2018-19 Russian Ladies' figure skating

[The Queen Of Quads]

I just realized a very funny thing: This new backloading rule is excellent for .... Sasha . Why? Because only chance for other skater to somehow close this HUGE gap between her and Sasha's TEC (without learning 3A and quads) was backloading every jump (for example, Kostornaya). Now they all have to jump their four jumps in the first half, while Tiny Boss will jump her quads and possibly 3A in the first half as well without fear to lose some points.

 

[Ice Dance]

Yes, it's good for her and for athletes like Kihira doing the triple axels. And it's good for those of us who want to see athletes rewarded for tackling the difficult jumps because we will likely see athletes driven to go for them. (Of course we'll probably see more splats for those as well so we'll see how we feel about it in the long run).

 

[*~RussianBleux~*]

Thanks for saying this. :agree:

Kostornaya is quite graceful and has far superior skating skills, but when it comes to projection and plain musical ability, Trusova's quite noticeably ahead.

Can you explain what you mean by musical ability and projection? The only program I have seen from Trusova where she came close to projecting anything was the Big Spender. The others were just skating around and jumping.

 

[BillNeal]

Yes, it's good for her and for athletes like Kihira doing the triple axels. And it's good for those of us who want to see athletes rewarded for tackling the difficult jumps because we will likely see athletes driven to go for them. (Of course we'll probably see more splats for those as well so we'll see how we feel about it in the long run).

I rather see falls on fully rotated in the air quads rather than those with excessive prerotation. Revised ISU bullet is addressing that and it's up to the judges to correctly apply it.

 

[50 Words for Snow]

Well last season was a little unusual for the russians cause Evgenia had to deal with several injuries which made her more vulnerable (but she still won everything until Europeans), Anna Pogorilaya and Elena Radionova used to be top contenders and they weren't last season.

Osmond deserved the gold at worlds no doubt, but the way the other post was written it implied that is normal to see more mature skaters winning worlds which isn't true if you look at this Olympic cycle.

2015 - Liza Tuktamysheva (18 yrs old)
2016 - Evgenia Medvedeva (15 yrs old)
2017 - Evgenia Medvedeva (16 yrs old)
2018 - Kaetlyn Osmond (22 yrs old)

I'm not going to mention previous Olympic cycles cause Ladies Figure skating used to be very different (Russia wasn't as dominant, Japan was still relying on Asada, Ando and Suzuki, performances were meh most of the time...)

Fair enough. :agree: Thanks for expanding on your earlier comments.

 

[colormyworld240]

I rather see falls on fully rotated in the air quads rather than those with excessive prerotation. Revised ISU bullet is addressing that and it's up to the judges to correctly apply it.

I doubt they will call anything 180 degrees prerotation or less. This issue isn't as big in men's, but all the top ladies' sheets would be littered with calls. I can't think of many ladies who prerotate their triples less than 180. Last season, Alina, Evgenia, Kaetlyn, Sotskova, and Satoko swept most major medals and all of them PR half a turn before leaving the ice. Same with Trusova and Kostornaia. If they do decide to reduce allowed PR to something like 90 degrees, I think we'd see a complete change in the hierarchy. I can't name many ladies who don't PR a ton - maybe Liza T. and Tsurskaya? Karen Chen? and Kostner. That's about all I can think of. So if most ladies get away with pre-rotating their triples, I think Trusova's half turn pre-rotated quads are fine.

 

[TripleAxelQueens3]

Wait... Masha prerotates? Her takeoff (in the toe jumps at least) looked fine to me, but I’m not an expert

 

[alvina9894]

I doubt they will call anything 180 degrees prerotation or less. This issue isn't as big in men's, but all the top ladies' sheets would be littered with calls. I can't think of many ladies who prerotate their triples less than 180. Last season, Alina, Evgenia, Kaetlyn, Sotskova, and Satoko swept most major medals and all of them PR half a turn before leaving the ice. Same with Trusova and Kostornaia. If they do decide to reduce allowed PR to something like 90 degrees, I think we'd see a complete change in the hierarchy. I can't name many ladies who don't PR a ton - maybe Liza T. and Tsurskaya? Karen Chen? and Kostner. That's about all I can think of. So if most ladies get away with pre-rotating their triples, I think Trusova's half turn pre-rotated quads are fine.

Sotskova doesn't. She takes off at around 90 degrees.

 

[colormyworld240]

Wait... Masha prerotates? Her takeoff (in the toe jumps at least) looked fine to me, but I’m not an expert

Her lutz and flip look good to me (less than 180) but her -3T is forward facing before she's off the ice. Her loop and salchow are also quite pre-rotated

 

[Amei]

I think they mean the part where she skates up to the boards and pretends she’s in a glass box and breaks the glass.

Thinking about it, I really hope that the third JGP will be held in a rink which has those tall clear panels at the boards. It’ll fit so well with her program.

