State of U.S. Ladies' skating 2016-17

[mish]

Under the current Russian regime, one cannot be critical or they will be punished. Therefore, I think everyone is cautious in what they so nothing can be interpreted critically.

If Putin's government with 80% of public trust is a "regime", then what is Obama's one with it's 20%?

 

[brightphoton]

What's the deal with Mirai? Injury? Nerves? Re-learning jumps?

 

[berry8]

I think how skaters relate to each other and poster's comments are a direct reflection of the person's culture.

In the USA, we have freedom of speech so everyone feels "entitled" to say what they think without any concern of the ramifications. Freedom of speech is nice, but I think it has gone a bit too far in current society.

Under the current Russian regime, one cannot be critical or they will be punished. Therefore, I think everyone is cautious in what they so nothing can be interpreted critically.

Then you have the Japanese culture. It truly is a polite society and "honor" is still valued. From what I gather, South Korea has a similar culture.

 

[mrrice]

What's the deal with Mirai? Injury? Nerves? Re-learning jumps?

Who knows.......At this point in her career, unless she's injured, I can't continue to give Mirai a pass on skating badly. She's not young anymore and the fact that she still has these meltdown performances is simply shocking. I love Gracie but, I feel the same way about her. Ashley Wagner is older, and at one point was far less talented technically than both Mirai and Gracie. Yet, she took control of her career and switched coaches and put herself into an environment that made her happy and her skating has continued to improve even though some would say that she is in twilight of her career.

Remember Nationals in 2010 and 2014? Mirai beat Ashley at BOTH of those events. When I attended Nationals in 2011. Mirai was on the podium and Ashley finished 6th!!! If Mirai wants to continue competing, the time is NOW for her to take control of her career or, she should step aside and let a younger, hungrier, skater take her place.

 

[temadd]

Okay that's great and all but even when Gracie has a good performance people tear her down. She led at words after a great short program and the comments were all "Overscored and Overrated," "She's gonna choke in the long, she's so overrated," "Ugh Gracie is such a horrible skater, she's so stiff," and things like that!!! She could have won the next day but everyone was negative about her being on top. There was no support, to this day I believe she was primed and confident and that she must have caught wind of some of these comments. It was apparent the next day she was browsing twitter. . . .

Anyways I am starting a new program called the Encouragement project for US skaters who are down on their luck. The first one is Gracie Gold.

I appreciate your "encouragement project" and I would be happy to join. But if Gracie is paying attention to what fans are saying about her DURING worlds or any competition (between the short and long) then she really needs a new coach who rips the electronics out of her hands and makes her focus on the task at hand.

I really don't feel like the negative comments are what caused her result in the long. I think it's all in her own head and she needs to find a way to work it out. All that positive support from Frank does not seem to help.

 

[Tolstoj]

I wish we could turn the "pressure" around to excitement at this possibility. I mean look at Evgenia, she's won so much yet she doesn't seemed pressued on the ice just excited to be there.

I think this is part of the magic of team tutberidze: work hard without overthinking, just skates clean everytime.

Evgenia fought a lot to earn some respect in Russia: at RN in 2014 judges screwed her just because she fell on the 3lo in the free skate...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqSBOMqq-qQ

...but she stayed consistent over the years to beat her rivals one after the other (Proklova got injured, she beat Sakhanovich and Sotskova two years ago and last year she beat Radionova)

In fairness i think the russian federation agree with your statement "turn the pressure to excitement", look at how they managed the gp assignments this season, especially for the junior ladies: every skater has one chance to get a medal, if you do the fed will allow you to go to another event to reach the final. For example Anastasiia Gubanova and Alina Zagitova were really terrible at nationals, but they won the first jgp event and then they got a medal on the second one and now their reputation have changed a lot.

The problem in US is more on the trainers: they have some really strange ideas on how these skaters should compete.

 

[Biellmann]

I think this is part of the magic of team tutberidze: work hard without overthinking, just skates clean everytime.
Evgenia fought a lot to earn some respect in Russia: at RN in 2014 judges screwed her just because she fell on the 3lo in the free skate...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqSBOMqq-qQ

...but she stayed consistent over the years to beat her rivals one after the other (Proklova got injured, she beat Sakhanovich and Sotskova two years ago and last year she beat Radionova)

In fairness i think the russian federation agree with your statement "turn the pressure to excitement", look at how they managed the gp assignments this season, especially for the junior ladies: every skater has one chance to get a medal, if you do the fed will allow you to go to another event to reach the final. For example Anastasiia Gubanova and Alina Zagitova were really terrible at nationals, but they won the first jgp event and then they got a medal on the second one and now their reputation have changed a lot.

The problem in US is more on the trainers: they have some really strange ideas on how these skaters should compete.

It didn't work for Yulia

 

[NAOTMAA]

It didn't work for Yulia

Puberty, injury, or both at the same time, can pretty much take out anybody no matter how hard they work

 

[ruffledgrouse]

fed by too much propaganda, Ilinykh gets bullied for her weight and trolled, Kovtun is heavily disliked and many other skaters criticisms too !

You've got to be kidding

I think fandom, sports culture, internet culture, etc are pretty universal- that includes the nasty side, unfortunatly. Frankly, we're all guilty to one degree or another. I just try to keep my ridiculousness quarantined in the forums where figure skaters don't tread.

