Nikita isn't a good lifter, and now I appreciate how Morozov had hidden that reasonably well. I hate to say this, but S/K would do a lot better with Morozov than Zueva.
I think that Popova actually have brains, she will never agree to that. Same with Vlasenko, they're good like they are. And I hope Federation is not stupid enough to ruin ONE MORE perspective russian dance team.
Edit: but I have to admit that the idea is really funny
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- Mar 28, 2014
All you need to do is read his interviews. He props himself up so much, which is important to do as an athlete as any sport psychologist would say. There is no point in competing if you don't think you can do well. But if he can't back up what he says about himself, then that talking is pointless and just points to a sense of hubris. He is especially known to blame his partner for his mistakes, which just doesn't fly with most people seeing as many in the recent past are his own. It's fine to make mistakes, but you need to accept them as your own and move on. You can't get better if you think you're faultless.
A perfect example of backing up the talk, is in your username. Plushenko is cocky and arrogant, but he backs up what he says by performing well.
I agree we don't know about his true intentions, but his interviews say a lot about his personality. And believe me, I LOVED I/K. Katsalapov rightly has a huge ego because his skating skills are amazing. Ilinykh has that drive and x factor you can't teach. He was/is cocky, but with Elena it worked perfectly because she didn't need anyone to sell her because she's that incredible. If they stayed together, they could have easily dominated this entire quad.
But there is no point in thinking of 'what-ifs'.
hwell:Because it's "fashionable" to jump on the bandwagon to diss Nikita. It's fun to have a "villain" to spew hatred at when all you know about the person is what is reported through the media (in another language) and gossip from other forums. Every thread about this pairing basically just devolves into dissing them. Except now people are laying off dissing Vika for the moment, since she just had a fall. Well, whatever, I'm done with this.
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2012
All you need to do is read his interviews. He props himself up so much, which is important to do as an athlete as any sport psychologist would say. There is no point in competing if you don't think you can do well. But if he can't back up what he says about himself, then that talking is pointless and just points to a sense of hubris. He is especially known to blame his partner for his mistakes, which just doesn't fly with most people seeing as many in the recent past are his own. It's fine to make mistakes, but you need to accept them as your own and move on. You can't get better if you think you're faultless.
A perfect example of backing up the talk, is in your username. Plushenko is cocky and arrogant, but he backs up what he says by performing well.
I agree we don't know about his true intentions, but his interviews say a lot about his personality. And believe me, I LOVED I/K. Katsalapov rightly has a huge ego because his skating skills are amazing. Ilinykh has that drive and x factor you can't teach. He was/is cocky, but with Elena it worked perfectly because she didn't need anyone to sell her because she's that incredible. If they stayed together, they could have easily dominated this entire quad.
But there is no point in thinking of 'what-ifs'.
this is a great example, how to think the figure skating fans. How somebody becomes arrogante .. I am sure if Lipnitskaya will have a little mistake she will be the next arrogante skater..Poor Nikita! Poor Yulia!
Plushenko isn't cocky and arrogante.:scowl: But do you now what? Is he arrogante? He can afford it ! his loyal worldwide fans love him for it! ( Sorry, I'm a little bit angry!)
Vika and Nikita were both the weaker of the teams of S/Z and I/K, I don't think they should break up since they initiated both of the previous break ups, just that their programs don't really work for them, there's a lot to work on but it's still early, if there's no improvement at the end of the season or it keeps going downhill maybe it's time to get a new coach because let's face it, Marina is a choreographer, not really a coach, if things don't work out with the new coach, then maybe a split is better
I think figure skating in general is going for the hardest/biggest elements to get those points, if they can show that they can execute a really hard element, judges will remember and their reputation will start going up, I don't think so much difficulty is needed either so it's not just you =(
I think figure skating in general is going for the hardest/biggest elements to get those points, if they can show that they can execute a really hard element, judges will remember and their reputation will start going up, I don't think so much difficulty is needed either so it's not just you =(
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2012
Excellent points, dorispulaski.
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- Dec 21, 2011
Yes, I found how he appeared to react very strange (I am careful to say appeared because who knows what he was really feeling, what was said/done when cameras weren't on them). During the performance, after the hard fall,they did seem to share a brief moment where they mutually ascertained that they were both okay and kept going. I understood nothing more being done at that time. But after they finished, while they were still on the ice, I found it VERY strange that they did not speak to one another at all. One would have thought that, at a minimum, he'd have asked how she was. The fall was not minor. It was very very scary. I am frankly impressed she was able to go on so quickly. Then from what we saw of K&C, no one appeared to be talking to Victoria either. Again, the fall was not minor. It is certainly beyond me to fathom what really was going on in everyone's head, and maybe he was truly in shock or something, and this is genuinely not an attempt to vilify anyone, but I honestly find the whole thing to be very odd- not just him but how the team appeared to react (i.e. the coaches).
I agree also with the whole rest of your post.
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