(edit: I just googled the rink, and oh my gosh, there really will be clear panels there! https://goo.gl/images/Wpoz7u)

Maybe that’s the true reason why they wanted to send her to the third JGP.

That part reminded me of a Adelina Sotnikova's over-dramatic Lara Fabian program.

 

[Shayuki]

Wait... Masha prerotates? Her takeoff (in the toe jumps at least) looked fine to me, but I’m not an expert

She doesn't prerotate. Instead, she underrotates.

They're supposed to be more strict with URs the next season, right? I wonder how skaters such as this will get affected.

 

[skatenewbie]

She doesn't prerotate. Instead, she underrotates.

They're supposed to be more strict with URs the next season, right? I wonder how skaters such as this will get affected.

it might or might not affected her. Its depends on TP really, we have witnessed everything like SC to IdF/GPF where she can get 4 to 0 UR quick just like Satoko. Who would get actually hurt is the one who always got UR like Karen Chen imo.

 

[moriel]

A bit offtopic, but I wanted to say hi to Denis.
I have a question for you, what is the point of quoting quick translations of the article instead of commenting the article itself?

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

That part reminded me of a Adelina Sotnikova's over-dramatic Lara Fabian program.

But also THIS

 

[Sam-Skwantch]

Her lutz and flip look good to me (less than 180) but her -3T is forward facing before she's off the ice. Her loop and salchow are also quite pre-rotated

Everyone’s loop and salchow Jumps are “quite pre-rotated”. About 180 degrees is normal. It’s the nature of those jumps.

TBH the only PR I find to be of much concern is the 3t on the end of combos being so egregious that it’s basically a double jump. It’s not just Satoko either. :roll5:

IMO those should just be downgraded to 3-2 combos with wide open GOE at the judges discretion. For better or for worse and based on the judges live perception and subsequent TP review or upon request by at least one judge. That could be very interesting. Maybe not...seems like the judges legit have their head down for a surprising amount of time in order to mark their scores. Who knows what they see/miss.

 

[Shayuki]

Why would the judges need to have their head down to mark the scores? You can type without looking at the keyboard pretty easily ... That should be a minimum requirement for a judge in my opinion. But I guess for the people in charge, computers and keyboards are some "new digital nonsense".

I agree on many of the combo jumps... The air time's not there at all but they manage to jump the triple by pre-rotating the 3T by around 270 degrees. It's pretty ridiculous at times.

 

[moriel]

Why would the judges need to have their head down to mark the scores? You can type without looking at the keyboard pretty easily ... That should be a minimum requirement for a judge in my opinion. But I guess for the people in charge, computers and keyboards are some "new digital nonsense".

I agree on many of the combo jumps... The air time's not there at all but they manage to jump the triple by pre-rotating the 3T by around 270 degrees. It's pretty ridiculous at times.

Didn't you watch the congress and all the "USB drives are too complicated" discussion?

Now seriously, imho, the judging software should be made in such way that the judges dont have to type, just click with mouse. That is much easier and allows them to look straight at the monitors all time.

As for typing without looking, I will share an awful secret - there are different KB layouts, and it is really hard to type without looking when switching KBs.
I mean this: https://blog.typing.com/international-keyboards/
I can easily see how a french or a russian judge, perfectly capable of typing without looking at the keys on their "native" KB, could have major troubles to do the same with a different layout (I highly doubt that someone bothers to provide them with a native layout KB for competitions).

 

[chopinskate]

Her lutz and flip look good to me (less than 180) but her -3T is forward facing before she's off the ice. Her loop and salchow are also quite pre-rotated

3T always PRs between 90 and 180. No need to include that (and any edge jumps) with the correct technique for flip and lutz.

 

[[email protected]]

And there is nothing that proves it is true either. No definitive evidence or names.

The first part of the article is about speed skaters from the Netherlands who use this stuff big time and about how it helps to increase endurance. So it's kind of the same story as the dominance of skiiers from Norway all of whom use anti-asthma remedies. The article claims that the use of it by speed skaters is proven.

Then it goes into rumours territory shifting the focus to the Russian girls in figure skating. I don't think one should draw any conclusions based on that. I just hope this was not done as yet another episode of fighting with "evil Eteri's empire".

 

[[email protected]]

How many of those 15-17 year olds finished on the podium in every single competition they competed in the entire season, with as many or a greater number of competitions as Osmond? There are reasons why she is currently ranked #1 by the ISU, made up of her consistent competitive results from the past two seasons, and she deserves to garner greater respect.

Osmond was trailing Medvedeva in 2016-17 and both Medvedeva and Zagitova in 2017-18. So she was #2 and then #3 which, of course, is a good achievement which should "garner greater respect" - for the 2 consecutive seasons she was among top 3 skaters in the world.

Her current ranking, though, is temporary - she became the first because of the specific methodology used. And she will surely lose it after the GP series.