 

[NAOTMAA]

I think one problem is that to be a success in many professions you have to be things (skinnier then normal, more muscular, etc.) that you don't have to be in normal regular life. So making these criticisms is like a double edge sword because Elena Ilinykh may look like she's in fabulous shape for a normal person in every day life but as a skater/athlete perhaps not so much. Gracie's own weight comments can be viewed in the same vein as well. Its hard for people observing on the sidelines to separate our average normal world feelings and the professional world being looked at.

But yes some people online do take it way too far

 

[qwerty]

I hope Mirai can recover from this. To have the tech panel tell her she was incapable of rotating a triple in her freeskate is pretty damning.

 

[ruffledgrouse]

It looks like the poor SP rattled Mirai quite a bit. She wasn't able to get over it and reverted back to her old self. That does happen quite a bit when somebody is going through a big change and not to mention someone who suffers from nerves and poor confidence. Hopefully she doesn't get too discouraged because she's made some great progress over the last season and half

Today in the KnC she was saying her boots felt too soft and that's why she was having trouble on the jumps. Tom pointed out that the boots weren't a problem in practice and she immediately went, "No, but even in practice-" before she was cut off by the scores. It seems clear to me that the boots are not the problem, but this sounds like a very old, very ingrained thought pattern for Mirai. hwell:

But if Gracie is paying attention to what fans are saying about her DURING worlds or any competition (between the short and long) then she really needs a new coach who rips the electronics out of her hands and makes her focus on the task at hand.

Not just during competition, in my opinion. IIRC, she retweeted a couple of comments about her free skate the weren't even @ her. Like, girl, how did you find these tweets and why were you looking? I don't google myself and I'm not even a celebrity- nothing but suffering lies down that road. Ashley did the smart thing during the Sochi blowup by shutting down her social media until the storm blew over. That may not be an option because of Gracie's brand and her endorsement obligations, but she can at least hand it over to someone on her team or a friend or family member to curate until she's in a better headspace.

 

[ruffledgrouse]

I think one problem is that to be a success in many professions you have to be things (skinnier then normal, more muscular, etc.) that you don't have to be in normal regular life. So making these criticisms is like a double edge sword because Elena Ilinykh may look like she's in fabulous shape for a normal person in every day life but as a skater/athlete perhaps not so much. Gracie's own weight comments can be viewed in the same vein as well. Its hard for people observing on the sidelines to separate our average normal world feelings and the professional world being looked at.

But yes some people online do take it way too far

I'd understand that if Elena was having stamina problems or couldn't get into lift positions or was sluggish on the ice (like how Gracie claims she's not jumping as well because she had more weight than she's used to), but I don't recall Elena being criticized for any of those things. If her weight isn't causing issues... then it isn't an issue.

 

[NAOTMAA]

I'd understand that if Elena was having stamina problems or couldn't get into lift positions or was sluggish on the ice (like how Gracie claims she's not jumping as well because she had more weight than she's used to), but I don't recall Elena being criticized for any of those things. If her weight isn't causing issues... then it isn't an issue.

I only used Elena in my post because she was mentioned in the posts above about her weight being bashed online. I haven't seen it myself to be fair : I did however in the Russian ice dance thread see a number of posts allude to the idea that she was out of competition shape and that she was having trouble with stamina at the end of programs.

 

[thoakun]

Today in the KnC she was saying her boots felt too soft and that's why she was having trouble on the jumps. Tom pointed out that the boots weren't a problem in practice and she immediately went, "No, but even in practice-" before she was cut off by the scores. It seems clear to me that the boots are not the problem, but this sounds like a very old, very ingrained thought pattern for Mirai. hwell:

I'm glad Tom said that. I remember at US Nats 15 (or 14?), her boots hit the board at the beginning of the program and prevented her from nailing the next jumps. In the KnC, Mirai said to Tom about that and it was a really a freak accident but looking at the interactions, I was under impression that she had always had an unhelpful thought pattern. Can he change her "fixed" mindset ? No one but Mirai knows her future.

 

[tinlizzie]

I love Mirai but "blame the boots" is becoming the norm from her. I'm not buying it.

 

[brightphoton]

There were so many white dresses at Skate Canada. How do white dresses look on the ice live? When I watched Gracie Gold with a white dress at Japan Open, I thought it was a little hard to see her because she blended in with the ice. The color is better for exhibitions, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWcNH22wTsk

At Skate Canada, we had 4 ladies with white dresses:
Mirai has a white dress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpXKA3qcXsg
Rika has a white dress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXFp4zLeE_I
Satako has a white dress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzrxXr6fFRE
and Yuka has a white dress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g6pKAq1nlM

 

[Tolstoj]

It didn't work for Yulia

Outside all the discussions about the puberty and injury, she was one of the earlier prototypes: Eteri, Sergei and Danil are still a young team and they hadn't the experience to fix earlier some of Julia's issues with some jumps. That said she is still a successful skater: JWC, European Champion, silver medalist at GPF and Worlds are big achievements, so i think it worked for quite a while.

 

[ruffledgrouse]

Outside all the discussions about the puberty and injury, she was one of the earlier prototypes: Eteri, Sergei and Danil are still a young team and they hadn't the experience to fix earlier some of Julia's issues with some jumps. That said she is still a successful skater: JWC, European Champion, silver medalist at GPF and Worlds are big achievements, so i think it worked for quite a while.

And her Olympic gold ain't too shabby either

 

[Nathan13]

Poor Mirai...She was a shoe-in for Bronze had she skated her best. I even saw her as a potential threat for Gold at US Nationals, but she's got to move past this to even contend for the podium. Hopefully she won't let it get to her too much (although I truly fear that she will).