2019-20 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[flanker]

I think Alina took a real hard blow at NHK when Aliona showed her full potential, and went KO at GPF.
She's never been really strong minded and constantly skating at her best.
She won it all because she had bigger potential, but she even end up losing to Samodurova for example.

Pairing her with Kostornaia may have looked the best option because of no quads, but she ended up being bested in every aspects (no weapons or angles to fight)

She's always been the gir to beat until now
She needs new motivation and a new way to look at competing.

Zenya could beat Sasha if she delivered a rostelecom quality skate.
Totally possible, cause she showed to be a real fighter who love skating above everithinf else in life.
But, being the one to select the teams, I would send Sasha anyway.

That's some BS. There is no other skater who was forced to skate 3 consecutive seasons against such pressure, doubts and disfavor as Alina in the recent years. To be able to train in the Eteri's group she, being just a little girl, was forced to live in a strange city without parents for years. During her junior season she definitely wasn't a favourite, she entered the scene as literally nobody, very few people knew about her. The favourite of junior 2016/2017 season was Marin Honda as a defending junior worlds champion and even among the Russians there were Gubanova and Tsurskaya who were taken as potential medal bringers. And Alina had to show everything possible to break through.

Than the olympic season came. And again at the start of the season, she had some name now, but was taken as the No. 2 at best and only through the season she gained true reputation. During her first competitions she struggled with the SP and always had to prove strong mind in the free when she was usually 4th or 5th after the first segment. That's something impossible without having a strong mind.

And the 2018/2019 season, all that "she's done, she will not win anything again", struggles with body changes, injury, pain, are you truly saying that she could overcome this and become the world champion at those circumstances "being not really strong minded"? Shame.

If she needs to take a break, it does not show she is a weakling as you portray her, it just shows she is a human. Unfortunately other humans consider the limits of humanity as a weakness, because somehow they think that will show their favorites in better light. It doesn't. BTW Kostornaia was also "even defeated by Sofia", does that make her "weak minded"? And what does that sayas about how you see Sofia herself?

 

[Alex65]

This year perhaps might be an anomaly, the decision to go strictly with the top 3 finishers is extremely easy given that the top 3 all won gold at their 2 GP events, 2 of the 3 won their Challenger events (1 didn't go to 1) and the same 3 swept the GPF podium. Plus the 2 skaters (Medvedeva and Zagitova) most capable of challenging those 3 based on a ridiculously high PCS mark both withdrew from nationals and stated their seasons were done. It would have been interesting had Mevedeva and Zagitova competed at Nationals to see where they all finished and how the Fed would have selected them teams, would they have went with Shcherbakova/Kostornaia/Trusova or would they have given a nod to 1 of their decorated seasoned senior skaters based on past medals.

How much does the second alternative really matter outside of a nice prize for skating well at nationals?

In hindsight, I do think Alina had it in her to overtake Sasha at Nationals. I wonder what RusFed would've done in that situation ... send your reigning OGM/WGM who placed 3rd at Nationals, or the new quad prodigy who seemed fated to be the next World Champion ... but finished 4th at Nationals.

I always thought that at least one of 3A would be susceptible to being overtaken by one of the veterans. And honestly, Zhenya without her boot issues or Alina without her motivation issues could've clinched the bronze at Nationals. However, we don't know what issues Alina's had with motivation or injuries or even just fatigue. Her GP performances wouldn't have been good enough to beat even a weakened Sasha. Last season's Alina definitely would've been good enough though.

I think Alina pulled the plug prematurely, as her best could have topped what Sasha showed at Nationals and Euros. However, I'm not sure if even being the third best Russian would be satisfactory for an Olympic champion.

Ha. All this talk about leaving Sasha at home and sending Alina or Zhenya is just ridiculous to hear. Rusfed should be just a fool to do this with his best young skater. Leaving home a potential world champion who has every chance of winning would mean casting doubt on her entire future career. They did this with Tukt last year, but there was a completely different situation, and only by miracle Rusfed avoided a huge amount of criticism, thanks to the podium of Medvedeva. All this chatter now is just the cry of fans dreaming about what would happen if ... if ...

