Elena Ilinykh & Ruslan Zhiganshin

[Abraxis12345]

Lunkina and Osipova were Primas when they left. Some just get bored doing Grigorovich all the time.

Zhiganshina is a bit on the squat side for a ballerina but she has good presence. She's more suited to being a character dancer a la Kasatkina, Malkhasants and Antropova than she is Prima.

 

[Kitt]

Lunkina and Osipova were Primas when they left. Some just get bored doing Grigorovich all the time.

Zhiganshina is a bit on the squat side for a ballerina but she has good presence. She's more suited to being a character dancer a la Kasatkina, Malkhasants and Antropova than she is Prima.

Squat???!!!!! You cannot be serious!

 

[lauravvv]

Well she is young, ballerinas in Bolshoi are slow to make ranks. She is potentially a prima material. And I expect her to become soloist in 3-4 years. She is too good for corpse de ballet. The competition in Bolshoi or Mariinsky is high, anywhere else she would become prima in few years. Look at Osipova with Royal, Lunkina with Nartional Ballet of Canada, Kochetkova with San Francisco Ballet, Polina Semionova with Berlin Ballet (currently with Ameican Ballet Theater). They all left Mariinsky or Bolshoi, a,s they had hard time to advance in Russia because of high competition and overwhelming amount of talented girls. Kinda like a "bloodbath" or "civil war" in Ladies figure skating right now in Russia. Lol. Very similar situation of deep field. Actually very similar to Canadian hockey situation - such a deep field, there is no place for all those talented guys.

True, but at least at Bolshoi ballet dancers are seeminly promoted to higher ranks mor easily than at Mariinsky. They have a larger number of Ballerinas and Premieres, as well as different ranked soloists than at Mariinsky, although that is probably also because they have more ballets and more ballet "artists"/dancers overall. But I remember how Evgenia Obraztsova was not promoted to ballerina for quite some time in Mariinsky although a lot of people thought she deserved it, and then, after performing as a guest artist in some ballets at Bolshoi, she went straight to being a prima there. Then Julia Stepanova, who was a low ranked ballet dancer in Mariinsky for a long time despite having danced Firebird and other leading roles with great success, first went to a smaller theater (I actually know the name of the theater, and it's really well known, it's just very difficult to write in English) to be a soloist there (I don't know whether she was a prima, though), and then was invited to work in Bolshoi as a prima ballerina. Also, a couple of dancers have become primas at Bolshoi as a surprise to me because I did not think them all that great (for instance, Ekaterina Shipulina). Returning to the topic (well, sort of), having seen Zhiganshina in those fragments, I agree that she obviously deserves to become and is most likely going to become a soloist soon.

Well, sorry to everyone else for being so mostly off-topic.

 

[Alexz]

Lunkina and Osipova were Primas when they left. Some just get bored doing Grigorovich all the time.

Oh, true. You are right. Grigorovich is not all bad, but yeah, I can see how girls could get bored with his style.

Zhiganshina is a bit on the squat side for a ballerina but she has good presence. She's more suited to being a character dancer a la Kasatkina, Malkhasants and Antropova than she is Prima.

I think by standards of Bolshoi she won't make it further than soloist, but anywhere else she has a chance for prima.

 

[Alexz]

@Laura, agree on Shipulina....

 

[Marta25]

Draw for the Short Dance is out http://www.fsrussia.ru/results/1617/rusnat1617/SEG003.HTM

Elena and Ruslan will be skating third in the second group. Of the five teams who have a chance to get on the podium, they will be skating last, so I think it`s a good draw.

Technical panel are Andreeva, Novak and Samokhin.

 

[uhh]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOSBpZPh6M_/ practice photo

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOSWTdthMD1/ looking snappy for the draw!

I hope they can just skate their best and then we'll see where that lands them :clapper:

 

[bsfan]

A little bit out of current context. It seems S/K pretty much left Zueva. Is it a good idea that I/Z move to her? Am I crazy?

 

[lauravvv]

A little bit out of current context. It seems S/K pretty much left Zueva. Is it a good idea that I/Z move to her? Am I crazy?

Perhaps you are not crazy, but, considering that apparently they really left Shpilband for financial reasons, I don't think it's really an option - at least not until they start showing really good results with the coaches that they have right now, as maybe then the Russian Federation would be willing to support them more and/or they could probably find a new sponsor.

 

[uhh]

I'm not sure she would be a great choreographer for them - she's most comfortable doing love and emotion themed choreo, whereas I think I/Z are strongest when they do character driven dances. When Marina couldn't rely on love story stuff for the Shibs, she really struggled. Their success came when they started working a lot with other choreographers, which is a big added expense. Marina would be really good for improving basics and skating skills, but I don't think that's the area Lena and Rus need most work on.

Aside from financial considerations, they also came back to Russia because they were more comfortable being in a smaller group where they get more ice time to themselves and more of the coaches attention. Marina doesn't have as many teams as Igor, but it's a much bigger group than Kustarova's.

