The thing is, we need to stop with this idea that skating skills should come first and foremost in a partnership - and skaters themselves should probably pay attention to this. I'm won't pretend I know all that goes through a skater's head when they want to end a partnership and the why, but we saw SO many of them not going further in any way because things just don't work out. I don't care if Shibnev had more of a smidge of a chance than Stavitskaya, the fact is that it didn't work out. In the same way Nikita and Elena didn't work out, and now Pavel and Alla.
I commented before, but I was horrified with some of the things I read on the interview with Popova/Mozgov, because it almost felt like they wanted the partnership to go south. I wonder how many other skaters have this mentality too, it's either do or die, it seems like there's no stepping stones to make their way to the top. I won't fault them for wanting better coaches, not even for wanting more attention, more care to hone their skills and improve, but sometimes I don't know how they expect to actually reach a higher place without putting the effort.