 

[lusterfan]

Ha. All this talk about leaving Sasha at home and sending Alina or Zhenya is just ridiculous to hear. Rusfed should be just a fool to do this with his best young skater. Leaving home a potential world champion who has every chance of winning would mean casting doubt on her entire future career. They did this with Tukt last year, but there was a completely different situation, and only by miracle Rusfed avoided a huge amount of criticism, thanks to the podium of Medvedeva. All this chatter now is just the cry of fans dreaming about what would happen if ... if ...

At least personally, I wasn't really meaning to say Alina or Zhenya or anyone deserved to go to Worlds more than Sasha. Sasha has the most potential and it would be a shame if she couldn't go. Just from a hindsight perspective, I was wondering how RusFed would've handled the situation. Fact is, Sasha underperformed at Nationals. Hypothetically, Alina or Zhenya could've handily scored higher. I was just wondering what would happen in that scenario. We can all argue what if Alina didn't take a break, what if Anna didn't fall on her quads at GPF, what if Sasha landed all her quads - that's not my point. Just from seeing Sasha's score at Nationals (and Euros too), that was a score that Alina or Zhenya has beaten and could've beaten, so I was just entertaining the idea that had it happened, I wonder what would've been the result.

And honestly it might even be reality next season or the Olympic season. 3A will not be 100% infallible in every competition, and Alina or Zhenya or Liza or anyone could get lucky (deserved or not). With so many ladies vying for limited spots, I can only imagine how much crazier it will get. Will RusFed bank on the newcomer's potential or the veteran's consistency?

 

[Edwin]

Davydov said she hadn't recovered yet. They hope to compete at Russian Cup Final.

RIA Novosty agency made some phone calls:

“ Viktoriya (Vasil'yeva) doesn’t go to the championship because she hasn’t fully recovered yet. Her problems are related to age-related changes. She is training, she just hasn’t gotten back in shape. She can’t sustain a big load yet, so she’s working sparingly. But the Cup of Russia Final is in our plans. She’s already performing the jumps, so we hope that Vika will perform this season ”, Davydov answered over the phone"

“ She (Anastasiya Tarakanova) does not have time to prepare for the Cup, as she sprained her foot a month ago ”, Panova said over the phone.

No information as to why Varvara Kisel' had to withdraw?

 

[siela]

Would you care to provide a link please?

Here is the document: https://fsrussia.ru/files/docs/competition_regulation1920_revised.pdf
You can find the quotas at the bottom of page 10.

 

[VenusHalley]

Ha. All this talk about leaving Sasha at home and sending Alina or Zhenya is just ridiculous to hear. Rusfed should be just a fool to do this with his best young skater. Leaving home a potential world champion who has every chance of winning would mean casting doubt on her entire future career. They did this with Tukt last year, but there was a completely different situation, and only by miracle Rusfed avoided a huge amount of criticism, thanks to the podium of Medvedeva. All this chatter now is just the cry of fans dreaming about what would happen if ... if ...

Sasha may have best chance of winning... but this is third competition in row she did not win. With.Rika's Lutz even podium is not certainty at this point.

Yeah Alina took break. I don't think she'd beaten Sasha at Rusnats though... Like Sasha she had not been clean this season and she was simply tired of the drill... Evgenia on the other hand... but it was not meant to be.

Is there some junior wundekid turning senior next season? Because that could change a lot.

 

[Tolstoj]

Wow, that’s some fact twisting on the next level.
Enlighten me, which rules exactly did Alisa break? And better, provide me with a rule book and point which chapter and clause was the one that she did not follow through.

Ok, enough of this nonsense.
Where are you getting you info from?
According to Alisa, interview of whom I just re-read, she didn’t switch mid season, she tried to do it over the summer, because she did not progress under Mishin for a year and he also did not take her in his summer camp, whereas he took everyone else, but her. She was essentially left alone without coaches. According to Alisa herself.
(and plus even if she tried doing it mid season, switching mid-season is also allowed in some cases, again, FYI.)

