Russian pairs disaster in Boston- why?

[Giselle]

Mozer has been criticized for all these injuries. Who says she can coach skaters doing these harder technical elements right?

I don't know that she can, I'm no expert but I know she has a big team of coaches and specialists and I trust that they are all doing their best to train their skaters.

All 3 Chinese Teams have tried Throw Quads this year and all 3 have had some kind of serious injury that made them skip competitions. And if they are people who have experience with training Quads it's Bin Yao and Hongbo Zhao.
Kavaguti and Smirnov have been injuried their whole career it seems (I know that Yuko's current injury is not related to training Quads).

 

[Ice Dance]

no excuses but i think we can safely say Russia has not been able to send their top three teams in a while - V and T, S and K and K and S. Morevoer, they certainly were not healthy.

Who was healthy all season in pairs? D&R did their (in)famous second quad throw during the summer, and exactly where did it get us?

D&R wind up throwing it out because they can't hit it & it continuously disrupts their program.
Sui & Han exacerbate an injury she has had for years and that already essentially cost them one Olympic slot.
Kavaguti & Smirnov doing two quads mid program and out for the season with injury.
Peng & Zhao out with injury from 4CC's and having to qualify last minute. (FYI, they looked great in practice. I just don't think she has the confidence to hit in competition).
Seguin & Bilodeau out with injury from Worlds.
Moore-Towers & Marinaro out with injury from 4CC's.
American pairs team--Denny & Frazier--out all season.
Stolbova & Klimov--injured prior to Europeans and not back healthy at Worlds.

The list goes on and on and on. There really aren't enough pairs teams in the World for us to be losing so many top athletes during the season.

 

[alebi]

I agree to a certain extend.

They have increased their level of difficulty: Stolbova & Klimov replaced their 3T2T2T with a 3T3T2T and their 2A with 3S. Working to upgrade their throws but got injuried. Volosozhar & Trankov added a throw 3F. Tarasova/Morozov a Quad Twist (not sure why they opted for a triple twist at Worlds). Zabijako/Enbert on throw 3Axel but got injuried. And let's not forget that Kavaguti/Smirnov had 2 Quad Throws in their LP this year.
Did they start working on these elements too late? Yes, probably. Duhamel & Radford started landing throw quads last season but they've probably been working on it for way longer. They've had SBS 3Lz since they started skating together. Sui/Han have been trying Quad twist and Quad throw since they've been Juniors. Kavaguti/Smirnov have been trying throw quads in competition since 2007/2008 I believe. And these 3 teams are the only teams who have landed throw quads this year (Full Base value + positive GOE).

I totally agree with you, especially about the bold part. During Euros some of us were commenting about the extremely high level that this discipline has reached. And that it was so unusual to see that Russian teams were the ones left behind. We also said that the rules, right now, don't reward properly these risks and so, for now, beautiful lines, high skating skills and big, good elements were still the top for pairs.
Well.... Worlds proved that no, THIS is already the time when risk elements make the difference. And most of the Russian teams learnt it too late... and that's the reason why they had to "hit the gas" and got injured.

I don't know if this is only a Mozer's problem, since K/S already focused on quads in the past. Maybe, if they find quads too hard or dangerous, they can switch to harder jumps, as S/K already try to do. Surely what they still do right now is not enough any more. And two years are the minimum time to do it!

 

[anyanka]

I don't get this, they willingly came back to competition but didn't want to compete at Worlds? So why are they even competing if they don't want to be at the biggest event of the season?

They must have been paid a LOT of money to compete this year.

 

[anyanka]

I'm going to put this out there: Russia needs to qualify three teams for next year. T/M can make top 5-6 easily, but because K/S were out due to injury and S/K were not 100% recovered, with A/R not quite matured yet, they needed to bring in a heavy hitter to get them the placements they wanted. Enter V/T. They got the job done, but it ruined their record of making the podium in every competition together as a team. They don't want to repeat 2007 when K/S competed and barely made top 10, and so did Max and Maria M at the time, and they had to re-earn that third spot the next year.

 

[anyanka]

V/t won big in Canada in 2013 so maybe its not geography just simply judges giving another country the pairs title for 2018. And while russian pairs are not totally completely technically deficient but seem so when other teams are on.

Yup. And when V/T won in Canada ahead of D/R that audience was feverishly excited for the Russians. So it can't be a country or cultural bias.

It also came down to what they did on the day of the event. D/R could have completely bombed on the most difficult program but they delivered on every single item. V/T had a lower level of difficulty and didn't even do it to their full potential. S/K were recovering and quite frankly did very well considering how many medical mishaps happened to them since the GPF. The Chinese could have won but they had that fall, so they were deducted accordingly.