 

[Ares]

I'm not sure she would be a great choreographer for them - she's most comfortable doing love and emotion themed choreo, whereas I think I/Z are strongest when they do character driven dances. When Marina couldn't rely on love story stuff for the Shibs, she really struggled. Their success came when they started working a lot with other choreographers, which is a big added expense. Marina would be really good for improving basics and skating skills, but I don't think that's the area Lena and Rus need most work on.

Aside from financial considerations, they also came back to Russia because they were more comfortable being in a smaller group where they get more ice time to themselves and more of the coaches attention. Marina doesn't have as many teams as Igor, but it's a much bigger group than Kustarova's.

Who is now with Marina? It seems that there
were quite many teams leaving her in recent years, or is it just me?

 

[Marta25]

I`m also against I/Z using Zueva as a choreographer. Her stuff can be very, very generic and we saw with Appassionata that this doesn`t work at all for I/Z. I hope that they can work with Najarro on next year`s Latin Short Dance. The last time ISU chose Rhumba as a rhythm, Bobrova/Soloviev were still with Kustarova and the dance she gave them was a mess, so my hope is that they can get some good ballroom dancers to work with I/Z. It would be also great if they could again work with the Shpilband team, maybe this time only for a few weeks. He has really helped them in creating programs/elements that receive higher GOE and PCS.

 

[uhh]

Who is now with Marina? It seems that there
were quite many teams leaving her in recent years, or is it just me?

Shibs, Muller/Dieck, Muramoto/Reed are her main senior teams I think, plus Patrick Chan & then Nathan Chen part time, and several junior teams. Then she also works with some of the Chinese teams in the off season, and does choreography for multiple singles skaters and dance teams. Massimo Scali who is part of the Arctic Edge team is still listed on C/L's profile as well. I've probably forgotten other teams; she doesn't have the big stars like she did with V/M & D/W, but she still coaches a lot.

I wish the ISU did coach profiles like the skater ones!

 

[Marta25]

They are 4th after the Short Dance. From the three teams who are competing for silver and bronze all received a boost in the PCS with the exception of I/Z. I/Z had a better base value than S/K, but due to lower PCS and GOE are behind them. I don`t want to be pessimistic but I just don`t think the Russian judges will put them on 3rd. The positive side is that it was a great and clean performance.

 

[ppoison]

They are 4th after the Short Dance. From the three teams who are competing for silver and bronze all received a boost in the PCS with the exception of I/Z. I/Z had a better base value than S/K, but due to lower PCS and GOE are behind them. I don`t want to be pessimistic but I just don`t think the Russian judges will put them on 3rd. The positive side is that it was a great and clean performance.

yeah i feel the same. looks like this is going to be like last year's nationals I hope Ruslena can have a clean free skate tomorrow and get started on their Olympic season programs ;_____;

 

[uhh]

Ugh. I'm pretty sure they are the only team in the world to get lower GOE and PCS at nationals than they do internationally.

 

[elif]

I/Z scored 1.20-1.56 GOE for their lift on grand prixs. S/B scored 1.20-1.46 GOE. In russian nationals I/Z scored their lower GOE (1.20) while S/B scored 1.71 which is almost perfect. (1.80) Internationally we see this score from V/M, P/C. Even at world championships it is very rare for other couples. I/Z can score 1.20 easily on international stage, S/B's 1.71 is very very hard. 0.5 point from there, 1 point from PCS. I don't think free dance going to be different.

What I/Z had to do is get technical elements so good even national judges can't underscore

1.Try catch foot twizzzles. I never like holding leg up twizzles. They look slow even If they are not.
2. Change all lifts, new positions, big ice covarage on lifts. It is huge work but needed to be done. She did on 2014, she can next year.
3. Find good idea for free dance. Najorro and ballet can be good.

 

[Marta25]

So, I always thought that this was a nuts idea, but... how about changing countries?

In what world do S/K and S/B have better skating skills than Elena and Ruslan? It can`t be that the international judges love them more than their own national judges. And those scores for B/S and S/B? Yeah, good luck getting them with an international judging panel.

I/Z were totally screwed over in the GOE and PCS department. They are not getting that 3rd place unless S/K are making a mistake.

Elena looked very, very angry and disappointed and I can understand her, this isn`t about skating or having good programs anymore.

 

[bwayrose7]

So, I always thought that this was a nuts idea, but... how about changing countries?

In what world do S/K and S/B have better skating skills than Elena and Ruslan? It can`t be that the international judges love them more than their own national judges. And those scores for B/S and S/B? Yeah, good luck getting them with an international judging panel.

I/Z were totally screwed over in the GOE and PCS department. They are not getting that 3rd place unless S/K are making a mistake.

I genuinely don't understand why the fed completely seems to have dumped I/Z, and in favor of S/K, no less, who seem like a ticking time bomb. Is it purely because of last season's inconsistencies?

What other countries could they skate for, though? Since they're both native Russians, are they not?

 

[uhh]

I'm starting to agree, Marta. There's no point doing it now because Olympic eligibility rules mean they still wouldn't be able to go to 2018 for another country, but if nothing has changed by then and considering Lena said they want to go until at least 2022, they should switch to Kazakhstan. They both have ties to the country and they wouldn't be left at home for the 2nd half of the season each year.