And when she was forced to go back, again, not because she broke any rules, but because “Saint Petersburg did not want to lose a promising skater” (a quote from Alisa’s interview, she also says they weren’t provided an explanation), she was later dismissed by Mishin, who also went a step further and told other coaches not to take her.
If that does not count as “Mishin wanting to get rid of her, I don’t know what will”.

it’s baffling to me that you’re trying to turn everything upside down.
You never said “Other cases aren’t as big bla bla”, your literal words are:
“The only groups where you hear about early retirements of single skaters at this very top level are Sambo-70 and CSKA.”

Facts are, that’s not true. Those are not the “only groups” (and calling them groups is also wrong, those aren’t groups). Also, it depends on what you personally consider to be a top level apparently, not what’s actually is a top level? you have your own very special criteria, which is very convenient just to prove your point, right?

I'm not twisting facts, it's more like you misread a lot.

I want also to highlight that from the very beginning of this discussion i said that we should keep discussing more about Alena Kanysheva, the rest is either speculation and old news regardless of how you want to see it.

it’s baffling to me that you’re trying to turn everything upside down.
You never said “Other cases aren’t as big bla bla”, your literal words are:
“The only groups where you hear about early retirements of single skaters at this very top level are Sambo-70 and CSKA.”

Read above, i said i stand by it, to me that is true. Sambo-70 and CSKA gave up on skaters that were ready to compete at the highest level. Kanysheva could have had at least another good season in juniors and in many aspects she was a better skater than Khromykh and Usacheva.

The other cases from other groups were either coming from a really bad season so low expectations anyway, or not competitive without big changes on their fundamentals.

Ok, enough of this nonsense.
Where are you getting you info from?
According to Alisa, interview of whom I just re-read, she didn’t switch mid season, she tried to do it over the summer, because she did not progress under Mishin for a year and he also did not take her in his summer camp, whereas he took everyone else, but her. She was essentially left alone without coaches. According to Alisa herself.
(and plus even if she tried doing it mid season, switching mid-season is also allowed in some cases, again, FYI.)

And when she was forced to go back, again, not because she broke any rules, but because “Saint Petersburg did not want to lose a promising skater” (a quote from Alisa’s interview, she also says they weren’t provided an explanation), she was later dismissed by Mishin, who also went a step further and told other coaches not to take her.
If that does not count as “Mishin wanting to get rid of her, I don’t know what will”.

That's the news that came out at the time, and there even was a photo from Alisa with other Eteri students. It's highly possible that was the reason why then Mishin trash talked her to other coaches. It's hard to ask for the receipts in this age of russian articles suddenly getting removed (and journalists getting fired) especially the more controversial ones on Sambo70.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BPYSA9pBP0W/?taken-by=yak__1
https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/showthread.php?58599-Alisa-Lozko/page4&p=1654610#post1654610

(If you read her fanfest thread, note that i was actually supporting her move to Sambo70)

There are internal rules within the federation, or inside the club and even made by the coaches, and you have to follow those guidelines, athletes usually sign contracts about they can or cannot do or even say in public which makes some of the interviews/press conference not as sincere, or the typical PR speaking. That's why coaches get mad when skaters don't talk to them before leaving, it happens so many times in Figure Skating even at Khrustalny.

Though I do believe the part where SPB forced her to stay there was true.

Like i said, her situation is very similar to what happened to Daria Panenkova at Sambo70.

According to you, Alisa isn’t top level, because her jumping isn’t to your liking (although she had medals at jgps). Riiiight.

For like the 5th time, Wrong! I'll try to write this as clear as possible.

- Alisa Lozko had ONE medal in JGP (not medalS) which was a bronze in the weakest field of JGP that year.

- Her score at that event where she medalled was the LOWEST across all podiums of that season in Junior GP and Senior GP.

