- Joined
- Apr 26, 2018
I really don‘t know why people always seem to take it as an insult when youg skaters are compared to Medvedeva. Or why they always mean it as an insult when they make comparisons for that matter. For all her technical problems, Medvedeva after all has many favorable qualities that made her what she is now. World Champion and Olympic Silver Medalist and co. She has great work ethics which I think she inspired the other girls in her group with, especially Anna, who has been the longest with Eteri of the wonder trio. She also has great musicality and incredible mental grit and strength.
So, obviously Anna is technically advanced, she‘s got more difficult combos and the quad. But in general, yes, she reminds me of Evgenia and that‘s in fact one of the reasons why I like her so much. She has great musicality, she is very fragile looking but still radiates an aura of determination when she takes the ice. Body type wise, she looks pretty similar to a young Evgenia, I know people used to say of her too, that she was too thin and too small and everything when it was just the way she was naturally looking.
She has better rotational speed than Medvedeva had even in her junior years but similarly some edge issues even though they aren‘t as pronounced as Evgenia‘s were and still are. She flutzed pretty hard even in junior days whereas Anna‘s case is pretty weird. She sometimes has a flutz, then it‘s a flat edge and sometimes it looks even outside. Normally you see a flutz even from a bad angle, it never looks outside but rather flat if you‘re being generous. Recently Anna’s edges seem improved a bit, though, at least to my eye which is particularly unusual. Her spins are also wonderful. She has great flexibility in her positions and while I like some of the unique positions Alena and Nastya Tarakanova are doing, better, Anna‘s spins are definitely really, really good.
She also has mental strength, it‘s clear she wants to achieve a lot and she‘s actively working for it. Her problems in the SP aren‘t confidence issues to my mind but rather her not being completely restored. She was seriously injured after all.
I am fairly certain Anna‘s jumps will survive puberty. Whether she‘s the one I‘d have most faith in in keeping her jumps isn‘t as certain though. Sasha looks like someone who would even if she grew to be as tall as Polina. She has a combination of fast rotation and height as well.
Anna relies on rotational speed primarily, rather than height - at least on her triples and 2A - but her body type is favorable, genetics speak for her, too as her mom looks similar to her, figure wise. The only thing that could be critical to my mind would be injuries. She already had a fair share and she is training quads, too which are very dangerous. I hope she and her team are careful on her body so that she can survive many years in the senior ranks. This counts for Sasha as well. Of course, someone like Alena can also end up injured, no skater is immune to that and especially not if she starts training 3A again. But quads are on a whole different level. That’s in my opinion the only thing that could maybe prevent Anna, Sasha (and Alena as well) from rocking in the senior ranks. I hope they are careful and don‘t push their body too much if it tells them to stop. They can win without quads anyway.
Or Polina Tsurskaya with her lovely personality and gigantic jumps... But in the end I probably have to go with Elena Radionova. She has many things a skater shouldn‘t have... bad posture, flailing arms and cringe inducing programs. But it never mattered to me once I saw her take the ice because she had so much obvious joy and love for the sport and she was truly radiating it. She was human and she was real, which was another thing I liked. She wasn‘t afraid to show what she loved (Titanic for example, ugh) but also when she disliked something. She didn’t hide her feelings. The “Jaaaaack!“ at the end of the titanic program was still pretty bad, though. 
