It's interesting to think about the different development methods for the young skaters, at least when it comes to their competitive programs. For some skaters, it appears as if they perform much too difficult content and move up higher and higher in difficult well before they are ready. Constantly pushing to advance further and further. But this has the downside of perhaps causing the skater to learn bad habits or "cheat" as they try to move up to more difficult content before they might have mastered the basics. This can lead to bad jumping habits, with incorrect edges for instance. On the other hand, some skaters seem to do a bit too simple content for their level where it seems like the focus is on doing that content as well as possible and trying to concentrate on getting the details and the basics right. But this method can backfire with the skater not being able to learn everything they might have the potential to. I believe it's rather important to have a balance.
On that topic, we have the 8-year-old
Uliana Vasilieva who in my opinion has an extremely light program considering her skill level. It's as if they only include stuff that she can perform more or less perfectly and it doesn't exactly challenge her. As a result, the level she competes at is very low and I don't even know if she is going to be participating in the Sports 2 category even next season. I also cannot get any decent hint about what her rotation speed is actually like. But it shouldn't be terrible judging by the combo jump and her especially gorgeous air rotation position. Regardless, I think she's a great jumping talent at this point in time. Though they are just double jumps, both the Lutz and the Flip are on the correct edges. The Lutz edge is especially deep.
And take a look at the height - For example the Flip
here. She's only 8 years and 2 months of age and that's already the height of a genuine JGP level triple jump. And not of the tiny variety. The axel looks like she also puts absolutely no effort into it and still gains enough air time for where some skaters might be able to perform a double axel. For the 2009 age category, no one else's jumps look like this this season, and it's doubtful she's even jumping as high as she could. I almost would feel very confident about her becoming the youngest skater to actually perform a fully rotated triple jump or at the very least the first 2009-born skater to(She has the elevation already), but I don't even know if she's going to be skating at a level where the triple jumps are allowed. But I do hope that she's going to continue improving the jump height and that she's able to maintain those proper edges on these jumps even after she upgrades to triple jumps.
As a side note, curious arm variation on the jumps. I wonder if that's something she plans on keeping. Would be more interesting than all the tanos at least.
It's hard to believe that Maria is still 17, and she is 5'8" !!!! That might height is the main obstacle for her further development and success. That is the same height as Hanyu and Javier, taller than Nathan, Boyang... It is much harder for her to have consistency in jumps, not to mention doings tons of transitions without exhausting herself. She will probably grow fuller in the next two years, so the future is not good for her. There's a reason why Eteri prefer relatively short and tiny girls— puberty will affect them much less.
Well, I think her biggest problem is that she's boring to watch. She needs to become a better performer.