Her scores were also the LOWEST across all russian ladies competing in juniors that year.

St Gervais
1 Alina ZAGITOVA 194.37
2 Kaori SAKAMOTO 178.86
3 Rin NITAYA 175.01

Ostrava
1 Anastasiia GUBANOVA 185.59
2 Rika KIHIRA 185.51
3 Alisa LOZKO 162.28

Yokohama
1 Kaori SAKAMOTO 187.81
2 Marin HONDA 184.11
3 Mako YAMASHITA 182.43

Saransk
1 Polina TSURSKAYA 183.73
2 Stanislava KONSTANTINOVA 175.20
3 Elizaveta NUGUMANOVA 173.13

Ljubljana
1 Rika KIHIRA 194.24
2 Marin HONDA 178.75
3 Alina ZAGITOVA 177.38
(5 Alisa LOZKO 159.59)

Tallinn
1 Polina TSURSKAYA 194.02
2 Elizaveta NUGUMANOVA 188.43
3 Mako YAMASHITA 184.06

Dresden
1 Anastasiia GUBANOVA 194.57
2 Yuna SHIRAIWA 176.66
3 Eunsoo LIM 173.21

So yes i believe firmly that Alisa Lozko was NOT competitive in that state, her protocols were consistently full of underrotations, downgrades and edge calls.

Like i said her technique needed a major rework to be able to compete in Russia with the other girls.

Does this mean those results were universally bad? no, but with the standards the other russian girls set, hers were the lowest weakest results.

It's not that i don't like her jumps, JUDGES and RESULTS showed this.

 

[Scott512]

I think Alina pulled the plug prematurely, as her best could have topped what Sasha showed at Nationals and Euros. However, I'm not sure if even being the third best Russian would be satisfactory for an Olympic champion.

Agreed. But we have to be honest the Navka show was a big deal for Alina and she had to train hard for that and that would have interfered with her training for Nationals. As it turned out the show was a big success for Alina.

In hindsight, I do think Alina had it in her to overtake Sasha at Nationals. I wonder what RusFed would've done in that situation ... send your reigning OGM/WGM who placed 3rd at Nationals, or the new quad prodigy who seemed fated to be the next World Champion ... but finished 4th at Nationals.

I always thought that at least one of 3A would be susceptible to being overtaken by one of the veterans. And honestly, Zhenya without her boot issues or Alina without her motivation issues could've clinched the bronze at Nationals. However, we don't know what issues Alina's had with motivation or injuries or even just fatigue. Her GP performances wouldn't have been good enough to beat even a weakened Sasha. Last season's Alina definitely would've been good enough though.

Alina could have surpassed Sasha if she put in the training and with that big show she was doing around Christmas it was no way she could put in the hardcore training she normally would.

It will be interesting to see if she comes back competitively next season. I hope Alina does even if she doesn't have a quad or triple axel. If she's not on the Russian a team and it's on the Russian B team that won't matter a bit to me.

 

[Scott512]

RIA Novosty agency made some phone calls:

“ Viktoriya (Vasil'yeva) doesn’t go to the championship because she hasn’t fully recovered yet. Her problems are related to age-related changes. She is training, she just hasn’t gotten back in shape. She can’t sustain a big load yet, so she’s working sparingly. But the Cup of Russia Final is in our plans. She’s already performing the jumps, so we hope that Vika will perform this season ”, Davydov answered over the phone"

“ She (Anastasiya Tarakanova) does not have time to prepare for the Cup, as she sprained her foot a month ago ”, Panova said over the phone.

At least VVs puberty issues are handled in a nice way. Buyanova could learn from this. She made it sound like Gubanova was way overweight when it was puberty issues . But Nastia kept skating the last couple years through all growth issues and adding weight and muscle and she skated pretty well too. So why can't Viktoria do the same?