Remember everyone: you can prepare all you like and study around the clock, but if you do NOT write the test properly or only complete half the exam, you do NOT get an "A"!

 

[anyanka]

6. A culture of entitlement? (i.e. Maxim's constant criticisms for non-Russian skating, and not always involving skating skills/styles...in a word, classless).

Oh, snap!!

 

[anyanka]

Ok, so I've been thinking about this all day, and I'm pretty irritated by it, so pardon the rant that is about to occur.

Normally I cannot stand it when fans say: "Skater X should retire because they've been around for so long and have already won everything, so what's the point in continuing? They're just taking away opportunities from other up and coming skaters!". For situations such as Patrick and Mao, it's obvious that they love being competitive athletes and genuinely missed everything about it during their hiatuses, so in situations such as these, I say: why not continue? If they love the sport so much and still have the ability to compete at top level, who are we to say they shouldn't return? Both have said that its the love of skating that brought them back. Granted, I'm sure the aspiration to win more world and Olympic medals also played a huge part, but it's not their only reason.

But in the case of V&T ... what the hell was the point of returning to competition if they didn't really want to be here? Isn't it a total slap in the face to all the other pairs teams in Russia to not be training as hard as all world class athletes should be training when preparing to attend the biggest competition of the season? If they didn't want to go to worlds, WHY DID THEY GO TO WORLDS??!?!?! This isn't a situation where they are "needed" by their fed - S/K are more than capable of carrying the Russian pairs, not to mention T/M who placed 5th. There are other teams in Russia who have been training hard and would kill for a chance to compete at worlds, but because V/T are seen as Russian skating royalty, they seem to be able to do what they want and the fed accommodates it without batting an eyelash.

It's not right.

I've never been a fan of theirs, but I've always appreciated their talent and style, as I do with ALL top skaters. I try my hardest to be a respectful to everyone in the skating world, regardless of whether or not I am a fan. However, THIS, along with some of the extremely unclassy comments Maxim has made to the media about his main rivals (stooping low enough to insult Meagan Duhamel's physical appearance is what threw me over the edge) makes me lose a lot of respect for them.

Mic drop.

 

[anyanka]

Here we go again with the blatant defamation of Max. Meagan Duhamel should take responsibility for this and try for an apology. Maxim Trankov never said anything nasty about them and it's outrageous people continue to spread these lies DEFAME him.

And what damages would he be entitled to in a court of law?

The exchange of messages between them in the press is, in all honesty, mild in comparison to other sports. They didn't have a blow out or cause a scene at worlds, so I'm going to guess that the shots from both sides were fired but neither felt compelled to do anything about it when they were at the same competition. I'm guessing polite civility but lack of warmth of both, and everyone went home.

 

[anyanka]

I've commented a lot here just now but I will say this: regardless of the results, we saw some beautiful skating from all three Russian pairs. I'd love to have seen S/K and V/T been at their full potential but it was not to be, not this year. T/M were lovely but they need to stand out more, I don't know what they need to do to make the judges notice them more. They were disappointing but in the end they got Russia three spots for pairs for next year. They are setting up for the 2018 Olympics in the next two seasons, and I can't wait to see what they produce!

 

[SarahSynchro]

One thing I've noticed about Trankov ubers is that to them, that man can do no wrong.

This is in direct comparison to D/R fans, who will always acknowledge that D/R aren't perfect and will post things such as: "We know that Meagan has said some negative things to the press about Maxim and she's far from an innocent party in this discussion, however, what Maxim had to say regarding Meagan was ... blahblahblah", etc.

:dev2:

 

[eli60056]

One thing I've noticed about Trankov ubers is that to them, that man can do no wrong.

This is in direct comparison to D/R fans, who will always acknowledge that D/R aren't perfect and will post things such as: "We know that Meagan has said some negative things to the press about Maxim and she's far from an innocent party in this discussion, however, what Maxim had to say regarding Meagan was ... blahblahblah", etc.

:dev2:

One thing I have noticed about Trankov's non-ubers is that they find a way to bash Trankov regardless of what he has said or hasn't said or did or hasn't done, based on whimsical speculations, hearsay, or just plain personal intuition, without any regard for the facts, with the simple excuse that "well, may be he did not say it exactly like that this time, but he has been unpleasant in previous cases, so it is all justified". Good thing people on the boards are not sitting on a jury with him being the defendant... Everyone makes mistakes, and Trankov is just like everyone else in that respect. The Russians in general are not very PC. But if one can't even understand well what he says and why he says it, in what context and so on (and I find it hard to believe that everyone has gone that deeply into his words on any occasion-they are in Russian after all and therefore less accessible to the majority), then how could one go out with a clear conscience on a crusade and start bashing him with the zeal I see so many times, when they can not be certain of their facts, just on a hearsay.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

Why did none medal with strong medal worthy performamces. Not gold but silver and bronze of course.
1. Bad coaching?
2. Did they all get sick?
3. We're they all injured?
4. Was it because it was in the US.
5. Was it because of all the scandals? Did judges not want to give any russian pairs medals?

