2020-21 Russian Ladies' Figure Skating

[Arbitrary]

Plushenko and Dudakov should not allow their girls to skate at all. The ice conditions are the worst possible. Men, ladies almost all of them crashed or stumbled for no visible reason.
Trixelists and quadsters are the ones who must have the best possible ice. What they had in Kazan is suitable for ice-hockey of KHL maybe, not for the FS.

 

[nussnacker]

Plushenko and Dudakov should not allow their girls to skate at all. The ice conditions are the worst possible. Men, ladies almost all of them crashed or stumbled for no visible reason.
Trixelists and quadsters are the ones who must have the best possible ice. What they had in Kazan is suitable for ice-hockey of KHL maybe, not for the FS.

Yeah, I thought the same... everyone seemed to have weird stumbles out of nowhere during programs.

 

[Arbitrary]

what's 4Q? Sasha was done with learning all the existing quads, so she had to invent a new one and learn it
Something, she would totally do!

Second (solo) 4T crash landed. Another mistake on her combo. Instead of 3-3, she did 3-2 and crashed.
A major victory against two high level competitors with two -5GOE jumps is still awesome.

 

[silveruskate]

Congratulations to Sasha, that 4S was intergalactic!

Also really loved Aliona's program, it was so good. Hope she gets the 3A soon and more. She still has the best triples in the world, sad they were underscored, but I think Aliona gets it. She's just going to work harder and prove them wrong I'm sure.

 

[sclloyd]

Very happy to see Sasha land the 4S. Finally! Some mistakes but she deserved the win.

Aliona’s costume is... meh. The program is still new to her it seems. Would’ve been nice to see a 3A but playing it safe with the 2A was probably better. I have to wonder if she’s hurt given we saw really incredible flexibility in some videos but here she seems stiff. Overworking her back? I haven’t looked at the protocols but I *gasped* when I saw they gave her a level 2 step sequence and then the level 3 spin. I wasn’t expecting a 4 from the step sequence since she tripped but??

Maia is so nervous it makes me sad. I still don’t know why they have the 4S in there, rarely does she even get close to rotating it, much less landing it. They should pull it and focus on other areas until it’s better in practice. Unless it’s stellar in practice and nerves really get to her that bad?

Now to wait for stage 5... which will be very interesting with Kamila.

 

[Dogo]

what's 4Q? Sasha was done with learning all the existing quads, so she had to invent a new one and learn it
Something, she would totally do!

Hahaha indeed!

(It's 4 quads ) Also, maybe it was me but her 3Axel yesterday looked like an under rotated 4Axel (3.8 rotations). She may as well join Yuzuru and Nathan on this axel race lol.

 

[nussnacker]

Aliona’s costume is... meh.

Really? I thought her FS costume was so much better than the one in the short. Pink isn't my fav color, but it looked a lot more expensive and prettier, than the one in the short. Perhaps I am indeed too old-fashioned for modern skating

 

[neusw]

Sasha’s 4s looks more confident than it has in years, really impressive. Though that -3Lo really needs to go. It’s screwed her over more times than she’s done it successfully in the past couple seasons, and if you’re going to go all out slamming the quads at the beginning of the program, you really can’t be ending it on a wimper with falls on triples. I actually really like the changes made to the program to fit in the 4th quad. Feels like she’s allowed to take a bit more time with the choreographic sq now.

For Aliona, in general I love the music and like the concept of the program, but weirdly I’m kind of disappointed by how empty it felt? For all the hype of a SLB program, I was expecting a lot more special choreographic details than Aliona skating around with pretty balletic arms trying to fill out the music. Iono, maybe they will add more as the season goes along. Pretty surprised by her low score too, especially PCS. Concerning that RusFed is dumping her in favor of the 15 year olds going into the Olympics...