 

[McBibus]

That's some BS. There is no other skater who was forced to skate 3 consecutive seasons against such pressure, doubts and disfavor as Alina in the recent years. To be able to train in the Eteri's group she, being just a little girl, was forced to live in a strange city without parents for years. During her junior season she definitely wasn't a favourite, she entered the scene as literally nobody, very few people knew about her. The favourite of junior 2016/2017 season was Marin Honda as a defending junior worlds champion and even among the Russians there were Gubanova and Tsurskaya who were taken as potetial medal bringers. And Alina had to show everything possible to break through.

Than the olympic season came. And again at the start of the season, she had some name now, but was taken as the No. 2 at best and only through the season she gained true reputation. During her first competitions she struggled with the SP and always had to prove strong mind in the free when she was usually 4th or 5th after the first segment. That's something impossible without having a strong mind.

And the 2018/2019 season, all that "she's done, she will not win anything again", struggles with body changes, injury, pain, are you truly saying that she could overcome this and become the world champion at those circumstances "being not really strong minded"? Shame.

If she needs to take a break, it does not show she is a weakling as you portray her, it just shows she is a human. Unfortunately other humans consider the limits of humanity as a weakness, because somehow they think that will show their favorites in better light. It doesn't. BTW Kostornaia was also "even defeated by Sofia", does that make her "weak minded"? And what does that sayas about how you see Sofia herself?

Forgive my poor english and choice of words.
I did not meant Alina is a weak person.
This is a non sense for every top level athlete considering the amount of work and sacrifice it requires, even if everything goes the best way (and it does not usually happens the easy way)

I just wanted to point out that the spread between a good and a bad performance for Alina is high and we often see top and bottom in the span of few week bewteen one competition and another.
Since she got senior, she's been number one to me, meaning that if she did her best she would finish on top.
Only Rika last year proved to have the ability to overscore her.

As for losing to Samodurova, it's not a shame of course, she's been a very consistent skater especially last year when she won EU.
But Sofia is not Rika or Zenya and if a girl with 240 potential loses to one who never hit 220 she just skated under par.
Nothing more than that.

I'm curious tought if you agree that the pairing with Aliona, that would have seem the best at the start of the season (I would have done the same choice in Eteri's clothes) turned up to be the worst possible, not just for the scores.
I missed her at EU and will miss her at WC, same for Zenya and Liza.
Even Sofia would deserve to defend her title.
There are so many talented girls in Russia now that selection, no matter how it's done will steal the dreams of some very good skaters and leave us fans whit a sour sensation.

 

[Scott512]

Ha. All this talk about leaving Sasha at home and sending Alina or Zhenya is just ridiculous to hear. Rusfed should be just a fool to do this with his best young skater. Leaving home a potential world champion who has every chance of winning would mean casting doubt on her entire future career. They did this with Tukt last year, but there was a completely different situation, and only by miracle Rusfed avoided a huge amount of criticism, thanks to the podium of Medvedeva. All this chatter now is just the cry of fans dreaming about what would happen if ... if ...

Sasha is going to worlds unless she gets injured in practice. Then Liza would go if that happened. Zhenya and Alina have ended their seasons. and you're right Sasha does have a chance to win worlds gold this year if Aliona or Anna slip up. Rika is also a threat to win gold if the top two Russians don't get the job done. Sure Sasha is sort of a wild-card at the moment what are upside and scoring potential is still off the charts if she can nail her free skate.

 

[lesnar001]

whole post

Thank you for clarifying your thoughts.
I misunderstood your first post too.

Somehow I don't think that Eteri had in her mind to make things easy for Alina.
Why would she want to sacrifice any of her upcoming seniors for Alina's benefit?
I'm sure she was hoping for a clean sweep of GP gold medals, which is exactly what happened.

The only surprising thing to me during the season is that Sasha ended up being the most "vulnerable" to being defeated.
Yet, the only ones to beat her were still only Anna and Aliona.

Alina and Rika had the scoring potential to beat her at GPF, but they did not skate their best either.

