To me it sounds like she feels betrayed because of Eteri not holding Zagitova back, which would be very selfish. That's why it looks bad. And it honestly doesn't matter so much what she actually meant for PR, it's all about how it sounds to the general public and that does sound pretty bad. If people read it the way I did, it's a very bad choice for PR.
On the topic of "I was a good student, I didn't get F", it sounds pretty... well, odd to me. When I think of a good student I think of someone who gets an A 90+% of the time.
A bit on russian schools.
Unlike many western schools, in Russia there is always a lot of homework. For example, when I moved to Brazil, I was *shocked* there is no homework at school - you just sit through classes, do an assignment or two and youre done. In my whole life, including all school and university, my 1st-3rd grades in Russia were the years when I did the most homework. Maybe this is outdated, so I asked my 11 years old nephew - yep, he spends between 3 and 5 hrs daily on his homework.
A nice detail is that tests are a very small portion of your grade. Most assignments are graded (you don't turn them in, you get an F). Class activity is also graded - so the teacher can ask you a question, and then give you and F if you do not know the answer.
Obviously, this is not compatible with elite training, because an athlete rarely has 8hrs a day just to study.
So athletes have it easier, much easier. This is, in part, the reason on why most of the younger ones do Physical Education at University, because it is where they can enter. The teachers usually support the kids who study in a regular school by reducing their study load - for example, they can "forgive" one's homework, or do not call to answer in class, leaving just tests. The kids who do not study in a regular school, it is just obviously easier. Ofc, in both cases, quality suffers.
For example, take Pogo:
http://www.mk.ru/social/2015/05/22/anna-pogorilaya-prishlos-nanyat-trekh-repetitorov.html
She says here she needed to hire 3 teachers to catch up to be able to get grades good enough to enter university at the unified state exam (and it was Physical Education, which is not very prestigious, consequentially not being very hard to pass).
So, from an average russian point of view, boasting about how she is a good student and how she is intelligent, and how you need to be intelligent to compete on top level sounds quite delusional. It is actually funny, coming from any athlete. In best case, it sounds extremely naive.
In Zhenya's defense, I can say that it is very likely that she pretty much never hanged out with regular kids who go to regular school, so she has no knowledge of what school actually is.
OFF: Russian grades range from 5 (best) to 1. 1 is very rarely given, so you have something like:
5 - excellent
4 - good
3 - tolerable (while it is still a "pass" grade, it is considered a bad grade overall)
2 - fail
Those also allow gradation, so you can get a 4+ for example, or a 5-.
In Zhenya's interview, she said that she does not get 2's.
As for "good student"... The way Zhenya worded it is very strange to me, because it makes no sense. The word she uses for good student, "хорошист", literally means that you get mostly 4's ("good student" that gets 4 - "good" grade mostly) with some 5's (A guy who get mostly 5's is called "отличник"), and pretty much no 3's. We are not even talking of not getting 2's or 1's here. So when it is followed by "I get no 2's", it is just weird, because a "хорошист" gets no 3's, you don't need to explain you don't get 2's.
For me, this sounds a lot like a metaphor for "I get a lot of 3's actually".