 

[macy]

some thoughts...

so good to see Nastya T. back out there. you could tell how much skating a clean FS meant to her! her jumps look decent but lots of work to do in the artistry and interpretation department, but i'm just happy she's back competing.

i keep hoping for Maiia to put everything together, she really would give the very top skaters some competition and she has so much potential. it's too bad she had problems today. i can't get over how beautiful her arms are, ugh.

i'm happy to see Sasha put a really nice 4S out there today! looks better than it ever has. i love her short much more than her free, mostly because she is so focused on the jumps and the choreography/interpretation kind of goes out the window. hoping that will come in time as she gets more trained and comfortable with her new technique. i'm sure she's happy to get the win today.

i knew i needed to give Aliona's short more time after i saw it at test skates and that's exactly what happened, i absolutely love it now, and her free is just gorgeous. her performance quality is so far above the rest. i definitely think she still needs time with her FS, it is still relatively new and after the loss of training with covid/switching coaches and the recent boot fiasco. i could tell she ran out of gas by the time she did her SS, but that's ok. she skated clean and i think that's about all she could ask for at this point. she's in a good spot. i'm not worried about the 3As at all, they will come with time and training. and whoever did her dresses knocked it out of the park.

 

[Arbitrary]

Hahaha indeed!

(It's 4 quads ) Also, maybe it was me but her 3Axel yesterday looked like an under rotated 4Axel (3.8 rotations). She may as well join Yuzuru and Nathan on this axel race lol.

From another angle this 3Ax looked perfectly URed. Resulted in the step-out.
It definitely wasn't ORed.
But she did heavily ORed Axels in practice. There is no way to land 4Ax soon...

 

[haribobo]

Russia Cup Placements

These 8 are definitely in for Nationals:

Kostornaia 2
Trusova 1 1
Scherbakova 1 1
Usacheva 2 3
Valieva 2
Tuktamysheva 3
Frolova 4 2
Khromykh 3 3
--------------
These 3 are also very likely in, or definitely in:
Samodurova 4 4
Nugumanova 6 5
Talalykina 7 4
---------------
Then there are 7 more spots among these skaters-
Sultanmagomedova 5
Gulyakova 5
Konstantinova 5 9
Shulskaya 6 7
Molchanova 7 6
Onischenko 8 7
Tsibinova 6
Tarakanova 8 (this skate would've placed much higher in other events)
Andreeva 8
Sarnovskaya 8
Possible chance of bye for Medvedeva or Sinitsina?

 

[silveruskate]

Samodurova's Lutz edge is really improved. I think the Russian coaches have found a secret.

 

[kmw227]

Congrats to Sasha! The 4S and 4Lz looked fantastic today (figures that she lands the ones she typically struggles with and struggles with the usually reliable 4T ) But really, she looked great today and her win was totally deserved.

3A or not, Alena was beautiful and I could watch her all day. It's obvious that she hasn't really grown into the program yet (understandable) but I think it'll be a stunner by the end of the season! I seem to be in the minority that actually likes the dress as well. Overall, I think it was a solid first outing for her and I'm interested to see if she'll put any 3As in for Rostelecom. Her 2A is so huge and floaty, the 3A can't be too far away!

I really enjoyed Nugumanova (as always) and Tarakanova as well. It was so wonderful to see Nastya put out a clean skate and you can tell how much it meant to her! I loved seeing her so happy and I really hope we'll see her at stage 5 too! Liza was great and I really hope she's done enough to qualify for nationals.

 

[JazzUp]

So this generic and forgettable programme is the masterpiece from SLB that we were promised, right?

 

[P44]

Sigh... Happy for a solid skate from Nastia T., sad about her marks.
My poor Maiia
Good job for Sasha, impressive 3 quads!

Something seems to bother Aliona, perhaps her back? Her spins started looking really questionable, seems like she's injured?
Her PCS, only 2 points higher than Sasha's (who fell 2 times)... Oh lord, Rusfed, you're going to wreck yourself.

I don't think this program really highlited Alena's skills

 

[happycamper2554]

I think they will ditch the 3l3lo for Sasha the fact that she's doing 4teu3s means she can do 3lz3t instead of the loop. I was hoping they would do it this time, but we all know sasha is stubborn.

 

[Arbitrary]

TES = 102.89
Ok, it's local, there were two crashes... she knows she could do better. 115 for a clean...

 

[NAOTMAA]

So this generic and forgettable programme is the masterpiece from SLB that we were promised, right?

Didn't you get the memo? It's not an Eteri/Danii program therefore it's a masterpiece no matter what!

 

[JazzUp]

I think they will ditch the 3l3lo

3Lz3Lo is taking a break in Russian FS, together with Alina

 

[SXTN]

So this generic and forgettable programme is the masterpiece from SLB that we were promised, right?

So true...