I would say it's because they simply didn't perform well. S/K hadn't competed since winning GPF (where they arguably peaked early), V/T were in a comeback season (pre-competition I thought they would be given enough PCS for gold but obviously a negated lift and no SBS combo changes that).

I think sometimes instead of finding excuses for skaters, it's more productive to just chalk it up to them being human and having bad skates while others stepped up at the right time in a saturated pairs field.

And certainly T/M skated very well but we all knew they wouldn't medal.

 

[gmyers]

I would say it's because they simply didn't perform well. S/K hadn't competed since winning GPF (where they arguably peaked early), V/T were in a comeback season (pre-competition I thought they would be given enough PCS for gold but obviously a negated lift and no SBS combo changes that).

I think sometimes instead of finding excuses for skaters, it's more productive to just chalk it up to them being human and having bad skates while others stepped up at the right time in a saturated pairs field.

And certainly T/M skated very well but we all knew they wouldn't medal.

T/M skated well for pre sochi or even pre Vancouver. Where was their quad throw? Where was a quad twist? They were russian number three but they know that. Its their job to do things that make themselves one or two. So why no attempt at anything more difficult? Why did they choose to ingore what was happening.

The worst excuse for v/t and s/k non medaling is yours. "Being human" that is the worst. There are reasons they all failed at this worlds and being human is no answer to all the problems in lifts jumps and programs.

This pairs field was saturated in Russian mediocrity and technical regression and failure. Why?

 

[bramweld]

I don't know if this has been posted already. But I think it sums up well what we've all been saying. The question is what will the FED do going forward. Lastly, props to Vasiliev, the shade throwing at Trankov, Mozer and the FED is epic. But I must say, his words only confirm my suspicions, based on past interviews and actions.
http://fs-gossips.com/oleg-vasiliev-athlete-should-trust-a-coach-100/

 

[Ares]

Disaster? Only for Volosozhar / Trankov as they are current Olympic champions. Stolbova / Klimov were glad they managed to return to competition after that injury break for Fedor, they were unlucky as that was soon after getting momentum after winning GPF and becoming the main favourites for the title in Boston. As for Tarasova / Morozova ... I guess that they met expectations. I missed most Kavaguti / Smirnov there ... hopefully Yuko can recover before the new season and that they're finally done with that run of bad luck.

 

[Giselle]

Vasiliev throwing shade at Trankov & Mozer is nothing new but still entertaining

I found this part interesting:

Wasn’t it a mistake for Russian figure skating federation to sent three Nina Mozer’s pairs to the main competition of the season?

Oleg: Nothing would have changed if two Mozer’s pairs had gone to Boston and the third for a perspective. Russia would also have got three spots for the next season, but one of the young couples could have got an experience of a major tournament. That did not happen. Those, who familiar with the realities of national figure skating, will understand why.

I guess I prefer Moskvina's approach that if the younger teams want to compete at the big international competitions, they have to earn it and beat the more experienced teams.

 

[bramweld]

I hope that sending an injured Stolbova and Klimov was worth it. But then again I forget who was the first alternate for worlds? Who they also injured? Or just in Meldonium withdrawal? Hard to tell these days. Shade intended.

 

[gmyers]

Injuries should not be treated as flukes when almost everyone in a group is injured.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

T/M skated well for pre sochi or even pre Vancouver. Where was their quad throw? Where was a quad twist? They were russian number three but they know that. Its their job to do things that make themselves one or two. So why no attempt at anything more difficult? Why did they choose to ingore what was happening.

The worst excuse for v/t and s/k non medaling is yours. "Being human" that is the worst. There are reasons they all failed at this worlds and being human is no answer to all the problems in lifts jumps and programs.

This pairs field was saturated in Russian mediocrity and technical regression and failure. Why?

Uh, firstly I don't think it's fair to slam T/M for no quad element. Exactly how many quad elements did V/T perform... What was their technical upgrade - a 3S-1/2loop-2S (which Max didn't even execute at that)... Wowwww. :sarcasm: And where was S/K's throw quad that they've supposedly been working on? The obvious answer being, like T/M, they're not gonna try a difficult element like a quad in competition if they're not ready. Not only that, a quad wouldn't have even gotten T/M to the podium anyways.

Being human is certainly a reason. Or ice is slippery or whatever you want to call it. Not every competition is gonna be like GPF2015 for S/K or Sochi for V/T.

Maybe they should get a jump coach.