 

[Alex65]

Sasha is going to worlds unless she gets injured in practice. Then Liza would go if that happened. Zhenya and Alina have ended their seasons. and you're right Sasha does have a chance to win worlds gold this year if Aliona or Anna slip up. Rika is also a threat to win gold if the top two Russians don't get the job done. Sure Sasha is sort of a wild-card at the moment what are upside and scoring potential is still off the charts if she can nail her free skate.

I will say: Alena and Anna won only because Sasha slip up, as you say.

 

[NadezhdaNadya]

All 3 girls went to Senior B competitions and won. I have no idea why here is written that only 2 of them did.

 

[Jontor]

I just realised that Tuktamysheva won the Challenger Series again this season. It's her 5th win out of the 6 seasons the Challenger Series has existed (in 2018 she came 3rd),

http://www.isuresults.com/events/cs2019/csladies.htm

I wonder if there is a prize of some kind for the overall winner??

 

[Jontor]

I will say: Alena and Anna won only because Sasha slip up, as you say.

That is not completely true. In fact Trusova's 3 quad layout is only equal to Kostornaia's 3A layout. Kostornaia makes up the difference with great GOE and much higher PCS.

And Sasha's 4 quad layout is only equal to Anna's 3 quads. Anna has much higher difficulty in her program and also higher PCS.
For example if Sasha had gone clean at RusNats and landed those 3 quads she missed, with a GOE of +3 she would have scored +33.13 points. That is still behind Anna who we mustn't forget lost about 4-5 points on her 4F.

The only way Sasha can beat the other two if they are clean, is with a clean 5 quad program, and that is extremely difficult.

I would say that Sasha's best chance is to keep the 3 quad layout and introduce a couple of 3A's. Then she will win.

 

[Arbitrary]

That is not completely true. In fact Trusova's 3 quad layout is only equal to Kostornaia's 3A layout. Kostornaia makes up the difference with great GOE and much higher PCS.

And Sasha's 4 quad layout is only equal to Anna's 3 quads. Anna has much higher difficulty in her program and also higher PCS.
For example if Sasha had gone clean at RusNats and landed those 3 quads she missed, with a GOE of +3 she would have scored +33.13 points. That is still behind Anna who we mustn't forget lost about 4-5 points on her 4F.

The only way Sasha can beat the other two if they are clean, is with a clean 5 quad program, and that is extremely difficult.

I would say that Sasha's best chance is to keep the 3 quad layout and introduce a couple of 3A's. Then she will win.

Nop.
Maximized attempted Sasha's FP is the winner.
Unfortunately we're yet to see it.
Five quads are the five quads and three quads are only three. And four different quads vs two different quads this is to decide.

Judges would not dare to kill clean Sasha with her usual dead PCS.

 

[Deripashka]

Guys, I have a question which is not much connected to russian ladies in fs, but I dont want to create new thread for trivial thing. We want to visit Moscow in half of september and I was wondering if there will be some fs event there in september?
Also, I would like to know, if somebody have experience, its good idea to buy tickets to museums and attractions through internet, or its not so crowded there in half of september? I wouldnt be happy to spent half of week in rows for tickets.

 

[flanker]

Forgive my poor english and choice of words.
I did not meant Alina is a weak person.
This is a non sense for every top level athlete considering the amount of work and sacrifice it requires, even if everything goes the best way (and it does not usually happens the easy way)

I just wanted to point out that the spread between a good and a bad performance for Alina is high and we often see top and bottom in the span of few week bewteen one competition and another.
Since she got senior, she's been number one to me, meaning that if she did her best she would finish on top.
Only Rika last year proved to have the ability to overscore her.

As for losing to Samodurova, it's not a shame of course, she's been a very consistent skater especially last year when she won EU.
But Sofia is not Rika or Zenya and if a girl with 240 potential loses to one who never hit 220 she just skated under par.
Nothing more than that.

I'm curious tought if you agree that the pairing with Aliona, that would have seem the best at the start of the season (I would have done the same choice in Eteri's clothes) turned up to be the worst possible, not just for the scores.
I missed her at EU and will miss her at WC, same for Zenya and Liza.
Even Sofia would deserve to defend her title.
There are so many talented girls in Russia now that selection, no matter how it's done will steal the dreams of some very good skaters and leave us fans whit a sour sensation.

You saw Alina at the top for 3 and half seasons (1 junior, 2 full senior and half of the other one), and there were truly only a few competitions where she didn't need at least one perfect skate. Any of the 3A can usually afford even some serious mistake and still win with the exception when they compete with each other and maybe Rika. Alina could hardly afford that. That's hard for the mind.

As for the 3A, you see them in the situation Alina was before the olympics - winning everything, seemingly unbeatable. The stress, the expectations to repeat their successes, the impact of some not exactly friendly "fans of figure skating", the impact of growth, all that still lies before them. As I am a fan of 3A, I think I can say the true challenge lies still before them. It looks easy when you are at the summit, but the true strength of the character shows rather in the situation when the things are not so good. It's not in the "winning everything", it's about how you can accept the failure and ability to rise again. So, for the comparisons of the strong mind between Alina and her younger challengers, or for the spread between good and bad skates, is still too soon.

Every skater sometimes skates under par. Sofia skates that way this season (though sometimes she truly is insanely underscored). Alina was able to go from "subpar" performance, as you call it, at Euros, to one of the best of her career within two months (two months when she was blamed for everything, attacked, that she should withdraw because she would bomb and Russia will lose 3 spots because of her and so on). So again it's the question of the strong mind which Alina fully proved. That she has ups and downs again is because nobody can be perfect for such a long time and I'm afraid 3A won't be as well. They have the benefit that they can share the burden of responsibility of representing their homeland. If one fails, there are still two others and it is truly veryu improbable that all three would fail at once. They of course are sad when they don't deliver what they are capable of, but at least they don't need to be afraid of dissappointment of the country. Alina, on the other hand, for some time was the only one who had to carry the flag with no backup and all the responsibility and she prevailed.

I don't read anybody's mind to tell whether there was some purpose to pair Aliona precisely with Anna, but I also don't see it as that Aliona was "sacrificed", when she got triple axels. And there is a questions of scorings, still, whre to me it looks rather that it was Alina who was "sacrificed a little" by ISU, like those insane time violation calls etc.

 

[Scott512]

That's some BS. There is no other skater who was forced to skate 3 consecutive seasons against such pressure, doubts and disfavor as Alina in the recent years. To be able to train in the Eteri's group she, being just a little girl, was forced to live in a strange city without parents for years. During her junior season she definitely wasn't a favourite, she entered the scene as literally nobody, very few people knew about her. The favourite of junior 2016/2017 season was Marin Honda as a defending junior worlds champion and even among the Russians there were Gubanova and Tsurskaya who were taken as potetial medal bringers. And Alina had to show everything possible to break through.

Than the olympic season came. And again at the start of the season, she had some name now, but was taken as the No. 2 at best and only through the season she gained true reputation. During her first competitions she struggled with the SP and always had to prove strong mind in the free when she was usually 4th or 5th after the first segment. That's something impossible without having a strong mind.

And the 2018/2019 season, all that "she's done, she will not win anything again", struggles with body changes, injury, pain, are you truly saying that she could overcome this and become the world champion at those circumstances "being not really strong minded"? Shame.

If she needs to take a break, it does not show she is a weakling as you portray her, it just shows she is a human. Unfortunately other humans consider the limits of humanity as a weakness, because somehow they think that will show their favorites in better light. It doesn't. BTW Kostornaia was also "even defeated by Sofia", does that make her "weak minded"? And what does that sayas about how you see Sofia herself?

There's no question that Alina really paid the price her last season of Juniors and first three senior seasons. she got a lot of rewards out of it and deservedly so but she also pushed herself to the limit and needs this break and to do that Navka show to add to her artistry and showmanship. she did that and is taking her much-deserved break or though she is terribly missed by her fans. I think there's a real chance she will come back next season but she has to know it doesn't matter what level she's at. We just wanted to see her compete.